By way of its order, the Court has appointed a forensic auditor to reconstruct the entire chain of dealings in the shares of Fortis Healthcare Limited (FHL) from May 24, 2016 onwards. Interestingly, FHL was not a party to the arbitration agreement, not a party to the award, not a judgment debtor and was not even a party to the assurances given to the Court by the judgement debtors - the Singh brothers and their holding companies. It is nevertheless the subject of the audit so directed, as are 17 banks and financial institutions.

How the Court justifies this is worth examining closely.

The direction for forensic audit, it holds, is "purely investigative in nature" and does not result "in the fastening of liability upon the entity whose affairs are directed to be examined". The characterisation is appealing: if the audit is only an enquiry, then no rights are affected and if no rights are affected, the stranger has nothing to complain about. That this enquiry may well pave the way for liability to be fastened later is a bridge the Court leaves for another day.

Except that the order does not quite confine itself to investigation. Because the brothers served as chairman and vice-chairman of FHL, the Court holds that they were “the heart, soul and brain” of the company and that their knowledge was the company’s knowledge. On this footing, the assurances given by the brothers to protect the decretal amount are sought to be read as extending beyond their personal shareholding to cover the entirety of the promoter group’s stake in FHL.

The Court’s predicament is not difficult to understand. A foreign award of considerable magnitude has remained substantially unsatisfied for close to a decade. Successive assurances given to the Court were breached by the brothers. The controlling stake in FHL was whittled down from over 70 per cent to less than 1 per cent while those assurances held. The Supreme Court has already found the brothers guilty of contempt. With no identifiable pool of assets in sight, the Court’s impulse to trace where the value has gone is entirely natural. The question is whether that impulse can, by itself, justify drawing a third party into execution proceedings.

The trouble lies in the reasoning that gets it there. The judgment reproduces, from Balwant Rai Saluja v. Air India Ltd, the six Ben Hashem principles, the first of which holds that ownership and control of a company are not enough to justify piercing. Yet, the nexus the Court relies upon to bring FHL within the ambit of the forensic audit is precisely ownership and control. Impropriety by FHL is not found; it is what the auditor is being asked to look for. The veil is pierced in order to justify the very enquiry that is meant to determine whether piercing is warranted. There is a circularity here that the order does not confront.

More unsettling still is what the Court leaves on the table. It records the doctrine of reverse corporate veil piercing - a doctrine under which the assets of a company may be treated as available for satisfaction of a decree against the individuals who controlled it. Whether the doctrine will ultimately be applied is left open, to be decided after the audit is in. But the mere articulation of the principle, in the context of a listed company that has since changed hands entirely, amounts to something close to a warning. It suggests that the assets of FHL, a company whose shares are now held by the investing public and whose management has no connection to the brothers, may one day be called upon to answer for a debt they had nothing to do with.

For India's arbitration landscape, which has spent years building the credibility of its enforcement regime, this is a step that deserves serious scrutiny. The proposition that a stranger to a decree can be drawn into execution proceedings on the basis of a "prima facie nexus" - without a prior finding of wrongdoing - and subjected to an intrusive forensic audit with undefined consequences, introduces a degree of uncertainty that parties transacting with Indian listed companies will have to price in. The corporate veil, in such a framework, offers no protection; it is merely scenery.

The creditor in this case deserved a remedy. Whether that remedy needed to come at the cost of a principle that underpins how businesses organise themselves is a different question; one that the order does not adequately answer.

Aanchal Basur is an advocate in independent practice before the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court, specialising in international arbitration.

The views expressed are personal.

Justice MK Thakker disposed off the petition after the accused-lawyer sought permission to withdraw it.

"This Court has not gone into the merits of the matter," the judge clarified.

The lawyer is accused of establishing sexual relationship with a woman advocate after giving her a false promise of marriage.

The accused had also sought anticipatory bail before the trial court in connection with the FIR. However, sources told Bar and Bench that the trial court had rejected this plea.

The case arose from an eight-year-long relationship between the two advocates.

According to the complainant, the relationship began in 2018 and allegedly continued until she learnt about the advocate's (petitioner's) marriage to another woman in March 2026.

The complainant denied that their relationship was simply consensual as portrayed by the accused. She alleged that the accused had concealed his Muslim identity when they first met in 2018 and had introduced himself as “Rohan."

She further submitted that he had performed what she described as a “symbolic marriage” with her at her office in August 2018 by applying sindoor to her forehead and making her wear a mangalsutra.

She further alleged that he continued to assure her of marriage over the following years and established physical relations with her on that assurance.

According to her, these assurances continued even after she learnt of his religious identity. He allegedly told the complainant that he would convert to Hinduism, change his name and marry her.

She claimed to have later learnt that he had married another woman on March 1, 2026, despite having earlier introduced that woman to her as his sister.

Therefore, she argued that the first information report (FIR) filed on her complaint could not be quashed at the investigation stage, particularly when the parties were giving competing accounts of their relationship.

The petitioner disputed her account of the relationship.

He sought quashing of the FIR, alleging that the woman advocate’s claims were false and did not make out the alleged offences.

According to the petitioner’s case, the two had been in a consensual relationship. He alleged that the allegations of rape and a false promise of marriage by the complainant were an afterthought.

He relied on WhatsApp exchanges, which, according to him, showed the complainant demanding money and threatening him. The petition further referred to financial transactions between the two as evidence supporting his version of their dealings.

He also pointed to a delay in filing the FIR. He submitted that the complainant had claimed that their relationship began in 2018, while the FIR was registered on May 15, 2026.

The petitioner relied on this gap to challenge the allegations and the complainant’s account of how their relationship had unfolded.

The complainant, however, offered a different explanation for the delay.

In her affidavit opposing the quashing plea, she said that she had continued to believe the petitioner’s assurances that he would marry her and had therefore not approached the police earlier. She claimed that she decided to lodge the FIR only after learning that he had married another woman.

The complainant also disputed the petitioner’s reliance on the WhatsApp conversations.

While the male advocate had relied on chats which allegedly showed her demanding money and threatening him, she countered that the same were false and fabricated and were created using an app.

“The petitioner has created a false and fabricated chat using a fake application to show that the deponent had demanded money and threatened the petitioner,” said her affidavit.

She similarly disputed the petitioner’s account of financial transactions between them. According to her, the payments he had portrayed as loan-related transactions were actually towards expenses such as electricity bills and motorcycle instalments.

The Court, however, did not examine these competing claims. The withdrawal brought the quashing proceedings to an end without any finding on the allegations.

Senior Advocate Mitesh Amin along with advocate Rahul R Dholakia appeared for the accused.

Assistant Public Prosecutor (AAP) Meet Thakkar represented the State.

Advocate Jay A Tamakuwala, A Maulink Nanavati and Ronith Joy appeared on behalf of the woman advocate (complainant).

[Read Order]

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But recently, I have found myself asking a question I did not expect to ask this early in my legal career: Do I actually want to join the judiciary?

Two things I read recently made that question harder to ignore.

The first was Bharat Chugh's recent piece, 1 year or 3 years, we are asking the wrong question, which questioned whether the debate around the period of practice required before entering judicial service is really addressing the larger problem.

The second was the recent public remarks of Senior Advocate Indira Jaising on sexual harassment within the judiciary. On September 1, 2026, she spoke of women judges who had approached her with complaints against male judges.

The two issues are very different. One concerns how people enter the judiciary. The other concerns what it can be like to work within it. But together, they made me ask a more personal question: What kind of professional life am I choosing if I choose the judiciary?

The examination is only the beginning

The debate over judicial recruitment has understandably focused on eligibility. The precise question of whether 1 year or 3 years of practice produces better judges is important. But the larger question is: why are we concentrating so much on how people enter the judiciary without asking enough about the career they are entering?

For a young law student, clearing an examination is not the end of the decision. It is the beginning. A candidate is also thinking about where she will be posted, what her professional life will look like, how she can progress, what opportunities exist within the system and whether she can imagine herself doing the job for the next 20 or 30 years.

For someone entering the subordinate judiciary, there is an obvious question about professional progression. There is a career structure within the subordinate judiciary, but there is also the possibility of eventually reaching the High Court. That possibility should not be misunderstood as a promise. Not every judicial officer can or should expect elevation to a High Court.

But there is a difference between knowing that advancement is necessarily limited and knowing how the path to advancement works. How many judicial officers eventually reach the High Courts? How many of them are women? What factors shape those decisions? How transparent is the process from the perspective of someone at the beginning of the judicial career?

The numbers make the question harder to ignore

Women are not absent from the Indian judiciary. In fact, their representation is considerably stronger at the lower levels.

Data from the Supreme Court's Centre for Research and Planning has put women's representation in the district judiciary at around 36.3%. The picture is very different in the High Courts. As of July 1, 2026, women constituted 111 of 781 sitting High Court judges, or approximately 14.2%. The Supreme Court presents an even sharper contrast. There are currently only 2 women among its current 34 judges.

These figures should be treated carefully. They do not represent a single cohort being followed from the district judiciary to the Supreme Court. The routes of appointment, eligibility requirements, age profiles and career timelines are different. Nor do the figures, by themselves, prove that women are being denied elevation because they are women.

If women are entering the lower judiciary in significant numbers, what happens to them as they move through?

Perhaps the answer is perfectly explainable. Perhaps it involves seniority, professional experience, the structure of appointments, personal choices, family responsibilities, attrition or several other factors. But if we do not collect and examine the data, we cannot know. We often ask how many women have entered the judiciary. Perhaps we should also ask how many stay, how many progress and how many reach the higher judiciary.

A woman inside the institution

This is where my hesitation becomes more personal.

Indira Jaising's concerns are not entirely hypothetical. In Additional District and Sessions Judge ‘X’ v. Registrar General, High Court of Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court dealt with the circumstances surrounding a woman judicial officer's allegations, transfer and resignation. While the allegations of sexual harassment were not ultimately established, the Court ordered her reinstatement.

For someone considering entering the judiciary, however, the most important question is not whether one particular allegation is true. It is: If something happens to me, will I feel safe enough to speak about it? That should not be a question a young woman has to ask before choosing a career. But it is a question that many women ask in many professions. And the judiciary is not exempt from that reality.

Hierarchies make complaints difficult

The judiciary is necessarily hierarchical and it serves a legitimate purpose. Courts cannot function without structure and accountability. But hierarchy can also affect how a person experiences a workplace complaint.

A woman who is being harassed at work may not simply be deciding whether to complain about a colleague. Depending on the circumstances, she may be deciding whether to complain about someone senior to her, someone with influence over her professional environment or someone she may continue to encounter throughout her career.

That changes the nature of the decision. This is why the existence of a formal complaint mechanism is not, by itself, enough. People also need to believe that they can use that mechanism without losing their dignity, professional opportunities or sense of security. That is particularly important in an institution where hierarchy is an unavoidable part of professional life.

There is also a larger constitutional point. Indian courts have played a central role in developing protections against sexual harassment at the workplace. In Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, the Supreme Court recognised sexual harassment as implicating women's fundamental rights to equality, dignity and the freedom to work in a safe environment. The point is not that the judiciary should be treated as uniquely problematic.

An institution that has played such an important role in articulating principles of equality, dignity and workplace safety should also be willing to examine how those principles operate within its own institutional environment.

Getting women through the door is not the same as giving them a reason to stay

This is perhaps what I have been thinking about most. When we talk about women in the judiciary, the conversation often begins with recruitment. How many women appeared for the examination? How many were selected? How many women judges are there?

These numbers matter. But a career is a journey, not a single appointment. A system may be successful at one stage and still lose people at another. If the judiciary wants to understand women's representation properly, it should ask who stays and who leaves? Who gets promoted and who gets considered for elevation?

And perhaps the most difficult question: Who thinks about joining and decides not to apply?

A woman who never sits for the examination does not appear in a table of women judges. But her decision may still have been influenced by what she knows or believes about the career. Perhaps she is concerned about transfers. Perhaps she has family responsibilities. Perhaps she has questions about workplace safety. Perhaps she wants a professional environment in which she can see a clear path of growth. Or perhaps she simply prefers another career.

Not every woman who chooses litigation, corporate practice, academia or another profession has been pushed away from the judiciary. But neither should we assume that career choices happen in a vacuum.

What would make the judiciary a career I would want?

If I am honest, the answers are not particularly complicated.

First, I would want greater transparency about career progression. Not a guarantee that I would eventually become a High Court judge. That would be unrealistic. But I would want to understand how the judicial career progresses, what the relevant institutional criteria are and what professional opportunities are realistically available.

Second, I would want confidence in workplace-safety mechanisms that already exist. My question is not simply whether a mechanism exists on paper. It is whether a woman judicial officer would feel sufficiently secure to use it when the complaint involves someone senior, someone who may have administrative authority over her, or someone whose position gives them influence within the institution. A formal mechanism can tell a person where to complain. It cannot, by itself, tell her whether she will feel protected after she does. Would I have confidence that speaking up would not affect my professional life?

Third, I would want better gender-disaggregated data. The judiciary should track not only how many women enter, but how many remain, progress, leave and reach higher positions. If there is a significant drop at any particular stage, that should be investigated rather than merely observed. Regular exit surveys could reveal concerns that recruitment statistics cannot.

Lastly, the practical conditions of judicial service deserve more attention. Transfers, accommodation, childcare, maternity and family responsibilities may not be exclusively women's concerns, but they can affect women's career choices in particular ways. The concern begins with something much more basic. In 2022, data compiled by the Supreme Court showed that 26% of court complexes did not even have separate toilets for women. More recent data placed before the Supreme Court found that 19.7% of district court complexes still lacked separate ladies' toilets, while 73.4% lacked female-friendly washrooms with basic sanitation facilities.

Before asking women to imagine spending 20 or 30 years in the judiciary, perhaps the institution should first be able to guarantee that they can spend a working day there with basic dignity. An institution that wants to retain women cannot treat these matters as peripheral to professional life.

I still haven't decided

I am not saying that the judiciary is inherently hostile, or that my uncertainty proves systemic failure. It is only one person's uncertainty. But perhaps that is precisely why it is worth talking about. Because institutions are ultimately made up of people making individual choices.

If a young law student looks at the judiciary and thinks, I want to do this, that is a success.

If another looks at the same institution and thinks, I am not sure I want this life, perhaps the institution should be interested in understanding why.

I still have not decided whether I will sit for the judicial services examination. But I now think that asking whether I can clear the examination is only the first question. I also have to ask whether I can see myself building a professional life there.

That is not a rejection of the judiciary. It is simply a question that any young lawyer should be allowed to ask before committing to a career. If the judiciary genuinely wants more women judges, the answer cannot simply be to tell more women to take the examination. It has to ask what those women see when they look 10, 15 or 20 years into the future. Getting women through the door is important. Giving them a reason to stay is just as important.

I suppose that is the question I am left with. Not whether I am capable of becoming a judge, but whether I can see myself building a life and a career within the institution. That is a question the judiciary cannot answer for me. But it is one it should be willing to hear.

Faiza Kazmi is a law student at Jamia Millia Islamia.

By way of an order passed on September 15, a bench of Justices Dinesh Mehta and Vinod Kumar said the payment could not be taxed merely because it was made by an Indian company to a foreign entity.

“Mere payment by an Indian resident to a non-resident ipso facto does not constitute an income accruing or arising in India.The transaction neither falls within any of the specific deeming provisions under Section 5(2)(b) of the Act of 1961 nor of Section 9. In the absence of both, the jurisdictional foundation for issuance of notice under section 148 collapses,” the Court held.

Ranbaxy had already deducted tax before making payment to Teva.

The refund of the amount to Teva would be subject to Teva USA and Teva Israel furnishing the guarantees directed by the Court.

The case concerned Atorvastatin, a cholesterol-lowering medicine sold by Pfizer under the brand name Lipitor.

Ranbaxy was the first company to apply for US regulatory approval to sell a generic version of the drug. It was consequently entitled to a 180-day period during which no other applicant for the generic drug could receive approval.

However, there was initially uncertainty over whether Ranbaxy would receive final approval on time. In December 2010, Ranbaxy India, its US subsidiary and Teva USA entered into an agreement governing what would happen if Ranbaxy was unable to use its exclusivity.

Under the agreement, Ranbaxy would selectively waive or relinquish its exclusivity in favour of Teva USA if Teva issued a valid “Ready Date Notice” after satisfying stipulated conditions concerning regulatory approval and its readiness to launch the drug.

Teva USA issued such a notice on November 23, 2011. Ranbaxy disputed its validity. Teva USA then instituted proceedings before a US court seeking enforcement of the agreement.

The dispute was settled with effect from November 30, 2011, the same day on which Ranbaxy received final approval for its generic drug. Ranbaxy began selling Atorvastatin in the United States the following day.

Ranbaxy earned around $700 million in profits during the six-month exclusivity period. Under the revised arrangement, 50 per cent of those profits, amounting to ₹1,851.07 crore, became payable to Teva.

Teva USA subsequently assigned the right to receive the amount to its parent company, Teva Israel. Ranbaxy India paid the amount to Teva Israel over three assessment years after deducting approximately ₹783.83 crore as tax at source.

Teva Israel declared nil taxable income in India and sought a refund. It argued that the payment arose from an agreement and settlement concerning rights, litigation and drug sales in the United States. It also had no permanent establishment in India.

The Income Tax Department maintained that the income belonged to Teva USA and that its assignment to Teva Israel was intended to avoid tax. The Department also questioned the commercial rationale behind Ranbaxy agreeing to pay ₹1,851 crore after securing regulatory approval.

The Court rejected these arguments. It said an Assessing Officer could not decide whether a businessman had acted prudently in entering into a settlement.

“The Assessing Officer who does not wear the hat of an economist cannot and should not decide the prudence of a businessman, as to why an entrepreneur had entered into a settlement and paid the amount. After all nobody would pay Rs.1851 crore, just to save purported tax liability of 30% - one has to pay Rs. 1851 crore in any case,” the Court said.

The Court found that the regulatory rights, the disputed notice, the litigation, the settlement and the market generating the profits were all situated outside India.

The mere fact that Ranbaxy India made the payment could not determine where the income accrued. The Revenue was required to establish a sufficient connection between India and the activity or right that generated the income.

The Court consequently quashed reassessment proceedings initiated against Teva USA for assessment years 2012-13 to 2014-15.

It also set aside a 2019 decision of the Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR), which had declined to decide Teva Israel’s taxability plea after concluding that the income belonged to Teva USA and that the arrangement was collusive and designed to avoid tax.

The Bench held that the AAR had decided a question that was not before it and recorded findings against Teva USA without the company being before the authority. It added that the AAR had entered a “no-go zone” by undertaking a roving inquiry into the commercial wisdom of the parties.

The Court allowed Teva Israel’s advance ruling application and held that the payment received from Ranbaxy did not attract tax under the Income Tax Act.

On the refund, the Bench clarified that while tax authorities could make a protective assessment when there was uncertainty over the person liable to pay tax, they could not make a protective recovery.

It termed the withholding of the refund for more than a decade “utterly arbitrary, to the extent of being confiscatory”.

Senior Advocates Harish N Salve and Sachit Jolly appeared for Teva Pharma, assisted by Advocates Anuradha Dutt, Sherry Goyal, Viyushti Rawat, Devansh Jain, Raghav Dutt, Sarthak Abrol and Abhyudaya Shankar Bajpai from DMD Advocates.

Special Counsel Himanshu S Sinha and Senior Standing Counsel Sunil Agarwal and Vipul Agrawal appeared for the Income Tax Department, assisted by Advocates Yash Varmani, Utkarsh Mittal, Ishita Sharma, Kshitiz Saxena, Monica Benjamin, Gibran Naushad, Adeeb Ahmad, Harshita Sharma, Laiba Arif, Sakshi Shairwal, Akshat Singh, Harshita Kotru, Gaoraang Ranjan and Sachin Singh.

[Read Judgment]

Justice H T Narendra Prasad passed the order while issuing a notice to the State on three petitions challenging circulars issued by the Karnataka State Audit and Accounts Department, the Directorate of Municipal Administration and the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department (RDPR).

The petitions have been filed by the All India Trade Union Congress, Karnataka Rajya Sarkari Khayametharara Noukarara Okkuta, the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) and others.

The unions have challenged circulars dated July 29, August 10 and August 28, 2026, which direct government departments and local authorities to suspend or defer implementation of revised minimum wage rates notified by the Karnataka government on May 22.

The petitioners contend that the May 22 notification continues to remain operative and that the pendency of challenges to the revised wage rates cannot justify withholding their implementation, particularly in the absence of any court order staying the notification.

They have also questioned the authority and jurisdiction of the concerned departments to suspend the implementation of statutory minimum wages through administrative circulars.

According to the petitions, the Karnataka government issued a final notification on May 22, revising minimum wage rates for 83 scheduled employments across the State.

The notification followed a draft notification dated April 11, 2025 and consideration of objections by the Karnataka State Minimum Wages Advisory Board at meetings held on July 29 and August 28, 2025.

The unions contend that the revised notification came into force upon publication and had already been implemented by several government departments.

The petitioners argue that the notification has been kept in abeyance based on purported verbal instructions from the Finance Department.

It has been submitted that administrative instructions cannot suspend or override a statutory notification issued under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The unions also contend that withholding of revised wages deprives outsourced workers of their statutory entitlements and violates constitutional protections available to them.

A separate challenge has been raised against the Directorate of Municipal Administration's August 10 circular, which directs municipal corporations, urban local bodies and district urban development cells to continue paying outsourced employees under the earlier July 28, 2022 notification.

Advocates Clifton D’Rozario, Maitreyi Krishnan, Raghupathi S, Prathusha M S, Srujana K, Mahesh Hiremani, KB Narayana Swamy and L Muralidhar Peshwa appeared for the petitioners.

The dispute arose after rival factions led by Banerjee and West Bengal Leader of Opposition Ritabrata Banerjee staked claim to the Trinamool Congress name, symbol and organisational control. The Election Commission heard representatives of both groups before passing its interim order on September 17.

The Election Commission’s interim arrangement prevents both factions from using the All India Trinamool Congress name and the Flowers & Grass symbol for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly by-elections.

The Mamata Banerjee-led faction has instead been allotted the name Mamata All India Trinamool Congress and the Football Player symbol. The rival faction has been allotted the name Democratic Trinamool Congress and the Envelope symbol.

The arrangement assumes significance in view of the Assembly by-elections to Nandigram and Rejinagar constituencies scheduled for October 6.

The dispute over control of the party had reached the Election Commission after the Ritabrata Banerjee faction asserted that the existing organisational structure had ceased to be valid. The Mamata Banerjee camp contested this position and maintained that its organisational structure continues to be valid.

The petition by Banerjee before the Supreme Court was filed on September 18 through advocate Abhinav Singh.

A bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora noted that due to the inadequate recruitment of qualified staff, valuable equipment was also going unused.

"There are no technicians running these equipments. The court is completely dissatisfied with the report placed on record. The hospitals are facing enormous difficulty in recruiting the necessary doctors and the staff. There is no uniform HR policy of the Delhi Government," the Court said.

The Court went on to observe,

“Judges will come, judges will go, but the hospitals have to function."

The Court was hearing a suo motu case in which it routinely monitors healthcare services in the city's government hospitals. 

On August 7, the Court had expressed shock after being informed that 400 ventilators and 910 oxygen concentrators are lying unused at Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital.

The Court, in response, had directed the Secretary of the Department of Health and Family Welfare under Delhi government to hold a meeting regarding the recruitment of staff for operating such equipment.

In yesterday's hearing of the matter, the Court expressed dissatisfaction over the poor progress made since then.

"It does not appear that after the meeting had taken place on August 13, any recruitment has happened," the Court said.

It has now directed the Secretary of the Health Department to hold a fresh meeting with each hospital on the issue of recruitment.

"The Secretary, Health would have to deal with this issue in a centralised manner rather than allowing recruitment at a local level on a contractual basis. A strict timeline has to be prescribed in a centralised manner even for recruitment on a contractual basis, failing which the hospitals do not seem to be recruiting the necessary staff," the Court stated.

Meanwhile, following an interaction with a doctor, the Court noted that there are varying interpretations on constitutes unused equipment at hospitals. The Court indicated that it will delve into such aspects later, and that recruitment issues would have to be prioritised.

"First we have to focus on the staff, then we have to focus on the equipment. Otherwise, it is not going to work," Justice Singh said.

Another issue discussed was the availibility of ICU beds and whether people have information regarding the same. The Court observed that there is a shortage of ICU beds, even at leading hospitals.

Delhi government standing counsel Sameer Vashisht, meanwhile, informed the Court that a designated toll-free helpline number - 102 - has been created for getting information regarding the availability of ICU beds in Delhi hospitals.

Justice Singh asked a government officer to call on the helpline during the hearing before the Court. When the call went unattended, the Court proceeded to seek details of the number of operators manning such calls.

The Court was informed that there are 30 phone lines and 30 operators who are operating the helpline, while the total calls received on the number are around 2,200 per day.

The Court expressed that this was not enough, and that there is a need to scale up the number of helpline operators.

"There are only 30 lines? Itna nahi ho payega (this won't be enough). Delhi is 3.5 crores. This is not sufficient. Imagine emergency me log phone kare jaa rahe hain and phone hi nahi mil raha (Imagine if someone calls in an emergency and no one picks up the phone)," the Court pointed out.

The Court proceeded to order,

"If the lines need to be increased and operators also, a feedback shall be given to the Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department. Let a status report be filed in this regard."

The Delhi government's counsel also apprised the Court that a referral coordinator has been designated to assist in cases where a patient is referred to another government hospital.

The Court observed that at least three coordinators are required at each hospital.

"One referral coordinator is not enough There need to be at least three referral coordinators," the Court said.

[Read live coverage]

The three judicial officers who have been elevated are:

(i) Usharani;

(ii) KS Bharath Kumar; and

(iii) Nerale Veerabhadraiah Bhavani.

The Supreme Court Collegium had recommended their names on September 10.

Karnataka High Court currently has 54 judges against its approved strength of 62.

Once the three newly appointed judges assume office, its working strength will rise to 57.

[Read Notification]

A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi granted a final two-week opportunity to various States to disburse all pending stipend amounts to FMGs.

The Court warned that it will summon the health secretaries of those State governments which fail to comply with the order.

The Court passed the order on September 17 in a batch of petitions highlighting the widespread non-payment and discriminatory disbursal of stipend to FMG interns at government medical colleges and hospitals nationwide.

During the hearing, Advocate Tanvi Dubey, appearing for 13 petitioner FMGs, presented a detailed tabular analysis of data extracted from affidavits filed by the National Medical Commission (NMC).

It was pointed out that out of 823 medical colleges in the country, the NMC had furnished data for only 443 institutions.

Even within that limited dataset, nearly 50 percent of the colleges were not paying any stipend to FMG interns, the Court was told.

Advocate Charu Mathur, the nodal counsel in the case, appearing for 3 petitioner FMGs, further brought to the Court's notice that several State medical colleges, while paying regular stipend to IMGs, were denying equal stipend to FMGs despite their identical responsibilities, and duties.

The petitioners specifically highlighted the practice in States like Rajasthan, where government medical colleges are paying IMGs a monthly stipend of ₹21,700 while denying it to FMG interns. They alleged that the States ask the FMG interns to give undertakings to waive their right to claim stipend.

Taking strong exception to the state of affairs, the Court observed that such discriminatory treatment towards medical interns could not be permitted.

During the proceedings, counsel appearing for the State of Gujarat assured the Court that a notification would be issued shortly to release funds for all interns.

The counsel for the State of Rajasthan also gave an undertaking that the outstanding stipend amounts would be disbursed within two weeks.