The provision on non-discrimination under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 will not apply to private employers, whether individuals, partnerships, proprietary concerns or companies (other than government companies) or unaided schools, the Supreme Court has held. According to Section 47 ‘Non-discrimination in government employment', no establishment shall dispense with, or reduce in rank, an employee who acquires a disability during his service: Provided...

As the nation debates the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and its implications on food security for the country, it is pertinent to pause for a moment and ponder some of the structural reasons for the mismanagement of the food economy of the country. Forget the past or the future or even the present set of policies being pursued. The UPA-II is pushing the nation inexorably towards a regime of...

The central vigilance committee led by retired Justice D. P. Wadhwa, which was established by the Supreme Court of India to monitor its orders in the PIL on the right to food, has come out with a strong indictment of the public distribution system (PDS). Based on State-level reports for Delhi, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Karnataka, the committee has identified widespread corruption at different levels of the...

The Secretary-General of the Supreme Court has challenged the Delhi High Court judgment that the office of the Chief Justice of India is a “public authority” that comes within the ambit of the Right to Information Act and is bound to provide information about declaration of asset details by Supreme Court judges. The appeal, filed on Monday by advocate Devadatt Kamat, said the impugned judgment “has far-reaching consequences for the institutional...

The Supreme Court has ruled that fast-track courts, set up to ease the load of pending cases in subordinate courts, will continue to function in all states till further orders. Most of these courts were created under a centrally funded scheme on April 1, 2001, and were expected to lapse within five years. But they have since been given repeated extensions, the last one valid till March 31, 2010. “The scheme will...