Category: Legal commentary

  • SC Must Stem Rot Before It Stinks

    The Supreme Court of India is best with galore of controversies. At the beginning of this year, four of its senior most judges- Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph- held a Press Conference saying that ‘all is not well’ in the Supreme Court of India. This triggered the opposition parties to…

  • Delayed Justice – Sad Reflection on the System

    ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ is such an oft-repeated maxim as it has lost its impact on the common litigants in India. There is no gainsaying that the rule of law cannot exist without effective judicial system, which is capable of enforcing rights in a timely manner that inspires the public confidence in the administration…

  • Let Volcanic Eruption in the Supreme Court be a Blessing

    Sometimes blessings come in disguise. The sanguine hope is that the volcano that has erupted in the Supreme Court of India on 12th of January in an unprecedented press conference of four seniormost puisne judges will bring good results for the catharsis of the judiciary. It was like a tremor in the Indian judicial history…

  • Retweeting does not Extenuate Defamation

    Technology has, without doubt, brought immeasurable relief to humanity but at the same time it has also brought along the store of difficulties and embarrassment if that is not used judiciously. Thanks to technology one can get information from one end of the globe to the other in a few seconds, but it can also…

  • Strong Message to Forum-shoppers and Aberrant Judges

    An eminent jurist Benjamin Cardozo has said that ‘the judge is not a knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty and goodness.’ Another jurist Felix Frankfurter has said that ‘for the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate once personal pulls and private views to the law of which…

  • Video Recordings to end the Opacity in the Courts

    Parmanand Pandey It is an oft-repeated saying that ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’. There is no denying that transparency in every sphere of life works like auto-cleaner while the opacity breeds suspicion and corruption. It is, therefore, indeed laudable that the Supreme Court has taken up the cause of transparency in the right earnest by…

  • Privacy Cannot Override National Interests

    By Parmanand Pandey A big debate is going on throughout the country with regard to linking of Adhaar Card with the bank accounts, mobile numbers and many other necessary services. There is a section of the society, which vehemently opposes it because it will violate the privacy of a citizen. The recent Supreme Court judgement…

  • SC Guidelines for Preventing Misuse of Dowry Law

    Laws are meant for the protection of innocent and punishment to guilty but when they become instruments of perversity and misuse, their very purpose gets defeated and they need to be re-looked. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code is one such law which has been used to harass others than to help the young…

  • States Cannot Give Short shrift to Parliamentary Laws

    The uniqueness of the Constitution of India is that it is neither federal nor unitary but an amalgam of both. The distantly nearest with it is the constitution of the United States of America but the common factors of comparison are a few and far between the two. The US constitution is truly Federal in…

  • Justice Karnan’s Saga will Haunt Higher Judiciary

    L’affaire Justice J S Karnan is a unique but lowest of the low case in the judicial history of India. Justice Karnan is the first, and hopefully the last, sitting (now retired) judge of the High Court to have been found guilty of the Contempt of the Supreme Court. He is currently undergoing six-month imprisonment…