Exclusive: The Bar Council of Delhi will hold its 2012-2014 term council committee election on Wedesday (23 March), as Luthra & Luthra senior partner Vijay K Sondhi - the only bar council member from a major law firm – has already been declared vice chairman after running unopposed.

The Supreme Court will form a constitution bench of five judges to frame guidelines for media coverage of the court and its proceedings following a news report on Tuesday.

A Kerala High Court writ petition by local lawyer Shojan Jacob, on Friday struck at the government’s blocking of websites and content in India under the controversial Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011.

Exclusive: The Delhi High Court (HC) has dismissed advocate Balraj Singh Malik’s petition to abolish the advocates-on-record (AOR) classification of advocates on Monday.

Pendency at the Supreme Court of India has crossed 59,000 cases for the first time ever, with numbers up 8 per cent on May 2011 figures, two judges having already retired this year to date and four more due to leave.

Senior Advocate Pravin H Parekh has been conferred the third highest Indian civilian honour last Republic day almost two weeks ago.

On-notice Amarchand Mangaldas equity partner Ciccu Mukhopadhaya is expected to argue in the Supreme Court for the first time since having been designated senior counsel in December 2011, with 10 other senior advocates appearing in the test case relating the Bhatia International arbitration doctrine in the court’s special constitutional bench.

Breaking: Vodafone has been cleared by the Supreme Court of its $2.4bn tax case, according to authoritative Twitter and early news reports.

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”)***Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president PH Parekh said today that he would continue in office because yesterday’s executive committee meeting, which accepted his verbal resignation and expelled three other members after Tuesday’s chaotic general meeting, was invalid because it was not quorate.

Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president PH Parekh has verbally resigned over the ‘one bar one vote’ controversy in a packed SCBA meeting held in Supreme Court lawns this afternoon, according to authoritative sources.

The Central Information Commission (CIC) ruled that the government’s internal legal opinions should be made public under Right to Information (RTI) requests, which could result in Swan Telecom facing investigation by the ministry of corporate affairs in the 2G spectrum scandal, reported Mint today.

As expected after the winter court holidays, 2011’s Supreme Court case pendency closed with a spike, which could prove to be the final nail in the coffin of the project to reduce pending cases by the end of this financial year.

The Hindustan Times reported today that only 60 to 70 practising advocates in the Gurgaon district courts were women, compared to 1,200 men.

Legally India’s Pendency Project has made its debut in Mint today, after pending Supreme Court cases in November 2011 reached the highest number ever after increasing by more than 800.

Mint legal correspondent Nikhil Kanekal has surveyed leading Supreme Court counsel to compile a list of the year’s most impact-heavy cases heard by the apex court. Have your say and share your views.

“)Mint has summarised the revolutionary case pendency stats prepared by the Supreme Court in a concise chart, while Legally India asked two academics researching case pendency for comment on Kapadia’s Law Day speech and the new figures.

Exclusive: 71 advocates out of around 400 test takers have passed the June 2011 advocates-on-record (AOR) examination, making them part of the oligopoly of at least 1,000 advocates who can file petitions before the Supreme Court. However, the Delhi High Court has now taken up a writ challenging the AOR system and has approached the apex court for guidance.

More than two thirds of cases pending in the Supreme Court – nearly 40,000 – were stuck not because of judges but due to procedural delays, including unpaid fees, unserved notice or documents not filed by counsel, according to detailed data released for the first time by the court as a result of its exercise in cataloguing court delays.

The Supreme Court saw the backlog of cases increase by another 80 in a slow holiday-ridden October where almost 3,000 fewer cases were filed than in the previous month. However, in more positive news the apex court has managed to continue its now four-month record of getting cases older than one year off its books.

Exclusive: Supreme Court journalists and the bench are understood to have agreed a compromise after the spat over the notification of rules in late August that would have effectively excluded 80 per cent of current correspondents from the apex court.