-The Hindu The West Bengal Human Rights Commission on Friday ordered an inquiry into the arrest of Shiladitya Chowdhury, who was apprehended by the security forces after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dubbed him a Maoist for questioning her government’s policies on agriculture, at a rally in the Maoist-affected Jangalmahal region last week. Chairman of the Commission Justice (retired) Asok Kumar Ganguly directed Additional Director-General of Police K.P.P. Rao to conduct an inquiry...

-The Hindu Urging the government not to lose sight of the concept of judicial independence in enacting laws to make judges accountable, Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia also called for judicial restraint among judges while delivering judgments. While interpreting the Article of a fundamental right, “we must also keep in mind that there is [an] institutional structure and architecture of the Constitution which provides for checks and balances. Sometimes in our...

-The Hindu But don’t lose sight of judicial independence, he tells govt Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia, while making it clear that the judiciary was not afraid of laws to make judges accountable, cautioned the government not to tinker with its independence. “I would request the government that accountability be balanced with judicial independence.” In enacting laws, the concept of judicial independence should not be lost sight of. For, “decisional independence and...

-The Hindu The participants also called for deletion of Sections 9 to 16 of the Bill dealing with the forming of a "Complaints Scrutiny Panel" besides the Oversight Committee With the Lokpal Bill stuck in limbo, a civil society-led national consultation on judicial accountability was held here on Tuesday in which several shortcomings in the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2012, as passed by the Lok Sabha were discussed. The consultation was organised...

-The Hindustan Times The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal now has to pay for the cartoon row, literally. On Monday, the state human rights commission ordered it to pay a compensation of Rs. 50,000 each to Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra and his neighbour, who were arrested for circulating a cartoon that poked fun at Banerjee over the sacking of then railway minister Dinesh Trivedi. The arrests saw the government being dubbed "undemocratic", which...