Musings on India, the law, and policy
Posted in Constitution, corruption, Court on Jul 6th, 2011
Succinctly summed up, the theory of separation of powers, accepted as a part of the Basic Structure of the Indian Constitution, implies that the Judiciary, Executive and Legislature have certain spheres of operations and distinct functions and that, stemming from the proposition of limited powers, they must not encroach into each other domains, for after [...]
Posted in Court, Democracy, Human Rights, Uncategorized on Jul 5th, 2011
Two years ago I had written about Gantal Raju, a tribal in the village of Lingagiri, Dantewada District Chhattisgarh. About how in 2006 his father had been shot by the forces in Chhattisgarh and he had to watch his sister being raped before his eyes. It was part of a report on 40 families returning [...]
Posted in corruption, Court, Democracy on Jun 23rd, 2011
Here’s a chart that details the differences between both versions of the LokPal bill – the editors at The Hindu were kind enough to carry my comparison as a cool graphic today in Op-ed. I’m attaching the chart in a text-only, PDF format below – anyone is free to use this, with or without attribution. But if [...]
Posted in Court, Foreign Affairs on Jun 18th, 2011
Earlier this year, the Indian Supreme Court quoted Faiz and urged the Pakistan Government to release Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails so as to foster friendship between the two countries. The Pakistan Gov paid heed to the appeal and released Gopal Dass in what was a great diplomatic gesture. Now the same bench asked [...]
The West Bengal legislative assembly turned an astonishing page in India’s democratic history today, when it passed legislation with the sole aim of returning land to farmers from whom it was acquired in Singur. If ‘experts’ are crying hoarse about civil society’s law-making schemes, then they surely ought to sit up and notice this legislative [...]
Posted in Court on Jun 12th, 2011
During my studies in civil procedure I chanced upon the Law Commission’s 236th Report on Litigation costs and Supreme Court fees in Corporate Litigation. In an interesting analysis of Supreme Court litigation, the Commission noted that considering the high stakes involved and the use of the Courts resources, corporate litigation has an easy ride in [...]