A law empowering Indians to seek information from government to promote accountability and transparency has brought change to urban India, but has largely left out the country's rural poor, social activists say. The Right to Information (RTI) Act - similar to the Freedom of Information Act in the United States - was enacted almost five years ago and is aimed at providing a practical way for all citizens to access...

A survey of the Supreme Court’s docket finds a court overwhelmed by petitions from those with money and resources.  THE Indian Supreme Court has a reputation for being a “people’s court” or, as one judge put it, a “last resort for the oppressed and bewildered”. The Constitution gives all Indians the right to petition directly the Supreme Court if their fundamental rights are violated and the right to appeal to...

Are income-tax returns filed by individual citizens open to public scrutiny under the Right to Information? Yes, says the Central Information Commission. In a controversial December 14 ruling with far-reaching implications, the CIC held that individual assessees could not invoke privacy concerns to prevent an unrelated “third party” from inspecting returns filed with the Income-Tax Department. Sources in the Commission said the ruling must be seen as a trendsetter that could...

The finance ministry has quietly initiated the process of opening up the income tax files of politicians belonging to all parties and tallying their income statements with the affidavits filed by them with the Election Commission during the 2009 parliamentary polls. Verification of the assets declared by the Lok Sabha candidates, many of whom have now become MPs and even ministers, will help the department to assess if they had...

The increase in the number of civil cases in a country is its social mascot, as it symbolises the abundance of law abiding civilised citizens accepting the authority of the judiciary to get their grievances redressed. Otherwise, they would have turned to self-retaliation or employed roughnecks, a usual practice in America and Britain enkindled by their criminal heritage, to enforce justice in their own way; hence all civil litigants may...