In a rare outburst, a sitting High Court Judge has alleged that “a vocal and aggressive Executive Government is attempting to regulate and take over Judiciary, even by corrupting the Judiciary.” This is part of the Republic Day greetings on his blog posted by Karnataka H C Judge D V Shylendra Kumar. He has been in the news ever since he took on the Chief Justice of India on the...

During the last 10 days two land acquisition notifications have been set aside. The Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) has quashed a Haryana government’s 2002 notification for inappropriately releasing land to private developers. Similarly, the Allahabad High Court has repealed a UP government’s notification under which land was acquired for a private project in 2005. Both notifications have been cancelled on account of procedural lapses. However, these rulings highlight...

‘Certain areas of Judiciary cannot be made public and it is not necessary’ Institutional decisions by CJI should be kept out Certain areas of the functioning of the Judiciary, including the process of selection of judges, should be kept out of the purview of Right to Information (RTI) Act in the interest of the independence of the Judiciary, said Justice Rajendra Babu, the former Chief Justice of India and the former Chairman...

Year 2010 could go down in history as a watershed for undertrial prisoners, who for long have been the silent victims of apathy of the police, prosecuting agencies, prison authorities and Judiciary. The UPA government is setting a six-month deadline, starting January 26, for the release of 1.25 lakh of the 1.7 lakh undertrials languishing in jail though booked for petty offences and despite having served a major part of...

Substantial questions of law are involved  The issues of applicability of the Right to Information Act to the office of the Chief Justice of India should be finally decided by the Supreme Court as substantial questions of law and general importance were involved, Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati said on Friday. Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Vahanvati, who appeared on behalf of the Secretary-General of the Supreme Court, said: “Various people have publicly...