The Supreme Court on Monday held that the Right To Information Act cannot be used by a litigant to question the basis or correctness of a judicial order. A Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice B.S. Chauhan dismissed a special leave petition filed by a litigant Khanapuram Gandaiah against a judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court rejecting the plea for giving reasons for the judicial order under...

Can a judge be asked under the Right to Information (RTI) Act as to why and how he came to a particular conclusion in a judgment? No, says the Supreme Court. The apex court saw the mischief potential of queries under the RTI Act in relation to a judge and his judgments and a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice B S Chauhan firmly said that a...

Human rights investigators in India have been harassed and intimidated by large gangs of men apparently paid to stop any outsiders reaching the site of a controversial proposed mine in India. The men, known locally as ‘goons’, have become increasingly active in villages around the Niyamgiri Hills, Orissa, site of a giant bauxite mine planned by the UK FTSE-100 company Vedanta Resources. The hills are the ancestral home of the Dongria...

Notwithstanding controversies, it passed several important judgments The year 2009 was eventful and memorable for the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan. The Court faced several controversies, the notable being the collegium’s decision to elevate Karnataka High Court Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran as one of its judges. This controversy was preceded by a clean chit to Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge Nirmal Yadav in the Rs....

Educating disadvantaged and vulnerable groups is key  In the face of imports posing a competition to domestic manufacturing, the government has decided to come up with a National Consumer Policy to ensure uniform national and international standards in the various arms of the Central and State governments, the regulatory bodies and on consumer fora, and to lay down the guiding principles of complaint resolution. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)will...