BCI Member Rana denied Bail

Source : Indiareport

A Delhi court today dismissed the bail plea of Bar Council of India member Rajendra Singh Rana, arrested by the CBI for allegedly taking bribe for granting affiliation to a law college in Ghaziabad. Special CBI judge O P Saini rejected Rana's bail plea saying that"the probe is at its intial stage".

The CBI had on December 20 arrested Rana along with Manish Tyagi, one of the members of the advisory body of the law college. Rana was allegedly taking bribe of Rs one lakh from Tyagi for giving a favourable inspection report of the college, the agency had said.

The agency had also raided seven places in and around Delhi, including Rana's office and the college premises.

The CBI had said it had been monitoring Rana's telephone calls and had swooped on his Pitampura residence in north Delhi on December 20 evening when another advocate had arrived there with the file of the law college.

At the CBI headquarters, Rana had alleged that the agency was deliberately trying to trap him and that he was discussing the case with his fellow Supreme Court advocate.

N.D. Tiwari to Undergo DNA Test : Delhi High Court

N.D. Tiwari

Source : Times of India

Rejecting veteran Congress leader N D Tiwari's plea, the Delhi High Court today directed him to undergo a DNA test to ascertain the veracity of a young man's claim that he is his biological son. 

Justice S Ravindra Bhat said, "There is imminent need for him to give blood sample to conduct the scientific test." 

The court turned down the 85-year-old former Andhra Pradesh Governor's plea that he cannot be forced to undergo the DNA test, saying it is the right of a child to know his or her biological father. 

"...It is not in the interest of the child to be declared a bastard," the court said. 

Justice Bhat passed the order on a paternity suit filed by 31-year-old Rohit Shekhar, claiming to be biological son of Tiwari.

Delhi HC Reserves Judgment in Shivani Bhatnagar Murder Appeal

Source : Indlaw

The Delhi High Court has reserved its judgement on the appeal of former senior police officer R K Sharma (Pictured) and three others, who have been convicted to life imprisonment for killing journalist Shivani Bhatnagar more than 10 years ago. 

After conclusion of arguments from prosecution and defence counsels which were conducted in the High Court on a day-to-day basis, a bench comprising Justices BD Ahmed and Manmohan Singh reserved their judgement. 

Shivani, a journalist with the Indian Express, was murdered in her Navkunj Apartments flat at IP Extension in East Delhi on January 2, 1999. 

In March 2008, a Sessions court at Karkardooma had held the four accused -- former IPS officer RK Sharma, Sri Bhagwan, Pradeep Sharma and Satya Prakash -- guilty of her murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment in this connection. 

Sharma's counsel contended that he was falsely implicated in the case as there is lot of lacuna in the prosecution theory. There were several missing links, including the call records, in the chain of circumstances and the records were tampered with to implicate him. 

Government standing Counsel Pawan Sharma said since the prime accused was posted in the Prime Minister's Office when Shivani met him, any call record, if tampered with, could have been done on his behest. 

He also contended that Sharma was holding a high position in the police and had influenced the witnesses, as a result of which 43 prosecution witnesses turned hostile in the case. 

The prosecution also alleged that Sharma had provided certain classified documents to Shivani that led to her murder by the former officer as the journalist wanted to make the documents public.

BCI Suspends Inspections for Three Months

Source : Hindustan Times

Hit by a bribery scandal allegedly involving two of its key members - its Chennai-based vice-chairman Dhanpal Raj and member Rajinder Singh Rana -- the Bar Council of India (BCI) on Tuesday decided to suspend inspections of law colleges across the country for the next three months. This and some other drastic decisions came on a day when the CBI announced a recovery of Rs 75 lakh during the raids at the residence of Dhanpal Raj.

The BCI, the apex regulator for the legal profession and education in the country, in its emergency meeting on Tuesday night decided to form a three-member ombudsman body comprising top jurists to receive complaints from law colleges.

"The meeting passed a resolution to request eminent jurists Fali S Nariman, KK Venugopal and BV Acharya to be a part of the ombudsman panel to look into inspection-related complaints," BCI member Ashok Parija told HT.

"The meeting chaired by council chief Gopal Subramanium decided to keep a moratorium on fresh inspections for the grant of recognition to law colleges across the country for the next three months," Parija said.

BCI will now conduct inspections only after the formation of a specialised inspections committee with fresh rules.

The regulator is also likely to seek an external audit of all the inspections done by its members during the last five years and blacklist institutions offering any inducement. “The modalities are being worked out,” Parija said.

Also, the BCI is likely to remove both Dhanpal Raj and Rana from the legal education committee.

On Monday, the CBI had arrested Rana for accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh for a favourable inspection report to Ghaziabad-based Global Law College. It has also arrested another lawyer Manish Tyagi, a member of the advisory board of the Ghaziabad college. He was allegedly dealing with Rana. Rana and Tyagi have been remanded to CBI custody for two days.

The CBI has seized 52 files of other inspection cases of colleges from the BCI office.

A Delhi police inspector is also under the scanner for having removed evidence from Rana's residence.