-The Hindu The Supreme Court last week ruled as unconstitutional the mandatory imposition of the death penalty under the Arms Act in view of the absence of judicial review. The verdict is a reiteration of current jurisprudence that for criminal offences, life imprisonment is the rule and death sentence the exception. The impugned section 27 (3) of the Arms Act stipulates capital punishment for offences that may result in the loss...

Sending a clear message that the 2G spectrum allocation of 2008 is a scam and not the result of a government policy decision, the Supreme Court today quashed the grant of 122 UAS licences and allocation of spectrum to 12 private companies. Even as the trial in the 2G case progresses in a Patiala House trial court in Delhi, a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly held...

Bench says it runs counter to constitutional law and ultra vires Constitution The Supreme Court on Wednesday declared unconstitutional Section 27 (3) of the Arms Act, which provides for mandatory death sentence to an accused charged with an offence under this provision. Section 27(3) says: “Whoever uses any prohibited arms or prohibited ammunition or does any act in contravention of Section 7 and such use or act results in the death of...

-The Hindu   The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) is totally safe, asserts the expert group constituted by the Government of India. In a release, A.E. Muthu Nayagam, group convenor, said, “Based on its extensive examination of various issues, there should be no cause for concern about the safety” of the plant. He pointed out that it was designed and engineered to the state-of-art of nuclear reactors in line with the current international safety...

After allowing swapping of organs, India is working on another landmark step in organ transplantation: a single apex national organization that will procure and distribute human organs. Union health ministry is setting up the autonomous National Organ Procurement and Distribution Organization (NOPDO) at the Centre and 10 State Organ Procurement and Distribution Organization (SOPDO) under the country's new National Organ Transplant Programme (NOTP). Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, West Bengal, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh,...