Architecture

• The Municipal Corporation of Delhi launched a website dedicated to the Jama Masjid precinct redevelopment plan to make the whole process transparent and informative. (ToI)

Drugs and Alcohol

• The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertising and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 prohibits the sale of tobacco and other such products near educational institutions. However, the Maharashtra Government plans to crack down on all hookah joints in public interest. (DNA)

Education

• The Karnataka Government found that a State Government cannot decide on what the medium of education in a private school should be. (Merinews)

Employment

• The Delhi High Court held that an employee can be dismissed for acting beyond his authority as it amounts to breach of discipline and misconduct in a case involving Chaman Lal, an SBI Branch Manager. (Trade Matters)

• The Armed Forces Tribunal which is to ‘adjudicate disputes and complaints of armed forces officers and personnel relating to appointments, conditions of service and punishments handed down by military courts’ is scheduled to begin functioning in August. Currently, the Supreme Court and the High Courts have the jurisdiction to hear these matters. (ThaiIndian)

• The Supreme Court has held that unexplained and inordinate delay in the initiation of disciplinary action against a an employee is a ground for quashing the inquiry in a case involving Ranjeet Singh, clerk in the Haryana Health department. (The Hindu)
• The High Court of Madras held that both legitimate and illegitimate children are entitled to ‘compassionate appointments’ on the death of a parent. (ToI)

Environment and Wildlife

• The global maritime regulator, the International Maritime Organization, is working on a code for the ship recycling industry. Within the country, India has decided not to allow new ship-breaking yards to be built. (Livemint)

• The Supreme Court has reportedly ordered amusement parks and mini zoos in India to be derecognised if they are not sanctioned by the Central Zoo, New Delhi. The report seems incomplete. (The Statesman)

• The Bangalore Lake Development Authority has signed contracts with companies allowing them to take over the management of various like in the area. Permanent damage has been done to wildlife habitats as a result. (Tehelka)

• A Bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice V M Kanade directed the State government and the municipal corporation to provide a site for dumping bio-medical waste. Rules dealing with the disposal of such waste had come into force in 1998. (ToI)

• The Supreme Court has the power to denotify areas of wildlife sanctuaries. The Maharashtra Government wants it to use this power to limit the area of the Great Indian Bustard sanctuary in Amhadnagar and Solapur districts from the 8500 sq km proposed in 1985 to about 350 sq km. (Economic Times)

Family

• A Muslim girl can legally get married without parental consent after attaining puberty even if she is below the age of eighteen years since Muslim personal / religious law allows her to do so held a Bench of the Delhi High Court comprising Justices Vikramjit Sen and V K Shali in the case of a girl named Afsana. Her mother Nihal had claimed that her husband had kidnapped her. (Indian Express)

Food

• Just in case you were wondering, Pringles are not crisps. Or so a British tax court has ruled. (WSJ Law Blog)

Freedom

• In ‘Thou Shalt Not Annoy’, Rick Garnett says that local authorities in Sydney have enacted a new, temporary set of regulations that “will allow police to arrest and fine people for ‘causing annoyance’ to World Youth Day participants.” (PrawfsBlog)

• Justice Sikri of the Delhi High Court said that there was nothing unusual in the holding of the Gay Pride Parade (on June 29) and dismissed objections raised by anti-gay rights activists including B P Singhal of the RSS. (DNA)

Health

• A 2007 High Court ruling held that government hopitals in Delhi provide patients suffering from haemophilia with not only timely treatment but also with Anti-Hemophilic Factor free if they fell below the poverty line, and at 50 per cent to 80 per cent if they did not. However, this ruling does not seem to have been followed. (CNN IBN)

Inflation

• Why is it not surprising that Karsten Ottenberg, Giesecke & Devrient, the firm which hellped create hyper inflation in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s is now doing the same in Zimbabwe. (The Big Picture through WSJ)

Intellectual Property

• Suggesting that Tropical Law could be defined as “the branch of law that deals with clear legal provisions which are rarely, never, or sporadically employed, and other unusual legal problems that occur most often but not uniquely in tropical regions,” Richard N. Brown says that he is not aware of any Venezuelan court which has upheld a Venezuelan patent even though the country’s patent law is over 165 years old. (IP Tango)

• Manisha Nair mentions the jurisdictional issues the Supreme Court dealt with in the case of Laxman Prasad v. Prodigy Electronics Ltd. & Anr. [2008 (37) PTC 209 (SC)]. (Lex Orbis)

• The Delhi High Court passed an in Dabur India and Shree Baidyanath Ayurved Bhawan can use the words ‘sugar free’ in relation to their products. Cadila which produces the sugar substitute ‘Sugar Free’ had tried to stop them from doing so. (Business Standard)

Judiciary and Lawyers

• Puja Trivedi describes the evolution and current status of the eJudiciary in India (Indian Express)

• When Calcutta’s oldest lawyer, Peston Pedamji Jinwala, died at the age of 89, he asked that a holiday not be declared to mourn his death. In doing so, he may have broken a tradition in the Calcutta High Court which has more holidays than any other High Court. (Khaleej Times)

• An impromptu lawyers’ strike led to a man who works as a labourer arguing a case in the Madras High Court himself on behalf of his daughter. Their lawyer had told just just a short while before the hearing that he couldn’t argue on their behalf. (The Hindu)

Riots

• The background of the riots regarding land being given to the Amarnath Shrine. (The Hindu)
  Read about the law involved here.

The Realm of the Bizarre

• Not sure what death by misadventure is? One example is accidentally killing oneself by drinking too much water, as Andrew Thornton, 44, did. (Daily Mail)