-The Economic Times   All of us are bothered, or should be, about interminable delays in adjudication through formal legal systems. Gypsies are believed to have originated in India and there is a gypsy curse - may you have a lawsuit in which you are in the right. In 2010, there were 54,600 cases stuck in Supreme Court, 4.18 million in high courts and 27.89 million in lower (district and subordinate) courts. Pedantic...

Judicial activism was the key in many Supreme Court observations and judgments during 2011. 2011 CVC THOMAS: A three-judge bench led by CJI SH Kapadia declared “non est” — or nonexistent — the majority recommendation of a high-powered committee for P J Thomas as Central Vigilance Commissioner. The court ruled that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister’s recommendation amounted to “official arbitrariness”, coming in spite of the dissent of the third...

-PTI Not yielding to Anna Hazare's demand, government is understood to have decided to keep CBI out of the purview of the proposed Lokpal. This is the view that has emerged out of the discussions senior ministers, who are Lawyers in their own right, had among themselves and had reportedly recommended to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The draft Cabinet note, to which officials of the Personnel and Legislative department had given final touches...

Citing lack of evidence, Jharkhand High Court today acquitted four alleged Maoists, sentenced to death for opening fire on spectators of a football match in Giridih in October 2007 and killing Babulal Marandi’s son and 18 others. A division bench of Justices R.K. Merathia and P.P. Bhatt heard the appeals filed by accused Jeetan Marandi, Manoj Rajwar, Anil Ram and Chhatrapti Mandal and gave them the “benefit of doubt” after citing...

-The Telegraph   The main points agreed upon in the Durban talks: Kyoto protocol extension After the failure of Copenhagen in 2009 to come up with a new, internationally-binding deal and only incremental progress a year later in Cancun, a partial legal vacuum had loomed as drafting a new UN treaty is extremely time-consuming. Sunday’s deal extends Kyoto, whose first phase of emissions cuts run from 2008 to the end of 2012. The second commitment...