The Delhi High Court on Tuesday allowed an application moved for early hearing of the plea challenging the prohibition on married law graduates from being considered for the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Department, the legal arm of the Indian Army.

The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh is seized of a plea filed by Advocate Kush Kalra challenging the “institutionalized discrimination” in restricting married individuals from being considered for the JAG.

The Bench, while listing the matter for final hearing on January 11, 2022, granted four weeks’ time to the Centre to file its response and two weeks’ thereafter to the petitioner to file a rejoinder.

JAG officers are legal and judicial chief of the Army and provide legal help in matters related to military, martial and international law. The instant petition has been filed through Advocate Charuwali Khanna questioning the basis for the alleged restriction, when marital status is not an eligibility criteria for “equally ranked” Judiciary and Indian Civil Services posts.

While asserting that the policy curtails the civilian’s right to marry after attaining the legal age, the plea prays for declaring as void the Special Army Instructions of 1992 and 2017 which disentitled married men and married women for seeking employment in the JAG Department of the Indian Army.

An earlier petition filed by Kalra in 2016 challenged the ineligibility of married women candidates to apply for JAG, while there was no such restriction on married male candidates, on the ground that the same is discriminatory to women candidates.

However, during the pendency of that petition, a fresh corrigendum was issued by the government in 2017, wherein married men were also barred from seeking employment in the JAG Department. The petition was thereafter withdrawn with a liberty to raise the challenge afresh.

By Kenneth Tiven in Washington

An underreported aspect of the pandemic in the United States is its negative impact on almost all aspects of the judicial system. Piecing together what is available for America’s state and local courts suggests as many as five million legal cases criminal and civil have been delayed by measures to fight the pandemic. If the wheels of justice move slowly but grind finely, as the expression goes, it has gotten much worse for people at every point in the system, from advocates to judges to prisoners as well as civil litigants seeking redress.

This is extrapolated from two counties in the state of South Carolina, with a combined population of 663,000 people. The backlog is reported to be 10,000 delayed cases. Numbers like this across the 50 states suggest five million civil and criminal cases in state courts. South Carolina is not the most litigious of the 50 states. At the federal court level, there has been a greatly expanded use of technology, including temporarily authorising the use of video and teleconferencing technologies. Having more access to funding than available at the state level, it has been possible to increase bandwidth and use the latest in video technology to run the courts while still giving the public and the media access to listen.

On a per capita basis, America has more people locked up than any other nation. At 655 prisoners per 100,000 people, it contrasts with India at 35 persons per 100,000. While some US prison populations have been slightly reduced to avoid the coronavirus, this country’s disparate systems of confinement hold almost 2.3 million people. Primarily in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, and 3,134 local jails, plus immigration and other facilities. The phrase “lock ’em up” heard on the 2020 campaign trail has a chilling reality when you consider that an estimated 20 percent of people incarcerated in the USA are just awaiting trial. This problem is compounded when many state and local courts are on reduced schedules or closed except for emergency matters.

The US Supreme Court has held sessions using remote video, with the building open for official business. Public access and visitor programmes have been suspended until further notice. But live audio of one of its cases has been allowed, causing a bit of a sensation in legal and political circles. Also in a state of suspension, if not confusion as well, is the situation around graduating law students expecting to get clerkships in courts. For students who were graduating in May and June of 2020 it was a big problem and remains as such for this year’s graduates.

DuPage County, a growing suburban county to the west of Chicago, Illinois, averaged 100 jury trials a year before the pandemic, but it held just 18 before closing its courthouse a year ago. This affected traffic court and other functions in the building as well. This month, it opened a 160-metre square courtroom specially designed for social distancing and remote hearings. Lesser courtrooms were also reconfigured. This was paid for largely with federal funding allocated to the county by the CARES Act, which was the first stimulus programme in 2020. Of the total $13 million received, $6 million was spent on the courtroom upgrades and changes to jury deliberation rooms and waiting areas.

However, the key to making the building suitable was $7 million spent to replace the courthouse’s heating and eventuating (HVAC) system with one that cleans air of viruses through UV light and bipolar ionisation.

Annually an estimated 1 million visit for various reasons, including small claims court, traffic tickets, adoptions, civil unions, family court and criminal proceedings. The chief judge remarked that jury trials in a safe space are essential so that everyone can see each other lawyers, defendants, witnesses, jurors “All of those things are essential to how this system works. We are now able to recreate that cornerstone with social distancing and a safe environment.”

Throughout the nation each state has done what it feels is best. For example, Arizona authorised judges to suspend local court rules and orders if needed, and many state courts are ramping up the use of virtual tools to conduct business. Other jurisdictions have excused people over 60 years old from jury duty. Courts have to balance public safety with the rights of individuals. In cases involving evictions and awaiting trial, for example, the need for relief is immediate.

—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels

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The Delhi High Court on Friday criticized the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) for not having a procedure in place for online mode of enrollment of law graduates during the Covid-19 epidemic.

A Single bench of Justice Navin Chawla was hearing petition filed by four law graduates from Bihar Abhishek Anand, Gaurav Kumar, Priya Ranjan and Anurag Yadav seeking an online process for enrollment in the Bar Council of Delhi.

The Petition claimed that the Bar Councils of several other states  like Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had started online enrollment of law graduates.

The Court observed that “When everything is going digital during the COVID-19 pandemic, how can we accept the argument that it might be difficult for BCD to go online” ?. The Court has adjourned the matter while giving the Council one week’s time to file a reply in the matter.

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Earlier, the High Court had asked the BCD to reply on the question of the process in place for online enrollment after hearing the Petitioners which states that in the event of their failure to enroll themselves with the Council they would not be eligible to sit for the All India Bar Examination.