Legal News Updates

We bring you the updates for last week. Hope it updates you with all the news from legal world.

Updates: 03rd November to 22nd November 2014.

In an interim order passed by the Delhi High Court, Micromax has to pay a royalty that amounts up to 1% of the selling price of its devices to Ericsson. Ericsson had alleged that Micromax had refused to enter into a licensing agreement covering its patented innovations across several wireless technology standards such as GSM, EDGE and third generation (3G). The patents in question are a part of what are called “standards-essential” patents and holders are expected to license them on Free Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Micromax was said to have keen on negotiating a FRAND license with Ericsson but the companies could not come to a suitable conclusion.

The E-Committee of the Supreme Court has rejected the Government’s proposal to record the Court proceedings in a subordinate court.  The E-Committee rejected the proposal saying it was not acceptable at present. The proposal to record court proceedings was made by the government after an advisory council meeting of the Law Ministry held in August this year. This was as a part of the E-court project under which the government had sought to initiate recording of the proceedings in lower courts and subsequently bring the High Courts and the Supreme Court under its ambit.

The Supreme Court is facing an interesting case of murder where the accused was tried as an adult though the accused was a juvenile at the time of commission of offence.  Since, the accused was a juvenile when the offence was committed, the criminal trial stands vitiated and a fresh trial will have to be held before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB).  The Court has sought the assistance of the Attorney General to resolve the issue.

In a letter to the High Courts, Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu has asked for the judgments delivered by the Judges of the High Courts, in order to “ascertain quantitative as well as qualitative disposal of cases”. So far Reported Judgments have been accepted as one of the parameters for ascertaining “qualitative disposal”. Now as per this letter, the details of all judgments will have to be provided. The letter also demands resumes of the Chief Justices and the Judges in a specified format. It also demands details of total and reported judgments.

In Criminal writ petition before the Bombay High Court, the Petitioner was seeking criminal prosecution of a Judge in respect of acts discharged during judicial functions. It was held no Court shall entertain or continue any civil or criminal proceeding against a Judge for any act, thing or word committed, done or spoken by him, when, or in the course of, acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official or judicial duty or function. The Court also held that no Judge can be prosecuted without a prior sanction, whether the alleged offence is punishable under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 or under the Indian Penal Code or under any other law.

The Central Information Commission has held that refusing to give details of foreign tours by ministers and officers, and staff particulars of AG without hearing the appellant was wrong.  It set aside the order of First Appellate Authority of Department of Legal Affairs as it was given without hearing the appellant.  CIC also recommended action against the officer for this ‘illegal’ order.

The Bar Council of India has recently notified the Certificate of Practice and Renewal Rules of 2014. Under these rules, a lawyer must practice for two years in a trial court and three in a high court before being allowed to practice before the apex court. The new rules also mandate the renewal of licenses every five years, in an attempt to “weed out” those lawyers who are no longer practicing.

In accordance with the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, the Ministry of Law and Justice has decided on the formation of a separate High Court for Andhra Pradesh. According to section 30 of the A.P. Reorganisation Act, 2014 the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad shall be the common High Court for the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh till a separate High Court for the State of Andhra Pradesh is constituted under Article 214 of the Constitution of India and other provisions of the Act.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is all set to slash the prices of popular medicines for stress, hypertension, HIV, pain and pneumonia. The move seeks to cover as many as 100 new drugs and would apply to drugs of varying strengths. This is the second time that NPPA has proposed regulating the price of drugs outside the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2011. The announcement by NPPA comes in light of its findings that certain “anomalies or discrepancies” exist in the description/specification of drugs in NLEM.

We hope that this summarizes the last week's News. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Until next post of weekly News updates.

Anjana Srinivasan, (2nd Year student of IIT Kharagpur Law School)

For 'OFF Court.'

Disclaimer: This blog or any post thereof is not to be considered to be in any way associated with the official stand of IIT kharagpur or RGSOIPL on the issues being discussed in the said post. The opinions on the blog are the authors own and should not be considered as legal advice.

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Of Assignments, Licenses and other Demons thereof

Author: Narayanan MH, 3rd Year student of IIT Law School, IIT Kharagpur

The title of this blog post amuses the author as much as it amuses its readers, as the author during his initial year in law school always got confronted by one question,
“What is the difference between an agreement and a contract?”

Being from a non legal family background the author answered:

“Section 2(h) of Indian Contract Act: an agreement enforceable by law is a contract”

But nearing the last few months of his legal studies, after few fruitful classes, discussions, and internships, the author learned that it is not as simple as stating section 2(h).

The author considers the Contract Act, 1872, to be one of the essential guide for a law student to begin his/her/third gender’s (Supreme Court now recognizes them) legal journey and hence would like to share his limited understanding of the answer to the above question before venturing into the title.

In layman’s words section 2 states that a Person A who for the purpose of getting assent of Person B proposes to do an act (includes abstinence) and Person B accepts it, then Person A becomes the promisor and Person B becomes the promisee. The accepted proposal becomes a promise.

For example the owner of this blog offering the author to publish his article and the author accepting the proposal makes it a promise.

Section 2(d) states consideration as an act, abstinence or promise of the promisee—Person B (past, present and future of doing) at the desire of promisor—Person A.

 

If a promise accepted by Person B has a counterpart of consideration to Person A it is an agreement. (Section 2(e)).

Continuing with the example stated above the author agreeing to pay Rs. 200  as publishing charge to the owner of blog makes the promise an agreement and the promise or act of paying Rs. 200 becomes consideration.

Now that agreement is understood the important section for understanding the meaning the section 2(h) (legally enforceable agreements) is section 10 of the Contract Act.

Section 10 seeks compliance of 4 conditions from an agreement to make it a contract:

·           Free consent (Section 14)

·           Competency of Parties (Section 11)

·           Lawful consideration (Section 23)

·           Lawful object. (Section 23)

Both the author and the blog owner are of legal age (competent) and gave free consent for the agreement. Hence, it is now enforceable by law becoming a contract. If the author does not pay Rs. 200 to the blog owner after this article gets published then the blog owner can move the court to enforce the contract.

From the above explanation, the author understood the difficulty in comprehending one of the shortest bare acts in law school and hence restricts himself to the question without going into further legal intricacies like consensus adidum, if the readers are interested they can do research on the following questions:

       Difference between void, voidable and illegal agreements and contracts?

       Difference between a deed and an agreement?

Coming back to the title, hindu mythology being one of the most fascinating mythologies of the world often portrayed demons as powerful as gods. In one such mythology, demons have the power of rising from the blood spilled from another demon and also have the power to deceive the seer. But the seer can find the demons if he knows what to look for amidst their varied appearances, hence the use of demons in the title.

The motive of the author here is to make the reader aware of these demons namely, assignments and license and their ability to deceive the seer.

Now that the author has researched and wrote this article, he cannot just like that give away this article to the blog owner for publication without being aware of his rights. The author by virtue of Copyright Act, section 14 has several rights from now on called “Bundle of Rights” (as used by the author’s Copyright law professor).

The 200 rupees given to the blog owner has 20-10 rupees note, likewise the bundle of rights have many individual rights like right to communication to public, right to translate, right to sell copies etc.

Assignments, licenses are the instruments used to legally transfer/permit the others to use one’s right.

License can be simply termed as permission from the way it is used in daily life like driving license, shop license etc. When a license is granted the main thing to be remembered is the licensee is not the owner, he just has permission to use the right.

If the author permits the blog owner to publish this article in his blog, the blog owner can do so only in this blog, while the author holds the rights to publish this article anywhere else.

Assignment on the other hand is assigning a right, if the author assigns the right to publish to this blog owner, then the author can never publish this article anywhere, but that does not take away the authors other rights in the bundle.

Thus, the essential elements in understanding licenses and assignments are that there are multiple rights, they can be either assigned fully or grant permission to others to use.

The reader must also note that there can be many varieties of this assignments and licenses based on the term of the contract like time, name of right, area, and others.

As an end to this article the author would term contract law as ‘Nothing’ with two quotes.

Quote 1: “You ain't seen nothin' yet.”  -AL JOLSON

Quote 2: “Nothing is an awe-inspiring yet essentially undigested concept, highly esteemed by writers of an existentialist tendency, but by most others regarded with anxiety, nausea, or panic.” - P. L. HEATH- 

Disclaimer: This blog or any post thereof is not to be considered to be in any way associated with the official stand of IIT kharagpur or RGSOIPL on the issues being discussed in the said post. The opinions on the blog are the authors own and should not be considered as legal advice.

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Legal Updates

We bring you the updates for last week. Hope it updates you with all the news from legal world.

Updates: 2nd November to 8th November 2014.

2^nd November:

Delhi Police has approached the Supreme Court with the plea to modify the December 2013 order in which the Apex Court had said, “The men in uniform; operational agencies which require unhindered access to roads for performance of their duty; those engaged in emergency duties such as ambulance services, fire services, emergency maintenance etc.; and, police vehicles used as escorts or pilots or for law and order duties shall not be entitled to have red light but lights of other colours, eg, blue, white, multi-coloured etc.” The Supreme Court had ordered on 2^nd November that only “high dignitaries” can use the red beacon, and only when on duty.

3^rd November:

The CIC, Prof M Sridhar Acharyulu, held on 3rd November 2014 that ‘charge-sheet’ has to be disclosed after separating non-disclosable portions, if any, as per restrictions prescribed under RTI Act. The CIC was hearing an appeal by Ms. Usha Kanth Asiwal who sought to know of complaint (charge-sheet) made to Anti Corruption Bureau on 25-04-2001 and  inquiry leading to registration of case against 13 persons under Prevention of Corruption Act, which is now under prosecution in Tis Hazari Courts.

Roche and Cipla have failed to reach an agreement over the Erlotinib patent dispute. At the instance of Delhi High Court, in around April this year, Roche and Cipla got engage in mediation. The mediator submitted the failure report after discussions between the two parties failed to fructify. It was highly suspected that any compromise may happen considering the nature of the dispute and patent at stake. The proceeding will now resume in Delhi High Court.

Cipla has brazenly launched a cheaper generic version of Novartis’ Indacetorol (a drug used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Cipla has further petitioned to the DIPP to revoke to revoke Novartis’ patents in public interest under S.66 of the Indian patent act. This would be the first time when a plea for revocation of patent will be entertained solely on the ground of public interest.  Cipla has taken two grounds for revocation that it is very costly and that it is not sufficiently produced in India, thus it is pre-judicial to the public.

4^th November:

The decision rendered by a division bench of Justice Mukta Gupta and Justice Pradeep Nadrajog in a rape case has been a highlight this week in all forms of media. The accused Achey Lal was acquitted of the offences of murder and rape in view that the prosecution was not able to prove its case ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that the accused has committed the offence so charged against him. The controversy that arouse is mostly because the judgment spoke of the deceased aged 65-70 is beyond the age of menopause and any sexual intercourse, which is forceful and not forcible, is not rape.

It has recently come to the notice of the Indian Government that a German company is using the term ‘khadi’ in its trademark. Khadi being a popular symbol in     India, mostly because of Gandhian Movement and has established itself as Swaraj and Self-sufficiency during Indian Freedom Fight. The German company, ‘Khadi Naturprodukte’ is in the business of selling various Indian-origin products such as shampoos, soaps and oils in Europe. Incidentally, these are products which Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), an arm of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), sells in addition to fabric. This will open a new gate for the Government of India to protect its IP across the seas. It is also note-worthy that a GI application on Khadi is also on the way.

5^th November:

Release of ‘Rang rasiya’, a movie directed by Ketan Mehta claimed to be based on the life of renowned painter Raja Ravi Varma has been stayed by the Mavelikkara munsiff court in Alapuzha district in Kerala. She had stated that the film is depicting a false image of the artist and she called the movie a ‘direct assault’ on Indian culture and womanhood. She also alleged the violation of the Copyright Act, 1957.

Justice D. Hariparanthaman of the Madras High Court has ruled that a married daughter of a deceased government employee is eligible for appointment under compassionate grounds. The Court ruled, “There cannot be any discrimination between a married son and a married daughter. Making discrimination between a son and a daughter on the ground of marriage is arbitrary and violative of fundamental right to equality.”

The Economic Times reports that Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has set up a think tank to advise the Government on a gamut of issues related to patents and to also draft a national IPR policy. The think-tank is a six member panel headed by Justice Prabha Sridevan, a former judge (Madras High Court) and former chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). This is a follow up step of  bilateral US-India Trade Policy Forum announced by Narendra Modi and Barack Obama.

7^th November:

The Supreme Court has demanded details from the Central Government with respect to individuals residing in Government accommodations. It urged the Government to render information regarding the categories of bungalows existing in Delhi, their allotment under discretionary and people who have been overstaying in the same. On vacation of government bungalows by judges of the apex court and HCs, the bench said, “Judges of any forum shall vacate the official residence within a period of one month from the date of superannuation/retirement. However, after recording sufficient reason(s), the time may be extended by another month.”

The SC ruled that the judiciary cannot direct the government to conduct census ina particular manner and that would amount to ‘colossal transgression’ of the power of judicial review, thus overruling the Madras HC judgment in which Hon’ble HC had directed the central govt to conduct  caste based census.  Three judge bench categorically ruled that issuing a mandamus directing the State to conduct census in a particular manner would be in excess of its power of judicial re view. The Hon’ble SC held that “The order is exceptionally cryptical. That apart, it is legally wholly unsustainable.  The High Court, to say the least, had no justification to pave such a path and we have no hesitation in treating the said path as a colossal transgression of power of judicial review, and that makes the order sensitively susceptible.”

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced on its website today that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Intellectual Property Office of India (IPO India) on co-operation on patents to promote innovation in India and the European Union. The MoU calls for bilateral co-operation between EPO & IPO and it seeks to establish a framework for structured work relations between both the offices for a minimum of four years.

The Delhi High Court in Sukesh Behl v. Koninklijke Phillips Electronics (Division Bench. Maj. Behl Vs Philips-DB1-DHC 7.11.2014) passed a significant decision with regard to Section 8 of the Patent Act 1970. It ruled that a patentee’s non compliance with Section 8 of the Patent Act will not lead to an automatic revocation of its patent under Section 64(1)(m). As per the decision, it is necessary to check whether the omission to disclose information under Section 8 was deliberate/intentional or whether it was a mere clerical/bona fide error.

We hope that this summarizes the last week's News. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Until next post of weekly News updates.

Manish Kumar, (3rd Year student of IIT Kharagpur Law School)

For 'OFF Court.'

Disclaimer: This blog or any post thereof is not to be considered to be in any way associated with the official stand of IIT kharagpur or RGSOIPL on the issues being discussed in the said post. The opinions on the blog are the authors own and should not be considered as legal advice.

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Legal Updates

We bring you the updates for last week. Hope it updates you with all the news from legal world.

Updates: 26th October to 1st November 2014.

The National Commission for Women will be a placing a proposal before a panel constituted by the Supreme Court on November 8 for legalizing prostitution in India..  The apex court had constituted the panel after a public interest litigation was filed in 2010 on rehabilitation of sex workers. The panel will deliberate on the existing provision of Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA). The deliberations would focus on improved conditions that would allow sex workers to lead a dignified life. But activists have voiced their concerns over the NCW’s proposal. The legalization of prostitution goes against the ILO’s definition of ‘decent work’.

A man was arrested by cops for allegedly having sex with another man, which was recorded by his wife on a hidden camera. The man has been arrested under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that makes it an offense to commit 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature.' The highly debated re-instatement of the clause by the Supreme Court which was previously struck down by the Delhi HC as unconstitutional makes gay sex an offence punishable with life imprisonment.

The Supreme Court has rejected the plea by Nithari killer Surinder Koli seeking recall of the judgment upholding his death sentence in Rimpa Haldar murder case.

While applying for a passport for her child, an unwed mother will have to declare how she conceived. This was the Union Government’s reply to a query by a division bench of the Bombay HC that was hearing a petition by a woman challenging the passport authority's refusal to include her step-father's name in her passport. According to the advocate appearing on behalf of the foreign ministry, a unwed mother should file an affidavit stating ‘how she has conceived’ and ‘if she was raped’ and why she does not want the father's name included.

The CIC has held that the husband had a right to know about the amount of salary of the wife but information pertaining to expenditures and loan deductions cannot be given under the RTI Act. Amount of salary and the details of pay scale of a public servant can be a part of voluntarily disclosable information under Section 4(1)(b) but deductions, personal loans, seeking salary slips and residential address are not disclosable unless a public interest is involved.

The Delhi University will soon have its own IP policy. The IP policy will look into the patentability of the research undertaken by the students and staffs, the registration of copyright and trademark by the DU.  As per the university statistics, 168 patents are registered by Delhi University, 71 patents are under prosecution, 35 patents have been granted and 52 patent applications have lapsed.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India recently issued a notification introducing a requirement that the pictorial and textual statutory warnings must cover 85% of the display area of the package. The notification, that amends the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling Rules), 2008 specifies that the pictorial warning must cover at least 60% of the area and the textual warning 25% percent of the area of the package—on both sides of the package. This move by the Government seems to be a plain packaging requirement though it is not in the purest form as in other countries like Australia and some European countries.

The US Eleventh Circuit Court has come out with a landmark ruling on the legality of course packs involving Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Sage Publications against Georgia State University. GSU was indulging in digital dissemination of  course packs allowing students to obtain a digital copy of the designated course material. The Court held that the thought the excerpts were not transformative they were for a non-profitable educative purpose and it constituted fair use, despite the non-transformative nature.

We hope that this summarizes the last week's News. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Until next post of weekly News updates.

Anjana Srinivasan, (2nd Year student of IIT Kharagpur Law School)

For 'OFF Court.'

Disclaimer: This blog or any post thereof is not to be considered to be in any way associated with the official stand of IIT kharagpur or RGSOIPL on the issues being discussed in the said post. The opinions on the blog are the authors own and should not be considered as legal advice.

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