May10th 2012

ALB20120505

Abhyaas Law Bulletin

For the quintessential CLAT aspirant
The Scoop Of The Month The Editors Column Dear Student, Welcome to the May edition of the Abhyaas Law Bulletin. The Supreme court by a majority verdict upheld the constitutional validity of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. This is a very important step in ensuring the right to education for every child in the country. The Supreme court also upheld the Election Commissions criteria of recognizing regional parties. The Supreme court refused to review its verdict in the 2G case while rejecting the governments review petition. The Supreme Court granted bail to Pakistani microbiologist Mohammad Khalil Chisti, undergoing life imprisonment in the Ajmer jail in a murder case. He is permitted to go to Pakistan. The countrys first ever 4G services were launched in Kolkata by Airtel. The cabinet also decided to infuse additional funds into the airline to the tune of Rs. 30,000 crore till 2020 . Deputy chairman of Planning Commission, Mr Montek Singh told that Tea would be recognized as a national drink by next year. Happy Reading !

Supreme court upholds RTE act

The Supreme Court by a majority of 2:1 upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which provides for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and mandates government/aided/and non-minority unaided schools to reserve 25 per cent of the seats for these children. A Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar while upholding the law, however, held that it would not be applicable to unaided minority schools. Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, gave a dissenting judgment. The majority judgment said: We hold that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is constitutionally valid and shall apply to a school established, owned or controlled by the appropriate Government or a local authority; an aided school including aided minority school(s) receiving aid or grants to meet whole or part of its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority; a school belonging to specified category; and an unaided non-minority school not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority.
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(Rakesh Dubudu) Index: Page 2: National Page 3: National Page 4: Spotlight

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May10th 2012 National: The CJI who wrote the judgment said: It will operate from today. In other words, this will apply from the academic year 2012-13. However, admissions given by unaided minority schools prior to the pronouncement of this judgment shall not be reopened. By judicial decisions, right to education has been read into right to life in Article 21. A child who is denied right to access education is not only deprived of his right to live with dignity, he is also deprived of his right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined in Article 19(1) (a). The 2009 Act seeks to remove all those barriers including financial and psychological barriers which a child belonging to the weaker section and disadvantaged group has to face while seeking admission. The Bench said: It is true that, as held in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation as well as the P.A. Inamdar judgments, the right to establish and administer an educational institution is a fundamental right, as long as the activity remains charitable under Article 19(1) (g). However, in the said two decisions the correlation between Articles 21 and 21A, on the one hand, and Article 19(1) (g), on the other, was not under consideration. Further, the content of Article 21A flows from Article 45 (as it then stood). The 2009 Act has been enacted to give effect to Article 21A. For the above reasons, since the Article 19(1) (g) right is not an absolute right as Article 30(1), the 2009 Act cannot be termed as unreasonable. Nod for Public Procurement Bill In yet another bid to usher in transparency and tackle corruption in state purchases, the Union Cabinet approved a Bill which seeks to regulate public procurement worth more than Rs 50 lakh so as to provide fair treatment to bidders. Briefing the media after the Cabinet meeting, HRD and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said: The Bill is exceptionally important as it is part of our commitment to deal with the issue of corruption. Part of our commitment is to ensure that in government functioning, there is both accountability and transparency. The Public Procurement Bill, 2012, which would not apply to purchases below Rs. 50 lakh and is likely to be introduced in the current session of Parliament, seeks to codify the fundamental principles in procurement and maximise competition. BJP sweeps Delhi polls trouncing Congress Fighting both anti-incumbency and infighting, the Bharatiya Janata Party emerged triumphant in the elections to the newly trifurcated Municipal Corporation of Delhi, winning a majority of seats in the North and East Corporations. It also emerged the leader in the South Corporation, bagging 44 of the 104 wards, but fell short of the majority mark. In all, the BJP -- which had won 164 seats in the 2007 MCD elections -- bagged 138 of the 272 wards for which elections were held this past Sunday. The Congress ended up a distant second with 77 seats a slight improvement over the 67 it got in 2007 of which it got 29 each in South and North and 19 in the East. The Bahujan Samaj Party, which had secured 17 seats in 2007, showed that it still retains control over its traditional vote bank, winning 15 wards seven in North, five in South and three in East. While Independents bagged 24 wards, the Nationalist Congress Party won six, Rashtriya Lok Dal five, Indian National Lok Dal three, Samajwadi Party two and the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Jan Shakti Party one each.

The Bench said: To put an obligation on the unaided non-minority school to admit 25 per cent children in class I under Section 12(1) (c) cannot be termed as an unreasonable restriction. Such a law cannot be said to transgress any constitutional limitation. The object of the 2009 Act is to remove the barriers faced by a child who seeks admission to class I and not to restrict the freedom under Article 19(1) (g). From the scheme of Article 21A and the 2009 Act, it is clear that the primary obligation is of the State to provide for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and, particularly, to children who are likely to be prevented from pursuing and completing the elementary education due to inability to afford fees or charges.

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May10th 2012 Supreme Court upholds Election Commission criteria for recognition of political parties The Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission rule mandating a State political party to garner at least six per cent of votes in an Assembly election and win at least two seats for getting recognition. By a majority 2-1 verdict, a three-judge bench said the benchmark laid down by the Commission is not unreasonable and dismissed a bunch of petitions filed by various unrecognised political parties in several States. The Election Commission has set down a benchmark which is not unreasonable. In order to gain recognition as a political party, a party has to prove itself and to establish its credibility as a serious player in the political arena of the State. Once it succeeds in doing so, it will become entitled to all the benefits of recognition, including the allotment of a common symbol, said the majority verdict of Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice S. S. Nijjar. Justice Jasti Chelameswar, however, disagreed and gave a dissenting verdict saying that there is no rational nexus between the classification of recognised and unrecognised political parties. In my opinion, this Court failed to appreciate that in a democratic setup, while the majorities rule, minorities are entitled to protection. Otherwise the mandate of Article 14 would be meaningless. If democracies are all about only numbers, Hitler was a great democrat, Justice Chelameswar remarked. The Bench passed the order on the plea of various political parties including the then Praja Rajyam Party, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam which had approached the Court in 2008 challenging the Election Commission's symbol order. Credit system at NALSAR University from next year Courses at the NALSAR University of Law are set to become more dynamic from the next academic year with the introduction of credit system in tune with the western varsities apart from offering a wide range of optional subjects. NALSAR Vice Chancellor Faizan Mustafa told that courses would be converted into credits so that students can have a choice of pursuing their courses not only at NALSAR but also at the 23 foreign universities it has tie-ups with. Each credit will be equivalent to 16 classes and the entire course will comprise 200 credits. Agni-V propels India into elite ICBM club India propelled itself into an elite club of nations with Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) technology by successfully test-firing nuclearcapable Agni-V, which covered a range of more than 5,000 km. The significance of the success lies in the fact that Agni-V is the most formidable missile in India's arsenal, with the longest range. With this grand success, India joins the U.S., Russia, France and China, which have ICBM capability. With India's policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, Agni-V will provide the country with depth in deterrence. In a flawless mission, Agni-V, painted in white and black with an orange ribbon across, lifted off majestically from a rail mobile launcher at 8.04 a.m. from the Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast. After a 20-minute flight, the missile's nosecone carrying a dummy payload impacted near the pre-designated target area with an accuracy of few metres between Australia and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. After the lift-off, it cut a ballistic path across the sky reaching a height of 600 km, before rapidly descending. The mission was so smooth that the missile's three stages ignited on time and decoupled with clockwork precision before the reentry vehicle was injected into the atmosphere at an altitude of 100 km with a velocity of 6,000 metres per second. The re-entry vehicle withstood scorching temperatures of about 3,000 degree Celsius as it sliced into the atmosphere at a remarkably accurate angle. PIR, BigRock join hands to hardsell .ORG

Public Interest Registry (PIR), the international registry and manager of .ORG domain names worldwide, and BigRock, a leading provider of web infrastructure solutions, have announced a strategic marketing alliance to boost adoption of .ORG as the preferred domain name for businesses in India. As a part of their joint initiative, BigRock and PIR have outlined an aggressive campaign that entails television commercials (TVCs), extensive digital outreach, and customized .ORG website packages. The fully-loaded website package will include a .ORG domain name, email hosting, and web hosting

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May10th 2012

This month in pictures:

Vidya Balan & Sharukh Khan will come together to act as brand ambassadors to fight open defecation, propagate sanitation

Odisha MLA Jhina Hikaka, kidnapped by Maoists more than a month ago, was released

A Special CBI Court sentenced former BJP president Bangaru Laxman, who has been convicted of corruption charges, to fouryear rigorous imprisonment

Justice Dalveer Bhandari of the Supreme Court was elected to the post of Judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla was sworn in as Supreme Court judge

Spotlight: Chanakya National Law University (CNLU), Patna

Ratan Kumar Sinha, Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, took over as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission

CNLU is located in the ancient city of Patna, capital of Bihar, India. It was established under the Chanakya National Law University Act, 2006 (Bihar Act No. 24 of 2006) and included in section 2(f) of the U.G.C. Act, 1956. Admission to the B.A.LL.B. (Hons.) Programme is made strictly on the basis of merit as assessed through a Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). The total number of seats is 140 (Out of a maximum of 140 seats 20 seats are meant for Foreign Nationals/NRI's/NRI Sponsored.). Other than the undergraduate program, CNLU also offers LLM as well as Post Graduate Diplomas in fields ranging from, Cyber Law & ADR to Intellectual Property Law. The University aims at providing quality legal education and promoting legal awareness in the community at large in order to realise some of the goals envisaged in our Constitution. CNLUs aim is to evolve and impart comprehensive legal education at all levels to achieve excellence, which can only be done through active learning through teacher-student interaction and internal and continuous assessment of students. The college has shown strong Potential by being one of those colleges with tremendous growth in terms of Infrastructure etc. The students of CNLU have access to many of the online law journals. Many activities take place on the campus including moot courts. The university boasts of a well equipped library with a huge collection of books.

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