The Supreme Court has handed down an extraordinary decision with some extraordinary arguments directing the central government to execute the “river interlinking project”. How could the Court which says “it can hardly take unto itself tasks of making of a policy decision or planning for the country on the need for acquisition and construction of river linking channels” then go on to actually take the very same policy decision and...

The government continued to give away coal blocks without bidding even after a meeting headed by Manmohan Singh (in his role as coal minister) on October 14, 2004 decided that all future allocation would be through the competitive route, says a CAG report. The government auditors' draft report on performance of coal block allocations also says the Centre opted for the longer process of amending mining laws when it could have...

-The Times of India Responding to a PIL filed by a retired Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer pointing at the complete absence of constitutional or statutory sanction for the agency, the Karnataka high court last week sought an explanation from the Centre, giving it time until March 30 to issue an executive order justifying IB's existence. The IB was formed on December 23, 1887, by the then British secretary of state as a...

-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear arguments from March 27 on framing of guidelines for media on reporting of judicial proceedings. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia took up the issue on filing of applications for framing of guidelines by senior advocate Fali S Nariman and market regulator Sebi. The proceedings emanated from alleged leakage of advocate's proposal of Sahara...

-The Economic Times   The Supreme Court has declined to reconsider its ruling that the tax authorities had no jurisdiction to tax Vodafone's offshore acquisition of its Indian mobile unit, handing what could be a pyrrhic victory to the telecom major. The tax demand, government officials familiar with the case said, could be revived once the provisions in the Union Budget seeking to tax overseas deals are approved by Parliament later this...