The ministry of personnel has shown a surprising lack of alacrity in prosecuting errant babus In August last year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was keynote speaker at the annual meeting of India’s premier anti-corruption agency, the CBI. There, addressing officers of the agency and state vigilance bureaus, he made a telling remark, “Our anti-corruption agencies must make the cost of corruption unacceptably high for those indulging in this evil practice.” The prime...

Is there a breakdown of rule of law and the Constitutional order in Chhattisgarh? Some of India’s most respected civil society organisations certainly think so, though the State Government disagrees. Several Citizens’ organisations have written to the authorities, the courts and even the Prime Minister, about police excesses during the ongoing Operation Green-hunt that the government forces, their paramilitaries and vigilantes have waged on the armed Maoists. (See links below)...

A landless labourer dies on Christmas day after going without food for five days. Neither he nor his wife, who was a job card holder under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, knew they could demand work or avail of unemployment benefits as a right It was a death that could have been avoided. Kishen Singh, a 45-year-old landless labourer, died of hunger in Champakheda village in south Rajasthan. What...

The Delhi High Court Tuesday upheld its single bench order that the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) comes within the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and details of judges assets should be revealed under that. A bench comprising Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justices S. Muralidhar and Vikramjeet Sen said, "Higher the judiciary, higher is the accountability towards the public at large". Emphasising the importance of...

Are income-tax returns filed by individual Citizens open to public scrutiny under the Right to Information? Yes, says the Central Information Commission. In a controversial December 14 ruling with far-reaching implications, the CIC held that individual assessees could not invoke privacy concerns to prevent an unrelated “third party” from inspecting returns filed with the Income-Tax Department. Sources in the Commission said the ruling must be seen as a trendsetter that could...