Bar, Bench & Litigation

Dear SC of India, look here please now: China bans online pseudonyms, parody accounts & website comments

Pseudonyms such as “Obama” and “Putin” will no longer be available to Chinese citizens who wish to hide their identity on the internet, following new internet restrictions implemented by the country’s authorities

UP lawyers suspend 3-day strike for own bench, shift to 1-day-a-week strike schedule

Lawyers agitating for setting up of a bench of Allahabad High Court in western Uttar Pradesh, decided to suspended their proposed Feb 5-7 boycott of the courts. The decision was taken at a meeting in Moradabad. “Keeping in mind the interests of the litigants, the lawyers decided to suspend the three...

Delhi HC wants city's dirty air cleaned somehow by somebody in animals-poisoned-by-pollution-petition

Taking note of a report that said Delhi was the most polluted city in the world, the Delhi high court Wednesday said if nobody was looking into the issue, it will start giving directions and fix responsibility on the authorities. A division bench of Justice BD Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva aske...

India Today, Aroon Purie settle Salman Khurshid defamation claim v India Today online with little mutual regrets & ‘extreme satisfaction’ (with Bhandari, Sundaram, Tripathy)

Aaj Tak: Little regrets
Aaj Tak: Little regrets
The India Today group has published a small note of mutual regret on the bottom right-hand corner of one of its websites, in its settlement of a Rs 1 crore defamation suit brought in 2012 by Louise Khurshid, the wife of Salman Khurshid, who was then law minister.

Katju accidentally cured the SC's predilection for citing Wikipedia (but India's high courts show continued enthusiasm for it)

Since 2011 the Supreme Court of India seems to have got the message that relying on Wikipedia too much is simply not a good idea; India’s high courts? Not so much…

Read more of Alok Prasanna Kumar’s research on Livemint, in association with Legally India.

Censorship & Emergency impossible these days, gov't ASG tells Supreme Court, defending IT Act

The central government yesterday defended section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 saying it was to curb posting of mischievous and objectionable material on social media and websites and in no way could be construed as curbing the fundamental right to free speech and expression. Describi...

Alleged Uber cab rapist swears to judge he didn't do it

The Uber cab driver accused of sexual assaulting a woman executive Tuesday told a Delhi court yesterday that he has not committed rape and he has been falsely implicated in the case. Claiming innocence in the case, Uber cab driver Shiv Kumar Yadav told Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja that it...

Delhi bar chiefs to sue Kiran Bedi for criminal defamation, deny ‘manufactured story’ that they attacked her office & workers

Bar associations in Delhi denied news reports that stated that “a mob of 400-500 people claiming to be lawyers attacked Bharatiya Janata Party chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi’s office” in her East Delhi constituency.

Katju killed judgeship of lawyer who lived unmarried with 'lady lawyer' ('If you want to be judge' get married or stay single)

Ex-Supreme Court judge and high court chief justice Markandey Katju wrote on his blog that he had once spiked his own recommendation of a high court lawyer for judgeship, because that “male lawyer was having a live in relationship with a lady lawyer to whom he was not married. They were often seen o...

Australian court finds NRI didn’t realise he was a stalker because in Bollywood romance is like that only (though Indian law isn't)

An Australian lawyer has successfully argued that his client, a 32-year-old Indian-origin security guard who emigrated to Tasmania three years ago, should not go to jail for up to five years for stalking a woman, because Bollywood movies had taught him that pursuing a woman hard enough could make he...

Law min ultimatum to CJI: No new judges until you cooperate & dispose of NJAC challenges

Law minister DV Sadananda Gowda said that there would not be any appointment of new judges to the apex or high courts, unless the Supreme Court disposes of the public interest litigations (PILs) challenging the National Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), reported the Economic Times today. The N...

SC upholds contempt jail of Kerala politician who called high court judges 'idiots' [UPDATE: READ JUDGMENT]

The Supreme Court Friday upheld the conviction of Kerala CPM leader MV Jayarajan for calling state high court judges “idiots”, but reduced the sentence from six months to four weeks. An apex court bench headed by Justice Vikramajit Sen upheld Jayarajan’s conviction holding that he has no remorse for...

Uber rape victim sues company in US for unspecified damages, while Uber struggles to appease Delhi regulators

The woman who was allegedly raped in a Delhi Uber cab by its driver, has now sued the San Francisco tech company valued at $40bn for unspecified damages in a US federal court for having “had advanced knowledge of the unfitness of Yadav [the driver], and employed him with a conscious disregard of the...

Case of the week: Dude asks Indian court to ban US Gandhi-Bot Beer (which is probably not even sold here)

A consumer activist Thursday filed a complaint against America’s New England Brewing Company, which sparked a controversy by using a picture of Mahatma Gandhi on its beer cans and selling them in certain parts of India. Consumer Guidance Society of India media cell chief Viveck Shettyy lodged the co...

BCI promises RTI’d copies of meeting minutes in 3 weeks, despite ‘Kiang misbehaving’ during inspection

A Kiang
A Kiang
The Bar Council of India (BCI) has allowed Legally India’s Right to Information (RTI) appealagainst the regulator, having in December backtracked on its earlier position to provide information.

DY Chandrachud grants Surinder Koli death sentence commutation in Allahabad HC

After the Supreme Court had rejected all appeals against the convict in the Noida-based Nithari killings, Surinder Koli, the Allahabad high court commuted his death sentence in public interest litigation (PIL) of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR). Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justi...

SC orders Google, Y!, MS to block sex determination ads for now, as counsel clash over tech & FOI

The Supreme Court Wednesday directed search engines Google, Microsoft and Yahoo not to advertise, or sponsor any advertisement, on India-centric sex determination tests that are in breach of statutory provisions. “As an interim measure, it is directed, the respondents, namely, Google, Yahoo and Micr...

Centre won't appeal Rs 3,200 cr Bombay HC Vodafone order: Is India finally done with tax terrorism?

The government Wednesday decided not to contest a Bombay high court ruling that telecom major Vodafone was not liable to pay tax demand of Rs. 3,200 crore in a transfer pricing case, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said and hoped that the decision would boost foreign investors’ se...

'How are your fundamental rights violated?' SC tells SubraSwamy, shunts Herald case v Gandhis to HC

The Supreme Court Tuesday declined BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s plea for an early hearing of the plea of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and others, challenging their summoning by a trial court in alleged irregularities in acquisition of now defunct National Herald daily, and asked him to approach...

Delhi HC serves gov't in Jaising challenge of Greenpeace staffers 'arbitrary' travel ban under 'etc' category

The Delhi high court Wednesday issued notice to the centre and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) on a plea filed by Greenpeace staff member Priya Pillai, challenging her having been prevented from flying out of Delhi airport on 11 January. The Indian Express had reported last week that the Intelligence B...