Legal News at Vakilno1.com

Madan Lokur takes up new assignment as a Judge

The Supreme Court will soon have one more judge. Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court Madan B. Lokur, who hails from Delhi, has been recommended by the Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia, for elevation to the Supreme Court.

Law Ministry sources told that the recommendation had been received from the Supreme Court and it would take three to four weeks for the completion of the appointment process. Justice Dalveer Bhandari, who also hails from Delhi, is expected to join the ICJ in the first week of June.

Justice Madan Lokur (58) was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Delhi High Court in February 1999, as Permanent Judge in the same court in July 1999 and as Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court on June 24, 2010. He became Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in November, 2011. He will have tenure of over six-and-a-half years as Supreme Court judge.

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Pranab Mukherjee clears official amendments to Lokpal Bill, Sources informed

Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee has cleared two official amendments to the Lokpal Bill. The amendments will be sent to the Cabinet and once cleared; the amended bill will be introduced in the Rajya Sabha too.

The first amendment now allows only Members of Parliament to move for removal of a member or the head of the Lokpal panel. Sources add that the two clauses, which allowed the President or any citizen to move for their removal, have now been removed. According to the amendment, the move for removal can be made now only through a petition signed by not less than 100 MPs.

The other amendment is that the Lokpal Bill will be applicable to a state only upon passing a resolution by the state legislature. The Lokpal refers to a national ombudsman agency which will investigate complaints of graft against government servants.

In December, the Lok Sabha passed the Lokpal Bill. It was then discussed heatedly in the Rajya Sabha but after a lengthy debate, the session was adjourned without a vote. The Opposition accused the government of conniving to avoid a vote because it knew it would lose. An amended Bill will now be brought to the Rajya Sabha, and after it is cleared there, it will be sent to the Lok Sabha for discussion and a vote.

Ban on GPA sale will Raise Property Prices

The decision to ban sale of property by Delhi government through General Power of Attorney (GPA) will lead to a sharp rise in the property prices in Delhi.

This will cause hardship to the property owners in Delhi, who bought the property on GPA, which lacked perfect documentation but is free from any disputes and will affect the availability of sale-able property and, therefore, will lead to a sharp rise in the free-hold property prices in Delhi.

Now, to complete a transfer of property, a seller has to execute a sale deed, which has to be duly registered in the office of registrar or sub-registrar.

The divisional commissioner of Delhi issued an order to the registrar and the sub-registrar last week asking them to implement the Supreme Court order dated October 11, 2011, banning any transfer of property on GPA or on sale agreement with retrospective effect from the date of issue of the order. The property transaction on GPA or on sale agreement, the Supreme Court order had said, cannot be relied upon or made the basis for mutation in municipal or revenue records.

As the government did not enforce the Supreme Court order between the date of the order on October 11, 2011, by the Supreme Court and April 27, 2012, when the divisional commissioner of Delhi government finally issued the order to ban the transfer of property through GPA or through sale deeds, a number of transactions that took place in the city on GPA and SA during the intervening period will face problem.

Now with DCs order, all the transactions that took place during the intervening period will become null and void. That means the property will remain on the sellers name and both the parties will have to initiate the process of transfer of property through a clear sale deed again.

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Govt. placing tax crimes, Tax Evaders in trouble

Tax evaders will be in trouble as the government is placing tax crimes on a par with money laundering offences that have severe criminal and financial implications.

India could bring income-tax offences under its anti-money laundering law, making way for easier prosecution, rigorous imprisonment, and fines and shifting onus on the accused to prove he is not guilty. An inter-departmental group has been set up to examine the changes required, a senior finance ministry official told.

The groups’ recommendations could then be placed before Parliament and changes made to the Prevention of Money Laundering (amendment) Bill, 2011.The offences will include concealment of income. These changes are consistent with a global plan drawn up by the Finance Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body to combat money laundering and terror financing, of which India is a member.

A proposed amendment to PMLA has suggested open-ended penalty, to be decided by courts, as opposed to a maximum of.5 lakh fine now. The trial in these cases will be faster as offences under PMLA are tried in special courts and the onus to prove innocence lies on the accused.

The cumbersome procedure has meant that so far no evader has been put behind the bars although there is a provision for six months imprisonment and penalty on tax evasion. The tax authorities prefer not to invoke these provisions as prosecution could take many years. Significant changes have already been made through the Finance Bill, 2012, passed by the Lok Sabha on May 8 that will allow for easier prosecution.

India has submitted a detailed action plan that lists various short-term, medium term and long-term measures required to conform to FATF standards and some of the amendments proposed in the PMLA Bill are in line with these commitments.

Three northeastern Indian states to have high courts

Three states – Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya would have their own high courts soon as the amendment bill was passed by the Lok Sabha.

Tripura’s law department said that establishment of separate high courts would help in quicker disposal of cases, save litigants’ time and money, and fulfil a long-standing demand of these states.

By amending the North-Eastern Areas (Re-organisation) Act, 1971, the North-Eastern Areas (Re-organisation) and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2012, was passed by the lower house of parliament, paving the way for creation of full-fledged high courts in the three states.

Now the amendment bill will be presented in the Rajya Sabha before it is sent to the President for her assent.

Currently, the six northeastern states – Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh – have benches of the Guahati high court. Sikkim has a separate high court.

Under the North-Eastern Areas (Re-organisation) Act, 1971, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya became full-fledged states on Jan 21, 1972.

Khagen Das, MP from Tripura, who had moved a private member’s bill in the Lok Sabha for amending the necessary act to set up the high courts, said that he had met union home minister P Chidambaram and union law minister in New Delhi a number of times to expedite the process.

“The demand for a separate high court in Tripura has been vigorously pursued from 1987. The Tripura assembly had passed unanimous resolutions requesting the central government to set up a separate high court,” Das, a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, said.

Reserve Bank of India directs New Norms for holding companies

New Reserve Bank of India directions, besides controlling leveraging by the holding company, also seeks to control their investment in the financial sector overseas.

Core Investment Company is a term used to describe investment entities which are created solely for the purpose of owning promoters’ share in group companies. Although these companies are registered as finance companies they do not engage in business on their own and RBI, therefore, categorizes them as a special category of NBFCS.

RBI has also barred Indian corporate from creating complex holding structures for overseas investments. All subsidiaries and joint ventures set up abroad must be operating entities.

CIC, which already have non-operating holding companies in existence overseas, will need to report the same to the RBI for a review. In case any business house uses their holding company to create an SPV abroad it will be treated as a subsidiary or joint venture, depending on the percentage of investment in the overseas entity.

Facebook users can now have more information as now FB updates its data use policy

Facebook is updating its data use policy in an attempt to give users more clarity on how the information they share is used by the company. The move comes a week ahead of its expected initial public offering of stock.

Facebook Inc. said that the changes are in response to an audit by Irish data-protection authorities last year.

As part of the changes, Facebook has created a new section of its data use policy _ formerly known as privacy policy _ to explain how it uses “cookies.”

PIL looks  cancelling of Andhra Pradesh HC judge’s appointment

The Supreme Court is ready to give a ear on PIL seeking to quash the appointment of a sitting Andhra Pradesh high court Judge for supposedly suppressing information about pendency of a criminal case against him at the time of his elevation to the constitutional post.

A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai posted the PIL by one Manohar Reddy for further hearing on July 9 but said the relief sought by the petitioner was unprecedented.

Reddy alleged that when Justice Ramana was a student of Nagarjuna University in Guntur in 1981, he was named as an accused in a case relating to rioting and disruption of public property in 1981. Two years later, when he enrolled as an advocate, he did not mention the pending criminal case against him despite a mandatory requirement.

The petitioner alleged that while on one hand the warrants went unanswered, on the other hand, the then TDP government sought to withdraw prosecution in the rioting case. On January 31, 2002, the case against the judge was closed.

Microfinance Regulation Bill is approved by Indian Cabinet

The Indian cabinet has finally approved a bill aimed to bring microlenders under the central bank’s oversight. The Microfinance Institutions (Development and Regulation) Bill needs parliament’s approval to become a law. Microlenders have been accused of aggressive lending and recovery practices and high interest rates, which attracted calls for regulation.

India’s once-thriving microfinance sector was devastated by a crackdown more than a year ago by the government of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, which was the industry hub and largest market.

The state rules resulted in a drop off in loan collections and a drying up of funding for microlenders.

Copyright Act got the Union Cabinet’s approval

The amendment to Copyright Act got the Union Cabinet’s nod, with the government deciding to restore the provision of statutory licensing as proposed earlier in 2010.

It puts limits on the basic principle of the copyright law, that authors and creators should have the exclusive right to control the dissemination of their work. Under statutory licensing, the royalty or remuneration for the author or creator is specified by law or such set negotiation.

With the bill getting clearance, the statutory licensing clause will not specify users allowing for television and new media broadcasters as well as radio broadcasters to be benefited.

However, the bill allows for charging different rates depending on the use.The legislation was opposed in Parliament in its last session, particularly the statutory licensing for radio broadcast of literary and musical works.

The Cabinet also approved the Universities for Research and Innovation Bill, 2012 for introduction in Parliament and gave clearance to amendments to the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill, 2010.