As Anna Hazare’s fast entered its second day today, the first cracks in his coalition surfaced with criticism over provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill and the method being used by activists to try and push it through. Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde (retd), part of the group that finalised the activists’ version of the Bill, acknowledged he had “objections” to certain clauses. “I would not like to say much else. While...

National Advisory Council starts discussions on Lokpal Bill The Prime Minister's Office (PMO), late on Monday evening, issued an appeal to noted social worker Anna Hazare to abandon the hunger strike he had announced he would resort to, starting Tuesday, to force the government to accept his version of the Lokpal Bill. The appeal came a few hours after the National Advisory Council (NAC)'s Working Group on Transparency and Accountability met civil...

In a system where half the litigants must necessarily lose their cases and where most complaints against judges are frivolous, the Bill, if implemented, would mark the beginning of the end of the Judiciary. The last two decades have marked the extraordinary rise of India. This has however been tinged with cynicism about our major democratic institutions and a pessimism about their future. The Judiciary, which till now has been looked...

The quashing of the appointment of P.J. Thomas as the CVC shows the Judiciary can go beyond the express provisions of law to render justice. THE Indian Constitution does not envisage strict separation of powers among the three branches of the government – the executive, the legislature and the Judiciary. This flexibility permits marginal incursions though one branch cannot usurp the essential functions of the other. One of the essential functions...

Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...