-The Hindu Business Line     The Comptroller and Auditor General's suggestion that the CBI be given Constitutional status similar to that of his own office is not without merit. Every now and then, the issue of freeing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the Government's clutches takes on a fresh urgency. The latter's response has been to wait till the fuss died down and eventually do nothing. There are no special reasons...

-The Hindu   Top civil society bodies are challenging the government's ‘counter-affidavit' in the Paid News case which seeks to gut the Election Commission's powers In a major twist to the Ashok Chavan vs. Madhav Kinhalkar legal battle (more notorious as the "Paid News" scandal), leading civil society organisations and eminent individuals have approached the Supreme Court to implead themselves into the case. Their intervention application, moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan, minces no words...

-The Hindu   Changes provide for the revival of sick societies The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved moving official amendments to the Multi-State Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2010 which is pending in the Lok Sabha. Among other provisions, the amendments provide for revival of sick societies. The moving of official amendments ensures that the provisions of the Bill were in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution (97th Amendment) Act, 2011, the government said. An...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court's verdict last week quashing the President's rejection of a mercy petition by Mahendra Nath Das, who was to hang for a gruesome murder, shows a salutary approach to the question of whether a prolonged delay in disposing pleas for clemency should not be a ground for commuting death sentences to life terms. The court took note of the 12-year delay prior to the rejection of Das's...

-PTI CAG report commands respect and cannot be brushed aside but it cannot be the final word on an issue, the Supreme Court said on Thursday while noting that the auditor's findings cannot be gospel truth as it is subject to scrutiny by Parliament. A bench of justices KS Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said that CAG's report is always subject to parliamentary debates and it is possible that public accounts committee (PAC)...