-The Indian Express   The Supreme Court has now indicated its willingness to examine recent examples of bail being denied to high-profile politicians and businesspersons, in contradiction of our higher Courts’ established injunction that “bail is the rule and jail is the exception”. The matter came up in a hearing on Ashok Kumar Sinha, an associate of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, who has been in interim custody for two years...

-The Hindu   Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India, has issued the following clarification on his critical observations of the Indian media.   I have expressed my views relating to the media in several T.V. interviews I gave as well as in my articles in some newspapers. However, many people, including many media people, wanted clarification and amplification of some of the issues I had raised. Many media people (including several T.V. channels)...

The special court judge hearing the Gulberg Society massacre trial has reserved his order till November 18 on the plea of the advocate of the riot victims to stay the proceedings till the Supreme Court–appointed Special Investigation Team submitted its final report. Advocate S.M. Vora had moved the court to stay the trial after the SIT refused to submit its report before the special court and informed last month that as...

-The Hindu   Greater the power to punish for contempt, higher the responsibility Fair reporting of court proceedings and fair comments on the legal issues do not amount to contempt, the Supreme Court has ruled. “The power to punish for contempt is inherent in Courts of record and described as a necessary incident to every court of justice. The power is an alienable attribute of court and inheres in every court of record. This...

Information obtained under Right To Information Act is increasingly becoming the basis of public interest petitions seeking judicial redress of grievances. The Supreme Court on Monday disapproved of this modus operandi and said from now, it would not entertain PILssolely based on RTI information. "Petitioners banking on information obtained through RTI Act must approach the concerned ministry, bring the facts to its notice and demand justice. If the ministry does not...