PROFESSOR Shamnad Basheer joined the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata, in November 2008 as the first Ministry of Human Resource Development Chaired Professor in Intellectual Property Law. Before this, he was Frank H. Marks Visiting Associate Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the George Washington University law school and a research associate at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre (OIPRC).  He is the founder of several initiatives, including...

In what the CBI says could be the “tip of an iceberg”, the agency has found at least 1,100 cases of allegedly fraudulent refund checks issued by the Income Tax department that has resulted in the illegal withdrawal of more than Rs 6 crore over the last three months. The CBI has arrested two persons, including an accountant: Pankaj Kumar Gupta and Amit Kumar Sharma. Both, allegedly in league with IT...

Inaccuracy in reporting court proceedings has caused friction between the press and the legal community On the morning of 10 August 2011, senior lawyer Harish Salve looked upset as he entered Chief Justice of India (CJI) S.H. Kapadia’s courtroom, holding a newspaper that had published an article on a case he was arguing in the Supreme Court. Salve complained that the article in question, written by a journalist at news agency Press...

Despite the high-theatrics rollback of the Railway Budget, the government is confident of being able to push ahead with the reforms agenda. Despite the high-theatrics rollback of the Railway Budget, the government is confident of being able to push ahead with the reforms agenda. In an e-mailed post-Budget interview, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee took questions from Outlook’s Lola Nayar and Sebastian P.T. Edited excerpts: The government has managed to get UPA...

The Supreme Court dismissed the government’s review petition in the Vodafone tax case on Tuesday, affirming its January ruling that put overseas transfers of shares outside the Indian tax net. The review petition and last week’s budget proposals seeking retrospective changes have revived the uncertainty over tax laws, according to government officials, the Planning Commission and businesses. If Parliament passes the budget in its current form, the judgement in the Vodafone case...