Prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi, Bar Council of India chairman Manan Kumar Mishra and legion of judges convened at a BCI function in Gandhinagar.

With the elevation of Madras HC chief justice (CJ) RK Agrawal and Delhi HC CJ N Venkata Ramana to the SC, the apex court currently sits at full strength – 31 judges. However, this year India too will for the first time see three chief justices within 12 months, and 10 SC judges will retire between 9...

Journalists wage hike coming up : The Supreme Court last week upheld recommendations made by the Justice Majithia wage board hiking salaries for journalists and non-journalists in print media on Friday and dismissed challenges filed by the managements of various newspapers, reported the [ Mint ] Kar...

Madras HC pendency down 50K! Madras high court case pendency has reduced by 50,000 cases to 5.57 lakh cases since 2012 year-end [ Hindu ] Six out of 12 clear Kerala DJS : Six candidates cleared the Kerala district judicial service exam, still leaving 50 per cent judges vacancy at the service in the ...

Every HC bench strength to grow by 25% : The central government has decided to increase the judges’ strength of each high court in India by 25 per cent and has invited proposals from all chief justices on additional facilities concerning courtroom, quarters and support staff for the enhanced number ...

Publicity shy CJI : The Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam refused permission to publish his photograph in a September advertisement for the release of India’s first customised PIN code for the apex court, an RTI has revealed [ PTI ] Lower court jurisdiction enhancement : The Delhi government is gi...

SC cases, broken up : Over 300 cases of sexual harassment are pending before the Supreme Court, revealed an RTI reply to activist Vihar Dhurve. Also outstanding: “472 cases related to corruption, 588 road accident cases related to permanent disability, 45 road accident for other injuries, 418 divorc...

Bar unrest: Madras high court bar experiences heartburn and resentment at the selection of two out of eight newly appointed judges from neighbouring state Kerala, while western UP lawyers are gearing up to Gherao the Taj Mahal to mark their discontent over government inaction for a permanent western...

Pendency down in Delhi trial courts: Delhi trial courts have managed to reduce pendency from 30 per cent in the last one-and-a-half years, with the number of pending cases coming down from 7 lakh to 5 lakh – including all civil and criminal cases before magisterial, district and sessions courts. Cas...

Flashy HNLU: HNLU Raipur students organised a flash mob at a Raipur mall to support women’s empowerment yesterday. A flash mob “combines the appeal of a dance performance, seemingly un-choreographed, spreading across the crowd, creating a spontaneous public spectacle of unified musical expression to...

Pending (yet) another look: Chief Justice of India (CJI) P Sathasivam has promised that immediately after disposal of the Mullaperiyar dam case a constitutional bench would be constituted to look into the problem of the Supreme Court’s pending cases [ PTI ] Ragging cured yet? “Ragging on the campuse...

Officially Tamil: The Madras high court dismissed two cases after the acting advocate insisted on arguing in Tamil. While it has been a long-standing demand of the state to make Tamil as the official language, the bench told the advocate that constitutionally English is the official language of the ...

Cyber policy 2013: The government has released the National Cyber Security Policy 2013 aimed at protecting information and at building capabilities to prevent cyber attacks. The policy plans to set up a national nodal agency to co-ordinate all matters related to cyber security in the country with cl...

Elysium collegium : CJI Kabir defends collegium system of judges’ appointment, which he says involves “intense deliberations” and adds that people who are not fully aware of the system should refrain from commenting on it [ Outlook ] Double vision 2018 : SC and HC judges mega conference agrees to do...

24 CJs and 28 SC judges will converge on Delhi between April 4 and 7 with tall orders.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has called for all lawyers in the country to abstain from work on Monday, 11 March 2013, “in protest against the brutal assault on Lawyers in Jaipur and Chandigarh”. The notification on the BCI’s website adds: “The Lawyers all across the country (except the Lawyers of ...

Jaipur lawyers protest at Rajasthan HC for long-pending housing project and personal allowance demands, while Chandigarh lawyers protest at the Punjab & Haryana HC to support of 20 advocates against whom a case was registered for manhandling a cop [ Deccan Herald ] Over 3 crore cases pend acros...

The law ministry approved Rs 80 crore for recruitment of 2,000 new subordinate judges across the country, to be deployed in fast track courts. The ministry had discontinued the fast-track courts scheme in March 2011 after running it for 11 years. On 9 January the law ministry wrote to all state gove...

A research paper published today has analysed nearly 60 years of cases pending in the Supreme Court and revealed a host of trends, including that litigation in states geographically nearer to Delhi is more likely to end up in the apex court, that the longest pendency plagues company, tax, mining and public interest litigations.

Union law minister Salman Khursheed said that the entry of foreign lawyers should be left for the bar to decide, welcomed the All India Bar Exam (AIBE), said the government was thinking about reforming the collegium system of judicial appointments, while admitting that pendency was a huge problem, in an interview with legal website Bar & Bench published today. Legally India brings you the digested read and highlights.