There are two reasons why the Indian Supreme Court is considered the world’s most powerful. First, Supreme Court judges self-appoint, with no inter-institutional checks and balances. Second, dismissing a judge is so difficult that it has not been done so far. Many of the recent criticisms of the apex court’s perceived opacity have focused on these procedures for appointment and dismissal. The proposed Judges Standards and Accountability Bill is one...

While finalising a new law to check corruption and increase accountability in the higher judiciary, the Union Law Ministry has also decided to include a comprehensive code of conduct for judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts. Sources told The Indian Express that this was being done as voluntary attempts by the higher judiciary to lay down a code of conduct had not yielded the desired result. According...

Within a few days from today we will be crossing over to the second decade of the 21st century. Those of us born in the 20th century and lived through the first decade of the 21st, have indeed been fortunate to experience the impact of several giant steps of progress in human history. Mankind has indeed achieved much more in this period than it had in all the previous periods...

A formal move to consider the removal of a sitting judge is extremely rare. In 1991, impeachment proceedings began against Justice V Ramaswami, but were later dropped due to lack of support in Parliament. More recently, a judge of the Calcutta high court is facing impeachment. Now, 76 Rajya Sabha MPs - all from the opposition ranks - have put their signature to a petition seeking the removal of Karnataka...

A full decade ago, Chandrababu Naidu made a point about the quick issuance of driving licences, and easy digital access to land records and house tax calculations — which he showcased to Bill Clinton when the then US president came visiting. Since then, all of Karnataka has digitised its land records through the Bhoomi project that now has a database on 20 million land holdings. Other states have similar projects....