Amanda Knox Acquitted of Murder Charge

Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito who had undergone four years imprisonment for murdering British student Meredith Kercher was acquitted by the Italian Appeal Court on 3rd October 2011. Kercher’s was found dead in her apartment that she shared with Knox with more than 40 wounds and a deep cut in the throat. All vital evidence used in the original trial to convict Knox and Sollecito was false and manipulated and this had been realised in the appeal trial that had gripped attention on both sides of the Atlantic. The verdict had brought a great humiliation to the Italian Justice system. Though there are chances that prosecutors may formally appeal to Italian Supreme Court, Knox will never be extradited back to Italy as the case is in effect over. But the conviction against Knox for defamation was upheld as she had falsely accused another person Patrick Lumumba of the murder. She was given three years imprisonment for this offence which she had already served.

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2G Scam-Letter Rogatory sent by CBI to Switzerland to probe Swan Beneficiary

The CBI on Monday had sent a Letter Rogatory to Switzerland for investigating the background of Mavi Investment Fund out of which a payment of four million dollars is allegedly made to Reliance. This measure is adopted as part of probing the real beneficiaries behind grant of 2G license to Swan Telecom. An approval had been previously obtained from Home Ministry to file Letter Rogatory and on September 14, a Letter Rogatory was issued by a special court which was afterwards translated into French language. Under Mutual Legal Assistance treaty with Switzerland, the translation is a prerequisite. In an affidavit to Supreme Court the CBI assured that besides sending its own team to Switzerland to get early response, the agency will pursue the matter with the assistance of Liaison Officer in Swiss Embassy. A letter of Rogatory is a letter of request by a court to a foreign court requesting its judicial assistance like taking of evidence, service of process etc.

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Non Legal Practitioners can represent Consumers before Fora – Supreme Court

A   three- Judge bench of the SC in a recent ruling said that that the privilege of advocates to represent the consumer in the District, state and national Fora is not a matter of right. It was for the court to carefully discern and articulate the legislative intent of an act.  . The legislature conferred this permission to authorised agents as most of the cases in consumer forums being petty litigation’s sans legal intricacies, involving poor litigants who cannot afford heavy professional fees to advocates. In the appeals filed by G.Venkatachalam  and Bar council of India  against  a Bombay High Court Judgment, the basic issue considered was ‘ Whether  a person under the cover of being an “ agent”  could represent a large number of parties before the forums there by frustrating objects embodied in The Advocate’s Act.?’

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Anil Ambani not yet cleared of Allegation in 2G Spectrum Case

The CBI representative on Sunday clarified that investigation on the role of Anil Ambani in 2G spectrum case is still in progress. The CBI on the status report submitted to Supreme Court on September 29 had submitted that so far it could not obtain any oral or documentary evidence against Ambani so as to incriminate him “in the structuring of different companies and transfer of funds relating to Swan Telecom Company which had got Spectrum license”. The statement was made in response to a note by the petitioner Prashanth Bhushan that questioned the fairness of the investigation. Bhushan alleged that it is difficult for three employees to form a network of companies so as to mask the real ownership of Swan and to take 1000 crore of money without the consent of the Chairman of the Board. At the time of applications to the DoT for UAS licenses, Tiger Traders (91.1%) and Reliance Telecom (9.1%) were the share holders of Swan Telecom. Anil Ambani and his wife were the original promoters of AAA consultancy Services which had contributed small amount of funds towards Tiger Traders. But their shareholding of these companies was transferred a year prior to the application to DoT. The CBI is still in the stage of collecting evidence on “the role of Ambani and other employees in relation to share interest in the Swan Telecom” that was sold to Mauritius-based Delphi. According to CBI the shares sold to Delphi were undervalued. Meanwhile the Reliance ADA group on Friday clarified they had no beneficial interest in the 2G license and the share interest in Swan Telecom was sold months before the license was granted to Swan Telecom.

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Sanjiv Bhatt sent on judicial custody

The Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt had been sent to judicial custody on Saturday by the Ahmedabad rural court. The police had asked for the custody of Sanjiv Bhatt for 7 days but the court decided that he shall be sent on judicial custody for 15 days. The Court had taken the view that police remand is unnecessary as what the police were looking for is already on the files of Gujarat High Court and Supreme Court. The court is expected to hear the bail application on Monday.  Most of the charges issued against Bhatt are billable. He was charged for causing wrongful restraint and confinement under Section 341 and 342 respectively, for giving fabricating under section 195 and for threat of injury to public servant under Section 189.

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J P Morgan and Bank of America hit with legal suits

A legal suit had been initiated against J.P.Morgan and Bank of America by Sealink Funding Ltd over the mortgage debt loses. The plaintiff said it had bought residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) worth USD 2.4 billion from JPMorgan and USD 1.6 billion from Bank of America from 2005 to 2007, trusting upon the offering materials that were deceptive about the quality of the securitised loans. The defendants in order to secure a triple A reward for its RMBS had deliberately provided false information to the credit rating agencies. Similar claims had been raised by Germany’s Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg in a separate lawsuit against JPMorgan over USD 500 million of RMBS that it bought. The lawsuits accused the banks for packaging several high risked mortgages by the issuers with the motive of high profits. This had in turn resulted in higher rates of default on the loans underlying the defendants’ RMBS and immense downgrades of the investors’ certificates. The investors through the lawsuits filed on Thursday in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan sought Compensatory and castigatory damages. Lawrence Grayson, spokesman for Bank of America said that the bank will proceed with the action of defence against the lawsuit which was just another one initiated by a “sophisticated investor”  for the purpose of blaming someone for losses caused by economic recession. JPMorgan spokeswoman Jennifer Zuccarelli refused to remark.

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Alabama Immigration law approved by the District Court

The judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn of Federal District Court in Birmingham on Wednesday upheld most of the provisions of new immigration law of Alabama including the public school enrollment. This gives the authorities the power to question the people suspected to have made illegal entry in the country and hold them without bond. By this ruling Alabama has turn out the first state in the nation to require public schools to check the immigration status of students when they enroll. Those who favour the law argue that the law helps to keep a track of the illegal immigrant students in the nations and calculate the costs spend on their education and will no way obstruct the enrollment in schools. But the opponents argue that the law when taken in its broader perspective deprive many innocent children from their constitutional right of education in case they do not have sufficient documents with them. Civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups are soon to go for an appeal whereas the Obama administration on Friday went for an appeal against this ruling on the ground that immigration is a federal matter under U.S. Constitution and state has no authority to make patchwork on that subject.

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Supreme Court allows export of Endosulfan

endosulfanTaking into consideration the contractual obligations of the manufacturers of Endosulfan Supreme Court on September 30th Friday has allowed the export of 1090.596 tonnes of endosulfan. The ban imposed on the production of the pesticide  will continue  as the same is not taken away by this order. A three judge bench comprising Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices K.S.Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar  issued this direction after  examining the report by an expert committee which indicated an export order for 1734 tonnes of endosulfan ‘technical’ and ‘292.5 KL of formulation’,  that the manufactures were holding. The Court instructed that enough precaution had to be taken in packaging the banned pesticides for its safe export and directed the customs, Insecticide Board and excise authorities to monitor the packaging and transport of the consignment to the concerned ports.

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