The Judiciary is the third branch of government. As with the Executive and Legislature, the public has a right to see and know and understand the functioning of this branch. That is why India, like every other democracy, has embraced the concept of open court proceedings and trials, except in those situations where, for security or other compelling reasons, in camera hearings are required. In the Mirajkar case ( Naresh Shridhar...

-The Telegraph The Centre today told the Supreme Court that no prosecution could be launched against Armed Forces fighting “counter-insurgency” and sought four months to decide whether to grant sanction to prosecute officers over a 12-year-old alleged fake encounter in Kashmir. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, invoked in “disturbed areas”, specifically mandates prior sanction before any prosecution can begin, the government told the court while replying to a notice on the...

-The Hindu   The March 2000 encounter at Pathribal in Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of seven civilians was nothing but a cold-blooded murder and no sanction was required to prosecute the Army personnel involved in the incident. This submission was made on Monday by senior counsel Ashok Bhan, who appeared for the CBI, before a Bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar in the Supreme Court. The Centre had asserted...

The apex decision-making body of the communications ministry has cleared the proposal to grant more powers to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and enable the watchdog to act like a civil court.  This puts TRAI on par with the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Competition Commission of India and permits the telecom regulator to 'summon persons, examine them on oath, demand documents and evidence on affidavits...

-The Economist   Nuclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal, says Oliver Morton THE LIGHTS ARE not going off all over Japan, but the nuclear power plants are. Of the 54 reactors in those plants, with a combined capacity of 47.5 gigawatts (GW, a thousand megawatts), only two are operating today. A good dozen are unlikely ever to reopen: six at Fukushima Dai-ichi, which suffered...