Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
In a move that could potentially change the landscape of legal practice in the country, the Bar Council of India (BCI) has allowed foreign lawyers and law firms to practise in India. Although they cannot appear in court, they can advise clients on foreign law and work on corporate transactions.
The BCI notified in the official gazette the Rules for Registration and Regulation of Foreign Lawyers and Foreign Law Firms in India, 2022.
The BCI is a statutory body established under the Advocates Act, 1961, and it regulates legal practice and legal education in India. For over a decade, BCI was opposed to allowing foreign law firms in India.
Now, the BCI has reasoned that its move will address concerns about the flow of Foreign Direct Investment in the country and make India a hub of International Commercial Arbitration. The rules bring legal clarity to foreign law firms that currently operate in a very limited way in India.
In a lengthy Statement of Objects and Reasons, the BCI said it “resolves to implement these Rules enabling the foreign lawyers and Foreign Law Firms to practise foreign law and diverse international law and international arbitration matters in India on the principle of reciprocity in a well defined, regulated and controlled manner.”
According to the Advocates Act, advocates enrolled with the Bar Council alone are entitled to practise law in India. All others, such as a litigant, can appear only with the permission of the court, authority or person before whom the proceedings are pending.
The notification essentially allows foreign lawyers and law firms to register with BCI to practise in India if they are entitled to practise law in their home countries. However, they cannot practise Indian law.
The foreign lawyers or foreign Law Firms shall not be permitted to appear before any courts, tribunals or other statutory or regulatory authorities.
In Parliament
Bill tabled for better running of tri-services organisation (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The government tabled a Bill in Lok Sabha to empower the Commander-in-Chief or the Officer-in-Command of Inter-services Organisations – such as the Andaman and Nicobar Command or the Strategic Forces Command and other tri services organisations – with disciplinary powers over personnel of any service under the command.
At present, the service personnel of Indian Air Force, Army and Navy are governed by the provisions of the Air Force Act, 1950, the Army Act, 1950 and the Navy Act, 1957, respectively.
Only officers of the respective services are empowered to exercise disciplinary powers over the service personnel under the respective service Acts under current norms and regulations.
This has a direct impact on the command, control and discipline-related issues in the inter-services organisations like the Andaman and Nicobar Command, the Defence Space Agency, and joint training establishment like National Defence Academy, the bill said.
Express Network
SCO meet: India invites Defence minister of Pak (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
India has invited Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting here in April alongside his counterparts from other member-nations of the grouping.
India is the current chair of the eight-nation SCO, and the invite to Asif came after New Delhi invited Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, for an SCO foreign ministerial conclave, to be held in Goa in May.
India has invited China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang for the conclave. Pakistan is yet to confirm whether the two ministers will attend the meetings.
Besides India, Pakistan and China, the other SCO member-countries are Russia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
If Asif attends the meeting in person, this will be a rare instance when a Pakistan Defence minister visits India. Military historian Mandeep Bajwa recalled that the last such meeting took place when Pakistan’s then President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto visited India and, together with then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, signed the Simla Agreement in July 1972. Bhutto at the time held multiple portfolios, including Defence and Foreign Affairs.
Other than that, there has been no such opportunity earlier for a Pakistan Defence minister to visit India, as he has little say in military affairs of Pakistan”. “For the same reason, a political heavyweight usually never holds the Defence portfolio in Pakistan.
Editorial
Beijing plays peace maker (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC) was in session in Beijing, when news broke on March 9 that China had successfully brokered a peace accord between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have long been implacable adversaries in the region of West Asia.
The optics were as important as the accord itself. The national security advisors (NSA) of Iran and Saudi Arabia had reached agreement in confidential talks held in Beijing, with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi playing the role of mediator and facilitator.
The picture released marking the occasion showed the two NSAs flanking a beaming Wang. This conjured up images of the Oslo Accord of 1993, when then US President Bill Clinton was similarly flanked by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after signing a peace deal.
That a long-standing ally of the US — Saudi Arabia — was accepting and acknowledging publicly the mediatory role of China, which is locked in a sharpening, all-round confrontation with the US, cannot be regarded as anything less than a major diplomatic setback for Washington.
The New York Times noted: “This is among the topsiest and turviest of developments anyone could have imagined, a shift that led heads spinning in capitals around the globe.”
Village by the border (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Infrastructure)
I come from the border state of Uttarakhand. Before 2014, whenever I used to visit remote villages in the border districts like Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar and Champawat, I used to shudder upon witnessing mass exodus from villages bordering China.
People living in these remote villages have always acted as an important source to report the Chinese army’s suspicious activities along our borders.
This phenomenon is not just confined to the border districts of Uttarakhand, other Himalayan states in the Northeast also faced similar challenges. Unfortunately, the UPA government’s policy to shy away from developing our border areas cost us dearly.
Since this issue is related to our national security, Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded to it in earnest. He not only focused his government’s attention towards developing infrastructure in the border areas, he also conceived the Vibrant Village Programme, which focuses on the development of our border villages.
This will be a milestone in the development of border villages and the progress of the Himalayan states. BJP cadre are committed to making this highly innovative programme a grand success.
Ideas Page
Towards e- justice (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
There’s a sucker born every minute. This aphorism is an eternal truth, though its antecedents are obscure. (P T Barnum, the showman, may have been adept in the practice, but there is no evidence he said it, despite the attribution.) In a recent scam, 28 men from Tamil Nadu succumbed to temptation.
On paying exorbitant sums, they were promised assorted jobs in Indian Railways and were subjected to fake training for a month.
This training consisted of being stationed at New Delhi railway station, where they counted the number of trains that passed through different platforms.
Despite most being engineering graduates, they didn’t smell a rat and given the variable quality of engineering graduates, probably thought they were being tested for numeracy.
This bizarre scam is matched by one from Ludhiana. A person posed as the Central Commandant of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS).
Acting as CCTNS officials, he and other scamsters extracted money from gullible young men, who were issued fake IDs, promising them jobs as investigating officers in CCTNS. Cheating, forgery, impersonation and other crimes — one will now be able to search for the scamsters on CCTNS. CCTNS has been a work in progress for some time, with earlier initiatives like Crime and Criminals Information System (CCIS) and Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) as precursors. Among precursors, there are some state-specific initiatives too.
Upsetting a delicate balance (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Indian democracy and its constitutional ideals have been served well by the nation’s Supreme Court over the years. Its judgments have expanded the frontiers of human rights and deepened Indian democracy.
On some occasions, however, its decisions, although inspired by high purpose, have been criticised for their questionable logic and non-deference to the boundaries of judicial power.
The Court’s recent decision in Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India, popularly known as the Election Commission judgment, is with utmost deference to the Law Lords, a case in point.
The judgment holds that hereafter, and until such time as Parliament enacts a law contemplated under Article 324(2), appointments of the Chief Election Commissioner and election commissioners shall be made by the President on the advice of a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition of the Lok Sabha and in case no Leader of the Opposition is available, the Leader of the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha in terms of numerical strength, and the Chief Justice of India.
Explained
Pre-arrest bail (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court agreed to hear a petition filed by the Karnataka Lokayukta, a state body empowered to deal with corruption complaints against public servants, challenging a Karnataka High Court order granting pre-arrest bail to the BJP MLA Madal Virupakshappa, who was also serving as the chairman of the Public Sector Undertaking Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited (KSDL).
On March 6, Virupakshappa approached a civil court in Bengaluru and obtained a temporary injunction against defamatory media reporting in the corruption case against 45 media outlets.
A day later, the MLA moved the Karnataka High Court for the grant of anticipatory or pre-arrest bail, which was allowed by Justice K Natarajan subject to the MLA cooperating with the investigation
Thereafter, the Karnataka Lokayukta filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Karnataka High Court’s decision to grant Virupakshappa pre-arrest bail.
Black’s Law Dictionary describes ‘bail’ as procuring “the release of a person from legal custody, by undertaking that he shall appear at the time and place designated and submit himself to the jurisdiction and judgment of the court.”
Banks that are too big to fail (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India remained a safe haven during the global financial crisis triggered by the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008, with domestic banks, backed by sound regulatory practices, showing strength and resilience.
A decade and a half on, Indian banks remained unaffected by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank in the US last week, despite the global interconnectedness in the financial sector.
A reason why an SVB-like failure is unlikely in India is that domestic banks have a different balance sheet structure. In India we don’t have a system where deposits are withdrawn in such bulk quantities.
According to this banker, household savings constitute a major part of bank deposits in India — this is different from the US, where a large portion of bank deposits are from corporates.
A large chunk of Indian deposits is with public sector banks, and most of the rest is with very strong private sector lenders such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank.
Customers need not worry about their savings, the banker said, adding the government has always stepped in when banks have faced difficulties.
In banking, confidence is important. You don’t need any capital if the trust is 100 per cent, and no amount of capital will save you if the trust is lost.
Rajnish Kumar, former chairman of the State Bank of India (SBI), “In India, the approach of the regulator has generally been that depositors’ money should be protected at any cost. The best example is the rescue of Yes Bank where a lot of liquidity support was provided.”
World
Holding joint naval exercises with Russia, Iran this week says China (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Naval forces from China, Iran and Russia — all countries at varying degrees of odds with the United States — are staging joint drills in the Gulf of Oman this week, China’s Defence Ministry has announced.
Other countries are also taking part in the “Security Bond-2023” exercises, the ministry said Tuesday without giving details. Iran, Pakistan, Oman and the United Arab Emirates all have coastline along the waterbody lying at the mouth of the strategic Persian Gulf.
This exercise will help deepen practical cooperation between the participating countries’ navies … and inject positive energy into regional peace and stability.
The exercises scheduled for Wednesday through Sunday come amid heightened tensions between the US and China over a range of issues, including China’s refusal to criticise Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine and continuing support for the Russian economy.
The US and its allies have condemned the invasion, imposed punishing economic sanctions on Russia and supplied Ukraine with defensive arms.
Iran and the US have been adversaries since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and the taking of US diplomats as hostages.
China has dispatched the guided missile destroyer Nanning to take part in the drills centered on search and rescue at sea and other non-combat missions.