Bar, Bench & Litigation
Gautam Khaitan custody extended to 28 November
A special court today extended till Nov 28 the judicial custody of OP Khaitan & Co managing partner Gautam Khaitan arrested in a money laundering case related to the AgustaWestland VIP chopper deal. Special judge VK Gupta sent Khaitan to 14 days’ judicial custody after he was presented before t...
SC to make public Mudgal spot fixing report, names Srinivasan + 3 ors
The Supreme Court today disclosed the names of four key cricket personalities investigated by the Justice Mudgal Committee for allegations of spot fixing and betting in the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The apex court bench comprising justice TS Thakur and Justice FM Kalifullah sa...
Magistrate to hear FIR v Somnath Bharti midnight raid in 2015 after cop doesn't show
A Delhi court yesterday fixed 16 January 2015 as the date to consider the chargesheet filed against Delhi’s then law minister Somnath Bharti and others in connection with raids in Khirki Extension. Metropolitan Magistrate Ankita Lal, after observing that the investigating officer was not present in ...
Why (and how) does a Bombaywala advocate of 20 years shift to Delhi?

KGB: 'Prisons are for convicts, not undertrials'
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chairperson and retired Chief Justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan yesterday said overcrowding in Indian prisons can be reduced if the number of undertrials is brought down. “If a charge sheet is being filed and there is no indication that the accused may in...
SC tells Guj court to finish Godhra-Gulberg massacre trial in 3 months
The Supreme Court yesterday directed the Ahmedabad-based trial court to complete within three months the trial over the 2002 post-Godhra Gulberg Society massacre, in which 35 people including former Congress parliamentarian Ehsan Jaffri were burnt alive and 31 people went missing. The bench of Chief...
DHCBA complains to Chief because a ‘few lawyers’ are hogging the Delhi Mediation Centre
The Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) on Monday wrote to Delhi high court chief justice G Rohini requesting new Delhi Mediation Centre guidelines, to stop the mediation centre allegedly being “run by few lawyers”.
Dismissed: CJI unimpressed with BCI plea to ban enrolment of lawyers older than 45
The Supreme Court Tuesday unequivocally rejected arguments by Bar Council of India (BCI) counsel Ardhendumauli Kumar Prasad to set an upper age limit for graduates to enrol as lawyers, reported the Indian Express . The BCI had sought to a rule to prevent graduates older than 45 from enrolling as law...
Gopal Subramanium (again) offers recusal in temple case, SC (again) won't have it
The Supreme Court yesterday declined senior counsel Gopal Subramanium’s offer to step aside as amicus curiae in the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple case after members of Travancore royal family who are the temple’s trustees assailed him for interfering with temple rituals and trying to oust them. Declini...
SC passes up on AAP plea to force fresh Delhi assembly elections
The Supreme Court Tuesday disposed of an Aam Aadmi Party AAP petition seeking dissolution of the Delhi assembly and holding early elections. The AAP had moved the apex court seeking direction for the dissolution of assembly and the holding of fresh elections after the president placed the assembly u...
Bhushan for Muzaffarnagar riot filmmaker's appeal vs 'arbitrarily' denied certificate
The Delhi high court Tuesday asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) to respond on a plea challenging the refusal to grant certificate to the film “En Dino Muzaffarnagar”, on the grounds that the film has the potential of creating com...
Chief magistrate dismisses Somnath Bharti cop-FIR cases; Deepak Khosla to refile nearly identical petition before magistrate
The counsel of former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi law minister Somnath Bharti, Deepak Khosla, will appeal to the high court against the dismissal of Bharti’s plea to register a First Information Report (FIR) against police officers. Khosla will also continue to fight in his criminal defamation compl...
BCI bans newbie advocates from SC unless have 5 years of lower court experience (+ 5-yearly practice renewal) [UPDATE-1]

SC makes good on promise: Strikes down sexist Bollywood make-up artist ban [UPDATE: READ JUDGMENT]
The Supreme Court yesterday struck down the provision that prohibited female make-up artists and hairdressers from becoming the members of film industry professional association, the Mumbai-based Cine Costume and Make-up Artist Association, as the bench had threatened last week it would do . A bench...
HC stays AM Singhvi tax penalty that found income Rs 91 cr higher than declared (after termites ate expenses)
Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi was slapped with an Income Tax penalty of Rs 56.67 crore while his three-year “declared professional income” was increased by Rs 91.95 crore by a Settlement Commission order, which was stayed on 11 September by the Jodhpur high court, reported the Indian Express ...
Senior adv claims SC judge ruled for sister; SC bench responds stoically about 'unbearable torture' of judgeness
Senior advocate Vikas Singh alleged before a Supreme Court bench of justices SJ Mukhopadhaya and NV Ramana that an ex-Supreme Court judge made a ruling on 11 February, which helped the judge’s sister in a similar case under the Bombay Rent Act, in which she allegedly cited her brother’s judgment, re...
5 ideas that are radical (but shouldn’t be) to save our legal profession, education & the BCI

MK Mishra back as BCI chairman with Madras senior S Prabakaran as co-chair
The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Sunday re-elected the Bihar state bar council representative Manan Kumar Mishra back into chairmanship of the BCI, afterRajasthan member Biri Singh Sinsinwar occupied the post from April having succeeded Mishra, reported the Deccan Chronicle . Madras high court seni...
Hear hear: SC says not court's role to examine public policy in caste census case [READ JUDGMENT]
The Supreme Court on Friday said it was not the job of the courts to examine the contours of a government policy and whether there could have been a better version of a particular policy followed by the government. “… it is clear as noon day that it is not within the domain of the courts to embark u...
Case of the week: SC dismisses plea to rename 'India' to 'Bharat'
The Supreme Court Monday declined to entertain a plea seeking to rename India as Bharat and asked the petitioner to approach an appropriate authority with its plea. The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu asked the petitioner to first make an appropriate representation before an author...