R. Subhash Reddy is Chief Justice of Gujarat HC

It is reliably learnt that Justice R Subhash Reddy, senior most judge of the Hyderabad High Court, has been appointed Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court.

Justice Subhash Reddy was born in 1957 in an agricultural family in Kamaram village of Chinna Shankarampet mandal in Medak district. After completing his school education in Shankarampet. He obtained his Law degree from University College of Law and enrolled as an advocate on the rolls of the Bar Council of AP on 30 October 1980 and joined the chambers of Sri Justice B. Subhashan Reddy. He was elevated as Additional Judge of High Court of AP on Dec 2, 2002 and sworn in as permanent judge of the High Court on June 24, 2004.

Source: The Hindu 

Justice Mishra sworn in U.P. Lokayukta

• PTI

Justice (retd) Sanjay Mishra shakes hand with Govenor Ram Naik after taking oath as Lokayukta, Uttar Pradesh, in Lucknow on Sunday. CM Akhilesh Yadav is also seen.PHOTO: PTI

Retired judge of the Allahabad High Court Justice Sanjay Mishra was on Sunday sworn in as the new Lokayukta of Uttar Pradesh bringing to an end a bitter year-long feud between Raj Bhawan and the State government on the appointment of the anti-graft ombudsman.

The new Lokayukta was administered oath by Governor Ram Naik at a brief function at Raj Bhawan.

He would replace justice (retd) N. K. Mehrotra, who was appointed Lokayukta on March 16, 2006, and had a nearly 10-year tenure.

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was present at the swearing-in ceremony along with his senior Cabinet ministers.

Besides the Chief Minister, two other members of the selection panel - Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court D. Y. Chandrachud and Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Swami Prasad Maurya - were present. Expelled SP leader Amar Singh was also present.

The appointment of Lokayukta had snowballed into a major controversy last year with the Governor refusing to accept the name of Justice (retd) Raveendra Singh and asking the Chief Minister to follow proper procedure for selecting the ombudsman.

Source: The Hindu

Training for lawyers on Lok Adalat begins

The main objective of Lok Adalat is to deliver speedy justice to people, Principal District Judge and Chairman District Legal Services Authority V. Jayasurya said.

Speaking at the inaugural of the two-day training programme for lawyers on Lok Adalat and alternative dispute redressal system organised jointly by the DLSA and State Legal Services Authority at the Courts Complex here on Saturday, he urged the legal fraternity to do their bit to speed up the process of delivering justice.

The primary objective of the Constitution is to deliver justice to the poor free of cost, he noted and called upon all the stakeholders of the judicial system to work with commitment. The two-day training programme for the lawyers from across the district was taken up by senior advocate R Srinivas Rao.

The advocates have to clearly explain to the litigants the various aspects of the alternative dispute redressal system and direct them to the Lok Adalat only after getting the consent of both the parties, Secretary of the DLSA and senior civil judge R.V. Nagasundar said.

Metropolitan Sessions Judge Nandikonda Narasimha Rao, Lok Adalat senior member H.V.S. Prasanna Kumar, judges and lawyers were present.

Source: The Hindu 

Call for law to set up Academic City

Kovalam Declaration on making Kerala a hub of international education.

The State government should finalise the legislation on establishment of an Academic City and International Higher Academic Zones to give a boost to the internationalisation of education in the State, the Kovalam Declaration on making Kerala a hub of international education has urged.

The government should also initiate the work to identify locations for the City and for the Zones, it said.

The declaration was announced on Saturday at the culmination of the two-day Global Education Meet organised here. The State government should ensure that economically and socially weaker sections of the society have access to the new institutions, courses and opportunities created in the Academic City and in the Zones. The government should also establish procedures which would ensure gender equality in these institutions. The declaration requests the Government of Kerala to implement at the earliest the report of the Higher Education Council to set up private universities in the State.

It requests the Government of India to finalise the Higher Education Bill so that a long-term legislative framework for international cooperation is available for educational providers to make long-term financial commitments. The Union government should facilitate international student exchanges by increasing the number of fellowships available for cultural exchanges and rationalise legislation to make entry of students easier. Legislation regarding short-term employment of faculty members and researchers from other countries should be relaxed.

Along with ensuring massification of education with equity, the Centre should liberalise its visa regime to facilitate academic mobility. Academic travel should be liberalised and red-tapism in dealing with requests for such travels should be eliminated. The universities in Kerala should amend their rules and regulations to facilitate exchange of faculty members, students and researchers locally, nationally and internationally in a seamless manner. The varsities should take full advantage of technologically enhanced learning by promoting Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), ‘flipped classrooms’, and blended learning. Public and private sector companies should contribute to higher education, including research, as part of their corporate social responsibility. Good governance of educational institutions is required to ensure quality, efficiency and transparency, the declaration says.

Sources: The Hindu

Lawyers pitch for judicial panel

The two-day maiden conference of the State unit of the All India Lawyers Union (AILU) concluded here on Sunday with a resolve to vigorously continue its endeavour to achieve its avowed objectives of promoting access to justice, excellence in legal profession and welfare of lawyers.

The first conference of the Telangana unit of the AILU saw the participation of around 300 delegates from all over the State.

The two-day conference featured a seminar on “Challenges before legal profession”, a series of interactive sessions and lectures by legal experts, including senior lawyers.

Justice H N Naga Mohan Das, former Judge, High Court of Karnataka, Justice M Seetharama Murti, Judge, High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad, Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, national president, AILU, A Narasimha Reddy, Chairman, Bar Council of the State of Telangana and AP also spoke at the inaugural session.

Meanwhile, the AILU State unit at the concluding session of its first conference held here on Sunday afternoon, passed several resolutions seeking constitution of National Judicial Commission as an independent body, filling up of vacant posts of judges and judicial staff in Telangana and formation of separate High Court for Telangana.

Sources: The Hindu

SC changes UP lokayukta appointee

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday appointed former Allahabad high court judge Justice Sanjay Misra as Uttar Pradesh lokayukta and recalled its earlier order by which it had appointed Justice (Retd) Virendra Singh as the state's ombudsman.

A bench of Justices Rajan Gogoi and Prafulla C Pant recalled its earlier order after the Allahabad HC Chief Justice questioned the credentials of Justice Singh. The court said the appointment was made on the basis of "inaccurate" statement of the UP government that the CJ had approved Justice Singh's name.

The Supreme Court had on December 16 appointed Justice Singh after the state government failed to appoint lokayukta during the last 19 months despite its repeated orders.

The court picked up the name of Justice Singh out of five names proposed by the UP government.

A day after the SC order, chief justice of Allahabad HC Justice DY Chandrachud raised objections over the state government's decision to place Singh's name before the apex court.

In a letter written to UP governor Ram Naik, he had said that it had been done despite the chief minister's assurance that Jusice Singh's name would not be forwarded. Admitting that the court was misled by the state government, the bench recalled its order and termed it unfortunate that the CM and HC chief justice failed to sort out their differences on the appointment of lokayukta.

"We are persuaded to hold that our order appointing Justice Virendra Singh (Retd) as lokayukta was on the basis of the statement made on behalf of the state of Uttar Pradesh which now appears to be somewhat inaccurate. The picture that emanates from the above narration of facts is hazy, unclear and uncertain, and we are left in serious doubt as to whether the constitutional/statutory functionaries or at least two of them had, at all, agreed on any name or names," the bench said.

Selection of lokayukta is done by a high-powered committee comprising the CM, the chief justice of HC and the Leader of Opposition and the appointment is done by the governor.

Source: TNN

Workplace complaints high with both SC, ST panels

Illustration: C R Sasikumar
Data received under the RTI Act from various commissions — SC/ST Commission, OBC Commission, Safai Karmchari, Women, Human Rights commissions — tell a familiar story: of atrocities and discrimination against the socially deprived sections of the society.
Of the 16,175 complaints the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) received in 2014-15, 5,916 were in the ‘Atrocities Prevention and Civil Rights (APCR)’ category. Another 3,829 complaints were related to ‘Service Atrocities’, NCSC sources said. Over 22,000 complaints are pending for disposal.

Though the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) does not receive as many complaints as other commissions, their data reveals that of the 617 complaints it received in 2014-15, 414 were related to ‘Service Matters’.
Of 32,118 complaints received by National Commission for Women (NCW) in 2014-15, 6,946 were under the category, ‘Right to Live with Dignity’; 7,367 were against ‘Police Apathy against Women’ and 2,659 were of ‘Outraging Modesty of Women’. These categories are apart from ‘Dowry Deaths’, ‘Violence against Women’, trafficking, rape and others — a total of 19 categories.
The National Human Rights Commission received 1.14 lakh complaints in 2014-15 (see breakup). NHRC said there are over 35,000 complaints pending for disposal. At the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), the majority of complaints are related to ‘law and order’ — 38 out of 1,404 in 2014-15.
The National Commission for Safai Karmcharis (NCSK) wrote back, saying it didn’t categorise the complaints it got but that would soon change. “Category-wise details of disposal of complaints are still under preparation.” The commission got 354 complaints in 2013-14 and 1,096 in during 2012-13.
The Indian Express had filed RTI applications to all these commissions, as well as the National Commission for Backward Castes (NCBC). Though the commission was created particularly to hear claims of various castes to be included in to the backward castes, it usually receives complaints of discrimination against OBCs which it forwards to the SC Commission. “NCSC is the competent authority to look into all grievances, right and safeguards relating to backward classes,” NCBC replied to the RTI query. The Commission said it received 521 complaints in 2015 (till October 16), 388 in 2014 and 316 in 2013 and all these were “forwarded to NCSC or replied”.

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Delhi HC Scraps Civic Pension Scheme - 21.01.2016
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Gujarat HC Orders Closure of Illegal Foundries in Manek Chowk - 21.01.2016
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Gujarat HC: Husband Can't Skip Obligations to Wife - 20.01.2016
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Karnataka HC Quashes 300% Fee Increase at KGF Kendriya Vidyalaya - 22.01.2016
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Karnataka HC Refuses to Interfere in IIT Row - 20.01.2016
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Kerala HC Quashes Case Against Prithviraj - 22.01.2016
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Madras High Court Rejects Plea of Insurance Firm - 25.01.2016
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Madras HC Adjourns PIL by 2 Months on Entry of Women to Temples - 22.01.2016
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Madras High Court Directs Attachment of Aircel’s Property - 22.01.2016
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Madras HC to State: Pay Compensation for Deaths on Private Property Also - 20.01.2016
Madras HC, while taking note of death of four people in a septic tank of an eatery on Old Mahabalipuram Road, has declared that Government would have resposibility of paying compensation to relatives of victims even deaths occurred on private property.

Punjab and Haryana HC Dismisses Doda Bail Petition - 22.01.2016
Punjab and Haryana High Court has junked anticipatory bail petition filed by liquor baron Shiv Lal Doda, accused in the murder of a Dalit, Bheem Taank, on December 11 last year at his farmhouse in Abohar.

CCI Nods for Investment by FIL Capital - 22.01.2016
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SC/ST Act, 2015 in force from 26 January 2016

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has notified 26 January, 2016 as the date on which the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015 comes into force.

Sources: Manupatra Newsline 

Regulatory disclosure and public interest

Reserve Bank of India and Ors. v. Jayantilal N. Mistry and Ors.

16.12.2015
The Supreme Court dismissed appeals arising out of Central Information Commission’s orders requiring the Reserve Bank of India to disclose information about banks and their activities. RBI in its replies to several applications for information, under the Right to Information Act, 2005, had reserved its right to withhold such information, given that it owed a fiduciary responsibility to the banks to not divulge information that could prove embarrassing or harm the banking system. The Supreme Court considered in detail the existence of a fiduciary relationship under which the RBI claimed to be duty bound to act for the benefit of banks. It concluded the Bank to not be in such a position: the RBI was statutorily empowered to uphold public interest and not the interest of individual banks. Its duties lay in acting transparently, and not saving individual banks from embarrassing information. Almost cruelly, the Court derided RBI’s feigned holding of hands with banks as “[the] main characteristic of a fiduciary relationship is “trust and confidence”. Something RBI and the Banks lack between them.” The irony that both sides were batting for ‘public interest’ certainly cannot be lost sight of. Whereas the Respondents laid claim to public interest on account of transparency in the banking system RBI, tenuously, proffered grave risks to public economic interest. The Supreme Court signaled an end to the dilettantes, calling RBI’s position “absurd…equally misconceived and baseless”. Instead, it prioritised the RTI Act’s envisaged purpose of giving information to the general public they were entitled to.











Sources: Manupatra Newsline