Delhi confidential: Noticing notice

Bar Council of India chairman Manan Kumar Mishra had an uncomfortable encounter with senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal when they ran into each other in the Supreme Court corridor on Monday. During a brief exchange, Sibal raised the issue of the Bar Council issuing notice to lawyer-lawmakers like him in a petition seeking bar on MPs and MLAs from practising as lawyers. Mishra was lost for words as an amused Sibal told him, “You issued notice. I would have given up even without the notice.”

Word Out On Awards

Parliament appears to have decided to give away the award for outstanding Parliamentarian for five consecutive years — 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 — in one go. With nominations for the awards invited earlier this month, members from different parties are considering nominating their party seniors. Samajwadi Party MPs are said to be considering nominating Ram Gopal Yadav, the party’s floor leader in Rajya Sabha. Given that there is a five-year backlog, they hope Yadav, who has been a Parliamentarian since 1992, stands a good chance to get selected by the committee for the award. Last heard, several SP MPs were contemplating sending separate nominations for Yadav. The award was launched in 1995, and among its recipients are the likes of former Prime Ministers Chandra Shekhar and Manmohan Singh, former President Pranab Mukherjee and former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.

Testing Time

The Health Ministry is busy sorting out suggestions from the public about the format of the first super-speciality NEET to be held later this year. The ministry has received no fewer than 1,500 emails in response to its public notice seeking suggestions and is now racing against time to finalise the format by May.