Rights activist Binayak Sen has challenged in Chhattisgarh High Court the life sentence given to him by a local court after being convicted for sedition and links with Maoists, saying his involvement in the alleged crime was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. 58-yer-old Sen''s counsel Mahendra Dubey filed an appeal against his conviction yesterday, contending that after a thorough examination of the lower court''s judgement it has become clear his involvement...

The Supreme Court today stayed a Delhi High Court order that had refused to quash a criminal case slapped against political commentator Ashish Nandy for an article on the Gujarat riots. It also issued notices to the Gujarat government on an appeal filed by Nandy against the high court order that dismissed his plea for quashing the case registered against. The high court had asked Nandy to defend himself in a lower...

The sentencing of Dr. Binayak Sen involves unverified charges, and unreasonable and unconstitutional findings. The constitutional validity of the charges of sedition and conspiracy that were used to implicate rights activists such as Binayak Sen merely for their anti-establishment political thoughts needs to be challenged. The action ridicules the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. The sections of the Indian Penal Code that deal with “conspiracy to wage war against the government”...

Maoist leader was himself charged with sedition only as an after-thought Narayan Sanyal is a 74-year-old man with white hair parted to one side and fibromatosis in both hands. His arrest memo notes that he wears dentures, has spots on his body and smokes cigarettes. “My health is not going well, arthritis is a new thing catching up, age is telling,” he writes in a letter addressed to a ‘Dear...

Since the last few years, Prashan Bhushan, senior lawyer, has fired up the Indian political scene through his missionary legal practice.In the legal fraternity he is a loner because he is, always, on the wrong side of the power set up in New Delhi. In fact, when one meets the slow and soft-speaker, he hardly looks like a lawyer who is capable of shaking-up the government and its cronies.But, his...