-Newsclick.in One of the best transparency laws promulgated by Parliament is now threatened by judicial decisions and interpretations which are not in consonance with the law and would weaken it. If more importance is given to exemptions and widening the Act’s scope, it would be a sad regression for democracy, writes former Central Information Commissioner SHAILESH GANDHI. The Supreme Court of India has consistently held from 1975 to 2005 that the Right...

-Down to Earth As the new ordinance seeks curtailment of judicial intervention, the executive faces the real challenge of pushing difficult and inconvenient solutions to clean air President Ramnath Kovind has signed a new ordinance to form a commission for air-quality management in the National Capital Region (NCR) and adjoining areas. This move, in one sweep, erases all other committees and authorities that were set up under judicial and administrative orders, seeks to...

-National Herald The plea says the Centre failed to “undertake timely and effective measures for containing transmission of disease within India” despite being notified about the same by WHO in January, 2020. Six retired bureaucrats have moved the Supreme Court seeking an independent inquiry by a Commission appointed under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, into the Central Government's "gross mismanagement" of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, legal news website LiveLaw.in has...

-The Indian Express Sources told The Indian Express that the state government decided to table the report after a hurried Cabinet meeting late Saturday. During the meeting, sources said, at least two ministers claimed the Cabinet had been “misled” earlier about the contents of the report. The report of the Justice V K Agarwal enquiry commission, which found no evidence to support claims by security forces that 17 people killed in...

-The Indian Express What is needed is ‘ease of policing’, better training and infrastructure Common Cause’s recent survey on the Status of Policing in India is said to have affirmed that the black sheep in the police force find nothing wrong with beating up criminals to extract a confession. It is still, however, too judgemental to suggest that torture is endemic to Indian policing, as Maja Daruwala does (‘Exorcising third-degree’, IE,...