Prickly issues like the inclusion of the PMO or the judiciary within the ambit of the Jan Lokpal Bill were left out in favour of a broader discussion on the proposed legislation by the joint drafting committee on Monday. These and other controversial issues could come up in the May 7 meeting. The joint drafting committee met for the first time after a slew of corruption charges had rocked civil society members...

Joint drafting panel on Lokpal Bill holds second meeting; public consultations after agreement on basic principles In the second round of discussions in the joint drafting committee on the Lokpal Bill here on Monday, members of civil society invoked the United Nations Convention on Corruption to stress that the underlying principle of the anti-corruption law should be to have an independent body that covers the highest executive and the judiciary. The...

The Supreme Court today refused to go into a batch of PILs challenging constitutional validity of the notification on composition of a committee to draft the Jan Lokpal bill, saying the petitions were "premature". A bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia posted the matter for hearing in July. The bench said, "The petitions are premature and can't be taken as the Lokpal Bill was yet to be passed." "It is still...

A member of the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council today said the delay in enacting the food security law amounted to “corruption”. “The food security bill is delayed. This is corruption,” Aruna Roy said at a seminar here, strongly pitching for legal guarantees on food security to every citizen in the country. The draft bill finalised by the NAC seeks to provide subsidised grain to up to 75 per cent of the...

Making it clear that illegal mining would not be allowed to continue, the Supreme Court, acting on a report of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), on Friday directed suspension of the 19 mining leases in Karnataka in the Bellary region and restrained these mines from carrying on operations until further orders. The Forest Bench comprising Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan passed the restraint order...