Weekly Legal Updates

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

8^th December 2014:

The division bench of Supreme Court has struck down the legality of provisions in certain circulars which banned hookah smoking and sale of cigarettes in designated smoking areas. With this three High Court (Bombay, Gujarat and Madras) decisions is overturned. The illegality of circulars was found on the basis of it being violative of COTPA Act, 2003 and Rules.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a plea challenging the recent ordinance on Coal Block Allocations which is to be heard on 6^th December. The Court had earlier declined a batch of petition by private companies seeking that it re-look its September 24 order cancelling 214 coal blocks allocated from 1993 to 2011.

9^th December 2014:

A Delhi Court has held fourmen guilty for murdering L.N. Mishra, the then Railway Minster in a bomb blast on January 2, 1975. This trial is one of the longest drawn trials in India. Over 200 witnesses were examined in the case. Though the charge-sheet was filed in 1977 in a CBI court in Patna, the conviction has come only after about 40 years of the murder. Earlier in 2012, the accused approached the Supreme Court for quashing the trial against them as the case has not been concluded even after 37 years, which was not accepted by the apex court and was returned to the Delhi Court. The quantum of sentence would be pronounced on 15th December.

10^th December 2014:

The Central Government announced that section 309, attempt to commit suicide, will be deleted from Indian Penal Code (IPC) which will decriminalize the act of commitment of suicide. The decision is based on the request by 18 states and 44 Union territories to implement the Recommendations made in this regard by the Law Commission of India in its 210^th Report. The report made reference to P. Rathinam v. Union of India, where the Supreme Court of India held that Section 309 of IPC is violative of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The same was overruled in Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, however The Mental Health Bill of 2013 did attempt to decriminalize the same by putting presumption of mental illness on the persons attempting to commit suicide.

The Kerala High Court has concluded that the DLF violated the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification (CRZ Notification) and therefore ordered the demolition of the construction under DLF project in Kochi. The Court held that:

“Authorities are constituted under various enactments to see that the environment is protected and to see that the present topography which keeps the ecological balance is not disturbed. The purpose of these laws is to preserve nature for posterity. If the violation of these laws is allowed to become the order of the day, the existence of life would be at peril. Right to life guaranteed by our Constitution takes in innumerable rights, including the right to enjoy nature in the present form. Indiscriminate invasion of nature to the detriment of others is an invasion of right to life. Nature which is the property of the nation cannot be allowed to be scrambled by a minority violating all laws.”

11^th December 2014:

The Delhi High Court injuncted Xiaomi, a Chinese phone manufacturer, from selling, advertising, manufacturing or importing devices that infringe the Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) in question. The same SEPs are also a subject matter of a pending litigation between Ericsson and Micromax, Gionee, Intex.  In an ex-parte order passed against Xiaomi, the court also directed Customs Department to stop import of such products as per the IPR Rules, 2007. It is worth noting that Xiaomi managed to sell out its 50,000 handset in just 6 seconds on 8^th December.

12^th December:

Hearing an appeal filed by the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare (DESW) against a judgment of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), the Supreme Court had to decide the question of benefits of an extra amount in pensions on account of disability due to service conditions of the ex-servicemen of the Army. The Bench headed by HL Dattu, CJI, said:

“They are in the line of fire. They sacrifice their life for you and for us. This is the least you could do for them. The government can have at least this much of budget for its soldiers who are dying for the people of this country everyday. What is the point of having these memorials and placards saluting our defence personnel if you litigate against the disabled soldiers till the Supreme Court. You should pay them,”

The Government agreed to comply with the order. The Supreme Court dismissed the matter, as a result disposing 880 appeals on the issue. It has also been reported that around 15,000 retired soldiers will be benefited due to the order.

The Social Justice Bench constituted to hear cases pertaining to “Social Justice” matters began with the division bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice UU Lalit. The bench will take up fresh matters alongside the pending matters and will sit every Friday at 2PM at the Supreme Court. The bench was constituted to achieve the Constitutional goal of securing social justice for the citizens of the country.

The Supreme Court has dismissed Bayer’s Special Leave Petition (SLP) against the decision of the Bombay High Court. This dismissal will continue the effectiveness of grant of compulsory license to Natco for Bayer’s anticancer drug Nexavar. This has continued the Indian Courts’ stand to ensure the access to medicine across the country.

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 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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