SC to hear Reliance Natural Resources Ltd appeal against Allahabad's HC Order on Jan 29

SC to hear Reliance Natural Resources Ltd appeal against Allahabad's HC Order on Jan 29

(19-Jan-10)
The Supreme Court today fixed January 29 for the hearing of the appeal of RNRL, a company of Anil Ambani group, challenging the Allahabad High Court order quashing the land acquisition proceedings for its Dadri power project. Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi appearing for Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) contended before the apex court that the so called poor farmers who had moved court against land acquisition had used chartered private aircraft at least on 30 occasions to fly their senior counsel from Delhi to Allahabad to argue the case. As stated by Indilawnews.com

He also blamed his business rivals for financing these farmers. A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices R V Raveendran and Deepak Verma directed to serve the copy of the petition to the counsel for the caveator. The Allahabad High Court, on December 4, 2009, had quashed the land acquisition proceedings and had directed RNRL to return the land to the farmers and renegotiate with them. The apex court did not pass any order on the request for interim stay against the High Court orders and said the request for interim relief will be considered on January 29.

President gives assent to Judges Salary hike

Supreme Court Judges and High Court Chief Justices to get Rs. 90,000/- per month- Other High Court Judges - Rs. 80,000/- per month

Judges of Supreme Court and High Court can now take a sigh of relief as the President gave her assent to the ordinance late last week. The proposed hike in salaries also means a substantial increase in pension for judges. Judges are entitled to 50 per cent of their last drawn salary as monthly pension.

The President's New Year gift for the judiciary means a revised salary Rs 1 lakh for the Chief Justice of India, Rs 90,000 for Supreme Court judges and High Court chief justices and Rs 80,000 for HC judges.

Source : PTI

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Supreme Court and High Court Judges Salaries hiked

As per Government Agencies, Supreme Court and High Court Judges Salaries have been increased

The Cabinet in its meeting held yesterday decided to increase the salaries of Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts. This revision has been necessitated because of the increase in the salaries of the Central Government employees on acceptance of the recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission.

The Chief Justice of India will now get a salary of Rs.1,00,000/- p.m. plus Dearness Allowance(DA) thereon. Judges of Supreme Court and Chief Justices of High Courts will draw a salary of Rs. 90,000/- p.m. plus DA thereon whilst the Judges of High Court will draw a salary of Rs.80,000/- p.m. plus DA thereon. This will be effective from 01.01.2006. 40% of the arrears of salary will be given in the current financial year and the balance 60% in the next financial year.

The Government has also decided to double the existing limit of both sumptuary allowance and furnishing allowance for all the Supreme Court and High Court Judges. This will be effective from 01.09.2008.

Necessary Government order will issue after effecting amendment in the relevant legislation.

Three jurists seek dismissal of high court judge

New Delhi, Nov 16 (IANS) Levelling serious allegations of corruption against a sitting high court judge, three eminent jurists Friday urged leaders of all political parties to initiate parliamentary proceedings for his dismissal.

In a jointly signed statement, former law ministers Shanti Bhushan and Ram Jethmalani and constitutional expert Fali S. Nariman accused Justice Jagdish Bhalla of the Chhattisgarh High Court of serious judicial impropriety and misconduct and levelled serious charges of corruption against him.

In their statement, to be sent to leaders of all political parties, the three jurists said it should be signed by their parliamentarians to set in motion the parliamentary process of impeachment of Justice Bhalla, who is now tipped to become Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.

They have alleged that Justice Bhalla, utilizing his influence, procured at a throwaway price a huge piece of land measuring 7,200 sq m in a posh locality of Noida on the outskirts of the national capital.

The three jurists, who had documentary evidence as proof, said the land bought by Justice Bhalla in the name of his wife Renu Bhalla was actually government land, grabbed by a land mafiaso.

They said land shark Moti Goel had sold several pieces of illegally grabbed land to many influential people, including Justice Bhalla, to evade the law. The land that Goel sold to Justice Bhalla's wife for a mere Rs.500,000, is officially worth Rs.72 million.

They said as a senior judge of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, Bhalla had helped Reliance Energy get a favourable judicial verdict because his son Arohi Bhalla represented Reliance Energy as its legal counsel.

Another allegation was that Bhalla utilized his influence to have several plots allotted to his relatives in Lucknow's posh localities.

The three jurists supported their allegations with documentary evidence.

As per prevalent laws, a sitting judge of the higher judiciary can be removed from service only through a cumbersome parliamentary proceeding of impeachment, which can be set in motion only after a requisite number of MPs sign a memorandum seeking his removal.

The memorandum then has to be presented to the Lok Sabha speaker or the Rajya Sabha chairman, who, in turn, constitutes an enquiry committee to probe the authenticity of the charges.

Once this committee recommends removal of the judge, it has to be passed by two-thirds majority of parliament members, present and voting in the house on the motion for dismissal of the judge.

Patna High Court does Bihar proud

New Delhi, Aug 26 (IANS) This might come as a pleasant surprise. Bihar, which has one of the highest crime rates in India, can boast of a high court with relatively one of the fewest number of pending cases - 97,354. This is in sharp contrast to many other states where the backlog in the high courts runs into hundreds of thousands.

According to latest official statistics from various high courts at the end of March this year, the figure of 97,354 for the Patna High Court compares very favourably with those at the high courts of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh.

While the Allahabad High Court tops the list of courts with a high backlog - at 815,602 cases, the Orissa High Court has 224,382 cases.

Three other high courts - in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh - have 209,095, 188,796 and 148,512 cases respectively pending with them.

What's worse, other economically well off states too have a surfeit of cases at their high courts.

For example, the Madras High Court and the Bombay High Court respectively occupy the second and third positions in the list of high courts with a huge build-up of cases awaiting adjudication. The Madras High Court has 418,110 cases pending with it, while the backlog of cases at Bombay High Court stands at 366,495.

The high courts of West Bengal, Punjab and Haryana, and Gujarat had 272,643, 244,875, and 112,045 cases pending with them respectively at the end of March this year.

What's surprising is that the Patna High Court has been able to keep the backlog of cases low despite having a massive vacancy - 32.5 percent - of judges. Against a sanctioned strength of 43 judges, it has just 29 judges.

In contrast, the Allahabad High Court has merely 19 percent judicial vacancy, having 77 judges against a sanctioned strength of 95 judges. Only the Orissa as well as Punjab and Haryana high courts have judicial vacancies higher than that of the Patna High Court.

The Orissa High Court, which tops the list of courts with 36 percent of judicial vacancy, has only 14 judges against a sanctioned strength of 22. The vacancy at the Punjab and Haryana High Court is to the tune of 34 percent (35 judges working against a sanctioned strength of 53).

The vacancy of judges in other high courts is in the range of 20 percent with Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan having 20 percent vacancy each, Gujarat 26 percent, Bombay 17 percent and Madras 10 percent.

Supreme court slams Allahabad High Court for murder acquittals

New Delhi, Aug 13 (IANS) The Supreme Court has severely castigated the Allahabad High Court for the "casual way" in which it acquitted three people - one sentenced to death and two to life imprisonment - convicted for double murder by the Hamirpur sessions court in Uttar Pradesh.

The high court had to face the apex court's wrath for the "casual and summary way of disposing the appeals against the sessions court judgement (made by two lifers) and the reference (made to it by the sessions court) for confirmation of the death sentence".

Expressing its rage over the high court's "perfunctory ways" in dealing with the issue, a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and D.K. Jain said Friday: "To say the least, the approach of the high court is clearly unsupportable. This is not the way an appeal or reference for confirmation of death sentence is to be dealt with.

"The high court (while acquitting the convicts) did not even bother to analyse the evidence or to refer to any findings of the trial court (on the basis of which it had convicted the accused)."

The apex court bench made the caustic comment while hearing an appeal from the Uttar Pradesh government challenging the acquittal of two lifers and one condemned prisoner by the high court.

The Hamirpur court sentenced Govind Das to death for the murder of Loknath and Naval Kishore and gave life to two others while acquitting a woman.

While it referred the case to the high court for confirmation of the death sentence, the two lifers also approached the high court challenging their sentence.

The high court acquitted all three on the simple fact that the trial court had acquitted one of the co-accused.

Reminding the high court of the legal position that acquittal of one co-accused cannot be a ground of acquittal of all, the apex court bench directed the high court to adjudicate the two appeals and the trial court's reference afresh.

The apex court also asked the high court to dispose the matter within six months as it had taken "very long" in doing so the first time.

Chhattisgarh to move court against Jogi's son acquittal

Raipur, July 9 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Chhattisgarh government will appeal in the state high court against the acquittal of Congress leader Ajit Jogi's son in a four-year-old murder case.

According to government sources, the state's law department has decided to move the high court - based in Bilaspur - at the earliest to challenge the May 31 verdict of a lower court in the June 4, 2003, murder of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) state unit treasurer Ramavtar Jaggi.

The district and sessions court judge (atrocities) B.L. Tidke convicted 28 of the 29 people accused in the murder, awarding life imprisonment to 19. Amit Jogi, 30, the son of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi, was the lone person acquitted.

Among those convicted were four close aides of the Jogi family and three policemen, including a city superintendent of police who was jailed for five years.

"The law department has told the Advocate General to move the high court against Amit Jogi's acquittal. The government will do its best to ensure that Amit be brought to book and the deceased's family gets justice," a senior government official told IANS Monday.

Satish Jaggi, the slain leader's son, had named Ajit Jogi and his son Amit as prime suspects in a police complaint filed within an hour of the killing at the crowded Maudhapara locality in the heart of the city.

The BJP government, which came to power in December 2003, handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in January 2004 following which Amit was arrested in June 2005 in New Delhi.

He spent 10 months in Raipur Central Jail. He was released on bail by the high court and re-arrested on May 2 this year after the Supreme Court set aside his bail.

The CBI filed a charge sheet here at a special court against dozens of people, including Amit, describing him as the "mastermind of the murder plot".

According to sources, the CBI too plans to challenge Amit's acquittal in the high court. The Jaggi family has also said it would approach the high court to ensure that Amit is convicted.

- IANS

Supreme Court: Prior conviction not needed for Preventive Detention

New Delhi, June 26 (IANS) In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has held that conviction of a person in criminal offences is not a prerequisite for his arrest under preventive detention laws that could see him jailed without trial.

A vacation bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice P.P. Naolekar last week ruled that a person facing trial in more than two criminal offences can be described as a "dangerous person" or "habitual offender" and be arrested under preventive detention laws.

Significantly, the ruling runs contrary to the judicial dictum of innocent-unless-convicted, which politicians have been liberally using to foil attempts to usher in laws on electoral reform aimed at banning people with criminal backgrounds and facing trial from contesting elections.

The bench gave its verdict setting aside a Bombay High Court ruling, which had freed a man, detained by the Nagpur district magistrate for a year Aug 12, 1999, under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers and Drug Offenders Act.

The Nagpur bench of the high court acquitted the man, Mehmud, two months before his one year detention was to expire. The high court bench had held that "there must be a conviction before it can be said that the detenu habitually commits offences".

Setting aside the high court ruling, the apex court bench held: "Considering the nature of the special jurisdiction and power which the detaining authority exercises (under the preventive detention laws), the high court's conclusion that prior conviction is a prerequisite to detain a person under the preventive detention laws is clearly unsustainable."

The Maharashtra government had challenged the high court ruling in the Supreme Court on the plea that it diluted the government's executive authority to arrest a person under the preventive detention laws.

The state government had sought a review of the high court verdict more in order to seek clarity on the provisions of preventive detention.

While seeking a review of the high court ruling, it did not ask for an order to arrest Mehmud again and make him serve the remaining period of his detention.

IANS