KOLLAM l Thursday l march 16, 2023 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Bar Council allows entry of foreign lawyers, firms in India The pathbreaking decision comes with the caveat that foreign lawyers and law firms can practise only in certain areas such as int’l law No permission to appear in Indian courts Foreign lawyers and firms will, however, not be allowed to appear in Indian courts and tribunals, says the Bar Council of India Rules for Registration and Regulation of Foreign Lawyers and Foreign Law Firms in India. They can practise legal work related to joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property matters, drafting of contracts etc on a reciprocal basis BCI BCI registration must for practice ■ According to the new rules, foreign lawyers and firms can’t practise law in India without registering with the BCI. The registration fee for a foreign lawyer is $25,000, while it is $50,000 for a foreign law firm ■ No registration is required for law practice by foreign lawyers or law firms giving advice to clients in India on ‘fly in and fly out’ basis is a statutory body that regulates the legal practice and education in India CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI March of 18 Oppn parties to ED office blocked PR E E THA N AIR @ New Delhi THE face-off between the Opposition and the government escalated on Wednesday after a march organised by 18 Opposition parties demanding a probe into the Adani row was called off after Delhi police blocked the roads. At least 200 MPs from several Opposition parties took part in the march, which started from Parliament House. They were stopped at Vijay Chowk, following which the members called off the march and returned to Parliament. Leader of Opposition in the Ra- Brahmapuram Expert panel to dig up whys & wherefores of the blaze E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @T’Puram Thirteen days after a fire broke out at the Brahmapuram waste treatment plant, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday announced the setting up of a committee of experts to conduct a detailed probe into the reasons of the blaze and to suggest measures to avoid a repeat of such incidents. In a statement made under Rule 300 in the assembly the , chief minister said the criminal case registered in connection with the fire that broke out on March 2 will be probed by a special investigation team. The vigilance and anti-corruption bureau will also conduct a probe into the activities of the plant. The chief minister said the fire was put out completely on March 13. No serious health problems have been reported among the people following the fire and the toxic fumes that surrounded the area. He said 1,335 people had sought treatment in hospitals of which 128 were below 10 years of age and 262 were above 60 years. Around 21 people had to be admitted as in-patients after they developed uneasiness following the fire and ● More on P4 smoke.  Senate to vote on Eric as US envoy to India E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e The US Senate will vote on the nomination of Eric Garcetti as its next ambassador to India on late on Wednesday night (Indian time). The position has been vacant ever since Kenneth Juster stepped down as the US envoy in India in January 2021 after the Biden administration entered W h i t e House. L a s t week, the Senate Foreign Eric Garcetti Relations Committee had voted 13-8 in favour of Garcetti’s nomination. The process initiated by Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer in the 100-member House came amidst a fresh round of campaign against Garcetti, who is facing charges of inaction in a case of sexual assault by one of his staffers when he was the mayor of Los Angeles. jya Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge, who led the march, said the government is trying to suppress the voice of the Opposition inside and outside Parliament. “They have deployed over 2,000 police personnel and we are only 200 people. We are doing a peaceful protest and not harming anyone. We are only requesting them to allow us to go TMC missing in action The Trinamool Congress was not among the list of signatories of the letter. The Mamata Banerjee-led party did not attend the march either to the ED office and submit our letter to ED. We want an inquiry into the Hindenburg finding and the exposure of LIC and SBI to Adani group. We want to know why the government is helping Adani,” said Kharge. Though the MPs requested the police to allow them to meet the ED director in small groups, the police did not relent. “We were told that the ED director did not want to meet us,” said Pramod Tiwari, Congress deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha. Later, Kharge emailed the complaint to the ED director, in which he, along with several opposition MPs, demanded a thorough probe into the report of New York-based Hindenburg Research, which accused Adani group of stock-price manipulation and fraud. Reminding the ED that it cannot turn around and abdicate its jurisdiction, the letter said: “Charges related to accounting fraud, the dubious nature of how the FollowOn Public Offer was manipulated behind the scenes, the shocking similarity with Adani’s previous actions for which they have been investigated by your predecessors, are all available in the public domain.” Ruckus after Oppn takes protest to speaker’s office E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @T’Puram A tense situation prevailed in the assembly on Wednesday after the Opposition, in an unprecedented move, took its protest in the house to Speaker A N Shamseer’s office situated inside the assembly complex. Opposition MLAs nearly came to blows with a few legislators of the ruling front who also rushed to the speaker’s office. Soon, a scuffle broke out between UDF MLAs and the assembly’s security staff who tried to remove them from the spot. As soon as the Opposition MLAs marched to the speaker’s office, they were restrained by the security personnel. Some of the MLAs were forcibly carried away as they tried to sit in front of the office shouting slogans. UDF MLAs alleged that CPM legislators H Salam and K M Sachin Dev, who were present at the spot, tried to attack them. express read Arunachal integral part of India: US Washington: The US on Tuesday recognised the McMahon Line as the international boundary between India’s Arunachal Pradesh and China, and rejected Beijing’s claim over the Indian state H-1B workers’ grace period extension The scuffle between UDF MLAs and the watch and ward in front of the speaker’s office in assembly on Wednesday | Express Congress MLA T J Saneesh Kumar Joseph, who became unconscious in the melee, was rushed to hospital. The Opposition alleged that MLAs Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan and K K Rema were among those manhandled by the security staff. While the UDF said five of their MLAs were injured in the attack, eight assembly watch and ward, including the deputy chief marshal, and five women personnel sought treatment follow● More on P4 ing the scuffle.  6 MLAs petition speaker Six UDF MLAs — Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, K K Rema, Uma Thomas, Saneesh Kumar Joseph, T V Ibrahim and A K M Ashraf — have petitioned speaker demanding action against the watch and ward Washington: A sub-panel of the US president has recommended that the grace period for retrenched H-1B workers to find a new job be extended from 60 days to 180 days Guv can’t precipitate govt fall, observes CJI Questions directing Uddhav Thackeray to take trust vote S h r u t i K a kk a r @ New Delhi The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Maharashtra governor’s role in directing the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to take a trust vote following rebellion by the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena, saying it had precipitated the situation. Orally observing it would be a sad spectacle for democracy, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said, “The only thing is that a resolution of 34 MLAs which said that there was widespread discontent among the party cadres and legislators....Is this sufficient ground to call a trust vote?” The governor, he said, cannot enter a domain that would precipitate the matter. “People will start ditching the ruling party and governors being willing allies would end up toppling the ruling party This will be a sad . spectacle for democracy .” Trust vote, he said, is to establish who is the leader of the House and not who is the leader of a party Referring to allega. tions that the rebel MLAs were facing threats to their life and property the CJI said the proc, ess is to lodge FIRs, not bring down a government. Pointing out that there were no ideological differences between the factions for three years, the CJI said, “They broke bread for three years. They broke bread with the Congress and NCP for three years. What happened overnight after three years of happy marriage?” The bench made the observations after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the then governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, said there were various materials before the governor, including a letter signed by 34 Shiv Sena MLAs and a letter from Independent lawmakers withdrawing support to the Uddhav Thackeray government, which prompted him to order a trust vote. The CJI said the governor could not assume to himself judicial power and come to the conclusion that the 34 MLAs would have to be excluded from consideration because they had incurred a disqualification under the tenth schedule. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Thackeray faction, said: “We’re back to ‘Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram’.” Bhagat Singh Koshyari Use powers judiciously, says CJI “The governor must be conscious of the fact that his calling for a trust vote may itself be a circumstance which may lead to toppling of a government... A governor may actually precipitate the falling of government. That is very, very serious for democracy... Governors must exercise these powers with the greatest circumspection,” the CJI remarked