-The Telegraph   Had it not been for a tub of hot water and a celebrated judge in England in 1949, Bengal’s Singur law may have found itself in legal hot water. Justice I.P. Mukerji, who delivered the Singur judgment, was guided by a 62-year-old English case that dealt with hot water supply by a landlord, according to the order issued on Wednesday. The Calcutta judge used the principle of “purposive interpretation”, which figured...

Of late, there has been a debate on whether public programmes such as school education, scholarships, health-care delivery and access to microcredit can be targeted at beneficiaries based on religion; some consider this ‘unConstitutional' and argue that it amounts to discrimination. I highlight the Constitutional provisions and argue that there is nothing in the Constitution which bars identification of beneficiaries based on religion. Religious identity is listed on a par...

Mamata Banerjee won big on two fronts today. She won a legal battle against Ratan Tata that's centred on the land allotted to him in Singur. She also won her assembly by-election from her constituency of Bohwanipore by nearly 50,000 votes. She was earlier an MP. Her legal victory was declared first this morning. The Calcutta High Court ruled that the Singur Land Rehabilitation Act is Constitutional and valid. The Act...

The Calcutta high court upheld the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act on Wednesday, saying that it was within the powers of West Bengal’s legislators to impose such a law, rejecting the challenge by Tata Motors Ltd over the seizure of land that was meant for its Nano factory. Justice I.P. Mukerji said in the judgement, however, that the Hooghly “district officials have exceeded their powers in taking possession of the...

Union Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, lacking sportsman’s spirit, has stuck to his post like Dendrite paste, despite a series of failures in combating secessionist insurgencies including the armed offensive led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist). He parrots Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and considers Maoists to be “the most formidable challenge to governance.” “Only if villagers think that the real adversary is the Naxal who keeps them under threat will...