A formal move to consider the removal of a sitting judge is extremely rare. In 1991, impeachment proceedings began against Justice V Ramaswami, but were later dropped due to lack of support in Parliament. More recently, a judge of the Calcutta high court is facing impeachment. Now, 76 Rajya Sabha MPs - all from the opposition ranks - have put their signature to a petition seeking the removal of Karnataka...

The increase in the number of civil cases in a country is its social mascot, as it symbolises the abundance of law abiding civilised citizens accepting the authority of the judiciary to get their grievances redressed. Otherwise, they would have turned to self-retaliation or employed roughnecks, a usual practice in America and Britain enkindled by their criminal heritage, to enforce justice in their own way; hence all civil litigants may...

Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan’s recent request to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to protect the judiciary from increasingly ‘‘intrusive’’ queries appears to have triggered an exercise to look for options to effect changes in the RTI Act. Following the CJI’s impassioned letter, which said questions asked by chronic litigants about the judiciary could erode its independence, the government has started looking into possible changes in the RTI Act,...

TWENTY-ONE judges of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice of India (CJI), posted the details of their assets on the court’s website. The details of assets of one judge, Justice H.S. Bedi, have not yet been provided. Justice B.N. Agrawal, who retired recently, also provided the details of his assets on the website on special request. (The details are available at http:// www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/assets.htm.) The court has claimed that the...

The Centre plans to bring a "state-of-the-art" legislation in the Winter session of Parliament to deal with complaints of corruption against judges and ensure accountability in higher judiciary. The Judges Standards and Accountability Bill will cover the "entire judiciary" and would not be a "one sided affair". It would also provide appropriate protection to the judges so that "it will not be misused," says Law and Justice Minister M Veerappa...