Weekly Legal Updates February Week 1

1. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke to his UK counterpart and has expressed support for enabling
foreign lawyers to establish a presence in India by framing rules to allow foreign lawyers to set up
India shops.
2. The Supreme Court permitted Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Mohammad Arif alias Ashfaqs plea
for an open court hearing before a constitution bench of his petition seeking review of its 10 August
2011 verdict upholding his death sentence in the 22 December 2000 Red Fort attack case.
3. The Delhi high court issued notice to the central and city governments and the Delhi Commission for
Women on a plea seeking expedition of cases registered under the Protection of Children from
Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, which deals with issue of child sexual abuse. As of date only 10.5%
of 8904 child abuse cases disposed of in 2014 and there was substantial delay in police investigation.
4. After having lost two rounds in the Supreme Court, first on 12 January and again on on 13 January
the Jallikattu fans in Tamil Nadu appear to be a determined lot, keeping all their hopes in the Apex
Court once again as the SC is set to hear SC set to hear 5-minute review petition against its 2014
Jallikattu judgment.
5. The Supreme Court has stayed a Delhi high court order quashing the 60 percent admission quota for
the wards of Group A officers of the All India Central Services in elite Sanskriti schools.

6. SC seeks to protect petitioner facing threats in PIL seeking entry of women to Sabarimala temple Taking serious note of threats to the president of the petitioner association, the Indian Young Lawyers
Association, whose PIL the Supreme Court is currently hearing, the three Judge bench made it clear
that access to justice cant be dented by anybody.
7. With the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015 coming into force and allowing for lower culpable age of a
juvenile, such accused can now be tried as adults for heinous crimes. The act lowering culpable age
from 18 years to 16 years was passed in the winter session by the Rajya Sabha and received
presidential assent on 31 December 2015. It repeals the Juvenile Justice Act 2000. Under Section 15
of the new law, special provisions have been made to tackle child offenders in the age group of 16-18
years who commit heinous crimes. The Juvenile Justice Board is given the option to transfer cases of
heinous offences by such children to a childrens court (court of sessions) after conducting

Weekly Legal Updates February Week 1

preliminary assessment.
The act provides for placing such offender children in a place of safety both during and after the
trial till they attain the age of 21, after which his/her evaluation shall be conducted by the childrens
court. After the evaluation, the child is either released on probation and if not reformed, he/she will
be sent to a jail for the remaining term.
8. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said patent fees for start-ups will be cut by 80 per cent to support and
protect intellectual property rights of new entrepreneurs. He stressed that Indias future lies in
innovation and creativity. Newcomers should get equal opportunities. He also said start-ups will be
helped through facilitation centres by lawyers to file patents without any charges. Delays in patent
approvals, he added, need to be reduced. Modi rued that India was lagging behind in IPR stating We
have enough youth property (YP), but we dont have enough intellectual property (IP).
9. D Prabhakar Rao, a judge, who was an accused in the cash-for bail scam involving former
Karnataka minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, died under suspicious circumstances.He was found dead
at his residence in in Secunderabad. Family members said he died of cardiac arrest. Police have
registered a case under suspicious circumstances and were investigating if it is suicide or a natural
death.
He was arrested in the sensational case in 2012 and was later released on bail. He had reportedly told
his friends that he was falsely implicated in the case.
10. Several instances of mobs assaulting men accused of rape, murder and other heinous crimes within
the court complexes in Manipur have left many worried over this extra-constitutional phenomenon.
Even the judiciary and legal fraternity, apart from a section of society, have expressed unhappiness
over the government silence or inaction on the disturbing happenings.
Whenever a murder or rape incident is reported, a joint action committee of members of the public is
formed and houses and properties of the accused torched even though the accusations are still to
withstand judicial scrutiny.

Weekly Legal Updates February Week 1

Besides, the families of the accused who have nothing to do with the crime are banished from the
locality. Police and jail staff responsible for presenting an accused in a court of law are left to tackle
violent mobs in the absence of adequate security.