Weekly Legal Updates

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

Updates: 03th January to 11th January 2015:
In a major move the Supreme Court has revised rules regarding its selection of judicial clerks which allows non-NLU students to apply.  The new rules, published on the Supreme Court’s website, specifies that applicants can come from any law college accredited by the Bar Council of India (BCI).

The President of India  promulgated the Citizenship (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 on January 06, 2015 with immediate effect which provides for the following amendments to the Indian Citizen Act, 1955:

• At present one year continuous stay in India is mandatory for Indian Citizenship which is relaxed stating that if the Central Government is satisfied that special circumstances exist, it may, after recording such circumstances in writing, relax the period of twelve months specified upto a maximum of thirty days which may be in different breaks.

• To enable for registration as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) by a minor, whose parents are Indian Citizens.

• To enable for registration as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) by a child or a grand-child or a great grandchild of such a citizen.

• To enable for registration as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) by such spouse of a citizen of India or spouse of an OCI registered under Section 7A and whose marriage has been registered and subsisted for a continuous period of not less than two years immediately preceding the presentation of the application under this section.

• In respect of existing PIO card holders central government may, by notification in Official Gazette, specify a particular date from which all existing PIO card holders will be deemed to be OCI card holders.

The Delhi High court dismissed a plea against Amir Khan starrer movie- PK, holding that there was no substance in the allegations leveled against the movie, in the PIL filed by Ajay Gautam. The Court also observed that the provision for appeal against the CBFC’s decision on certification of films was restricted to film-makers. Mr. Gautam had alleged that the movie defamed and maligned the Hindu religion and culture. It was also contended that the movie hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.

In a submission made before the Apex Court, the Central Government has said that it wants to stop NGOs that do not submit their balance sheets of last three years. The Central Government represented by the Additional Solicitor General P S Patwalia submitted to the Bench headed by Chief Justice of India HL Dattu that the submission of balance sheets by the NGOs must be a condition precedent for grant of funds.

The Supreme Court has published the in-house mechanism adopted by it in 1999 to deal with complaints against the judges of the Supreme Court and High Court in its website. This has been published pursuant to its judgment in the sexual harassment case involving a sitting judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In the above judgment the Court relied on the in-house mechanism and had scrapped the investigation initiated by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Justice on the ground that it was not in compliance with the in-house mechanism.

Siemens, Dong Energy and London Array – the world's biggest operating offshore wind farm – are all heading for a UK court showdown with German turbine-maker Enercon over alleged patent infringement of 'Storm Control' technology developed by the latter's founder, Aloys Wobben. The Wobben Properties lawsuit names Siemens, Dong and turbine-installation specialist A2Sea as defendants.  The 630MW London Array – which is already using 175 3.6MW Siemens turbines – is the subject of a similar but separate action, and is set to join the other defendants in contesting the case at a High Court hearing in London, currently scheduled for June. Enercon had previously successfully sued turbine OEM Gamesa in Spain over the 'storm control' patent, a verdict which is currently being appealed.

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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Legal News Updates

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

Updates: 23rd November to 07 November 2014.

The Supreme Court has constituted a Special Bench christened ‘Social Justice Bench’ to achieve the Constitutional  goal of securing ‘social justice for the citizens of the country. The bench comprising of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice UU Lalit will hear all cases in the Supreme Court falling within the domain of “social justice”. The Bench will start functioning from December 12 and will sit at 2 pm on every Friday.

The Centre is planning to partially open up legal market to foreign firms. According to the proposal put forward by the Centre, foreign lawyers could be permitted to practice in India in conjunction with Indian lawyers, as a joint venture, with a cap on foreign participation. Also, advisory or non-litigious services in Indian law could be opened up subject to foreign lawyers going through a prequalification examination in various aspects of Indian law. However, the Bar Council of India and Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) have voiced their opposition to this proposal.

The Delhi High Court refused to quash the FIR filed against three men who tried to molest a Delhi Police Constable. The woman registered an FIR against the three persons, who incidentally lived in her locality only. She later agreed to take back her complaint, after the intermediation of some people. When the matter reached the Delhi High Court for quashing of FIR, Justice Pratibha Rani, refusing to quash the FIR said, ‘if a woman police officer can’t walk on the street what will happen to common girls?’

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister has approved the introduction of the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2014 in Parliament to make certain amendments in the Companies Act, 2013. The Companies Act, 2013 (Act) was notified on 29.8.2013. Out of 470 sections in the Act, 283 sections and 22 sets of Rules corresponding to such sections have so far been brought into force. In order to address some issues raised by stakeholders such as Chartered Accountants and professionals, some amendments have been proposed.

The Allahabad High Court dismissed a PIL challenging Rule 7 of the recently released Bar Council of India Rules, 2014. Under Rule 7, 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. It was dismissed not on merits, but on the ground that Rule 7 has still not been notified and therefore it would be an exercise in futility if the petition is examined on merits.

The Delhi High Court has held that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has the right to file an appeal in cases where its probes have been stayed by courts. The order came after a CCI appeal in a dispute involving JCB India Ltd, in which all CCI proceedings, including the probe, were stayed by the HC after its director general raided JCB’s premises. Doubts were raised whether CCI could file such an appeal, as it was the CCI that ordered the probe against JCB in the first place; the court ruled that CCI has the right. The court also held that “the interference by us at this stage is unwarranted”. It asked both parties to raise their issues before the single judge who is hearing the case.

The Delhi High Court recently interpreted S.107A expansively to conclude that it is applicable when a party exports a patented product to a third party outside India as long as the purpose of export is the facilitation of research. The case relates to the Compulsory License granted by the Court to Natco for the compound Sorafenib tosylate. One of the conditions was that Natco should use the licensed product “solely for the purpose of making, using, offering for sale and selling the drug covered by the patent for the purpose of treating HCC and RCC in humans within the territory of India”. However, Bayer found that Natco was exporting the product outside India. In March this year, an interim order was passed by the Delhi High Court preventing Natco from such export. The present application was filed by Natco to seek permission from the Court to export 1 kilogram of Sorafenib to a Chinese Pharmaceutical Company for preparation of a trial batch of the generic drug in China.

The application filed by Venus Remedies Ltd. (the applicant) for an invention titled “Parenteral Composition Comprising Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin for Bacterial Resistance and Process of Preparation Thereof” was opposed in a pre grant opposition by (Akums Drugs & Pharmaceuticals) on the grounds of lack of inventive step as required under Section 2(1)(j), 2(1)(ja) and 2(1)(l) and also on the grounds of section 3(d) and 3(e) of the Patent Act. The opposition, however, was not successful. The invention was a single unit combination of two incompatible antibiotics (Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin) which are combined together with stabilizing agents, such as L-arginine, EDTA and Na₂CO_3.  The Controller observed that the claimed invention was held not to be a mere aggregation of property/features since Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin are made compatible, due to the existence of a chemical stabilizing and solubizing agent. The opponent also contended that various studies have shown the concomitant use of vancomycin and ceftriaxone and cited two documents.  However, both these documents failed to form ‘prior art’ because they were published on 3/3/2006 and 20/12/2005 after the filing of the present patent application in 14/2/2005. Moreover, the prior art failed to contemplate the problem of incompatibility between Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin. Also, the contention on Section 3(d) was dismissed on the ground that nothing in the prior art qualified as a “known substance” and hence Section 3(d) was not attracted.  The Controller declared that that the invention was both a technical advance as well as economically significant and therefore qualified the inventiveness criteria.

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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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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