Why was access to homeopathy books refused to 2006 Mumbai blasts prime accused: Delhi High Court demands reply from jail authorities

The Delhi High Court has demanded a reply from the Superintendent of Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail, explaining why books on homeopathy could not be supplied to Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui, the prime accused in the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts.The Court had converted a letter in to a Writ Petition. The accused had demanded 45 publications on homoeopathy free of cost in jail for studying as...

CLAT results on May 20

The results for the Common Law Admission Test, the entrance examination for gaining admission in the National Law Schools in India will be be released on May 20.In addition to the category wise merit list, a notice to the candidates for “indicating their choices of University preferences using online candidate portal” will also be released.CLAT 2015 was conducted online, with centres in...

Keep medical status of patients confidential, says Delhi HC

Hearing a petition filed by a woman whose medical status was displayed on her bed when she was admitted in the Guru Teg Bahadur hospital in 2011, the Delhi High Court on May 14 ordered that the medical status of patients must be kept confidential.Justice Rajiv Shakdher ordered the government to issue circulars to all hospitals in this regard and also ordered the government to seek...

Supreme Court rejects Telecom companies’plea for extension of licences by 10 years

The Supreme Court has dismissed a batch of petitions filed by various telecom companies, including Vodafone and Bharti Airtel, seeking extension of their spectrum licences by a further period of 10 years.The Supreme Court had reserved its verdict in a batch of similar petitions filed by Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone Mobile Services and Loop Mobile India wherein they had sought...

Delhi government's circular regarding media and defamation stayed by Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today stayed the circular issued by Government of Delhi by which the government had said that the media organizations could be prosecuted for “criminal defamation” for “defamatory imputations” against the government.Interestingly, Arvind Kejriwal, before he had become the Chief Minister, had himself challenged the constitutionality of Sections 499 and 500 of the...

Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill passed by Lok Sabha

The Lok Sabha yesterday passed the Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill. The Bill simplifies the law relating to cheque bouncing and makes if convenient for payees if the cheque bounces.The Bill proposes to inserts a new sub-clause to the existing Section 142 [sub-clause (2)]. It reads as follows,"(2) The offence under Section 138 shall be inquired into and tried only by a court within...

Supreme Court orders organizers of festival coordination committee to ensure no cruelty is meted out to elephants engaged in festival activities

Hearing a petition filed by Wildlife Rescue And Rehabilitation Centre, the Supreme Court today ordered that no cruelty should me meted out to elephants that are engaged in festival activities.The Bench consisting of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C Pant said, “all the organizers, owners of the elephants and the festival coordination committee are directed to see that any elephant...

Supreme Court allows Centre to appoint CVC and VCs

The Supreme Court today allowed government to fill up the post of Chief Vigilance Commissioner and Vigilance Commissioner in accordance with the CVC Act. It also directed the government to submit the entire record of appointment process to the court in July.Accordingly, the Apex Court also lifted the stay it had imposed on the appointments after NGO, Centre for Integrity, Governance and...

Justice Karnan stirs up new controversy; directs CBI to probe fellow judge’s educational qualifications

A day after the Supreme Court restrained him from interfering with the process of selection of civil judges initiated by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Justice C S Karnan of the Madras High Court ignited a new controversy by directing the CBI to inquire into the educational qualifications of fellow judge of the Madras High Court, Justice V Dhanapalan.He had earlier initiated suo...

Maharashtra state cabinet decides to give approval to circuit bench of Bombay HC at Kolhapur

The Maharashtra state cabinet has decided to give its approval to setting up of a circuit bench of the Bombay High Court at Kolhapur.  The setting up of the circuit bench will benefit litigants across western Maharashtra including Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts.PWD minister Chandrakant Patil, also the guardian minister for Kolhapur said that there are more than 25,000 cases from the...

Bombay HC denies enhancement of maintenance to wealthy woman [Read the Judgment]

A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court consisting of Justice AK Menon and Justice AS Oka rejected an application seeking enhancement in amount of maintenance, which was filed by a resident of Nariman Point saying that “we do not find there is any case for enhancement of maintenance given the financial background of the respondent and the facade that she has no income of her own.”The...

Officers of CBDT dealing with International Taxes have been advised not to take any Coercive action against FIIs

The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley, while responding to the discussions on the Finance Bill in Rajya Sabha on 7th May, 2015, had announced the constitution of a Committee headed by Justice A.P. Shah to look into, inter alia, the issue of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) on FIIs. The Committee is expected to give its report on this issue expeditiously.In the light of the Finance...