-The Telegraph   Calcutta High Court today scrapped a 14-year-old tribunal that had been hearing all land and tenancy disputes involving the state government, saying the judiciary’s minority status in the set-up ran contrary to the Constitution. Today’s order means that the nearly 1 lakh cases pending with the tribunal will be shifted to the high court. The former Left Front government had enacted the West Bengal Land Reforms and Tenancy Act, 1997,...

-The Times of India   CHENNAI: The Madras high court has held that assets details of IAS officers furnished to the government in a sealed cover can be made available under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Inspection of asset details of the officer concerned can be allowed as well, it further held. An appeal by V Madhav said that on February 12, 2009, he applied to the public information officer...

-IANS   The Supreme Court Monday asked Delhi Police to explain their behaviour and the need to resort to teargas and baton-charge in the closed enclosure when people were sleeping during yoga guru Baba Ramdev's protest gathering at the Ramlila Ground here last month. An apex court bench of Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice Swatanter Kumar said that there are documents and DVDs to show that the yoga exercises were undertaken at the...

The Supreme Court order against the Salwa Judum’s vigilantism in Chhattisgarh must be read by all, especially government officials. The details of the civil war in the tribal districts of Chhattisgarh are largely unknown to most readers of this newspaper. For the region is remote and inaccessible, and easily ignored by the national media.   This civil war pits, on the one side, Maoist extremists, and, on the other, a band of...

With Chhattisgarh and the Centre almost decided on filing review petitions against the Supreme Court judgment on the Salwa Judum, it has been left to the petitioners in the case to underscore the historic and constitutional significance of the verdict and to point out to the two governments that any review petition would necessarily strike at the core human values enshrined in the Constitution. In a blow to both the Central...