This essay describes and compares Parliament and the Supreme Court and examines the relationship between them. Parliament may still be a great institution, but its members are no longer great men. How long can a great institution remain great in the hands of small men? The SC has held its place in the public esteem rather better than the Lok Sabha, despite the occasional allegation of financial impropriety. Parliament, the...

The Supreme Court on Thursday, refusing to stay at this stage the Madras High Court judgment striking down as unconstitutional an amendment to the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act, extended the time limit for distribution of textbooks till August 2. The High Court by its July 18 judgment had directed the State to forthwith distribute the textbooks printed under the Uniform System of School Education to enable teachers...

The draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill 2011, proposed by the NAC, has attracted welcome debate. Any legislative measure, intended to correct a historical wrong, should indeed be subject to the closest scrutiny to improve and strengthen it. For if we get this right it can help realise, far better than we have so far, the constitutional guarantees of equality before the law. This bill is built on India’s...

Delivering the Setalvad Memorial Lecture, on April 16, Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia cautioned the judiciary against exceeding their judicial functions. His remarks are particularly relevant to the increasing tendency of judges of superior courts to issue directions to government, to correct and monitor government’s functions, and to even make policy decisions which are in the domain of government — as if there was no separation of functions between...

In a season when every self-styled warrior against corruption is trying to look for a new weapon to fight it, my guest today is Satyananda Mishra, Chief Information Commissioner—someone who has in his control the strongest of those weapons, the RTI. Actually when it all began, nobody thought it would be so effective. In a period of five-and-a-half years, it has touched the hearts and minds of people. The number of...