Articles
Two Former CICs Explain How Amendment To RTI Is Breaking Backbone Of Information Commissioners
The Union Government's plan to amend the Right to Information Act is mainly to alter the salary structure and tenure of Information Commissioners and weaken all the Information Commissioners and Commissions both at Centre and States. "The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019", has been passed by the Lok Sabha. This was earlier moved in the Rajya Sabha during the previous session of Parliament, but not pressed because of severe criticism. In the debate which then ensued, several ...
Fired For Being Gay: How Are Catholic Institutions In America Legally Evading Anti-Discrimination Laws
On June 21, Joshua Payne-Elliot was having a chat with his husband Layton when he was informed that the latter's Catholic school was asked by the Archdiocese to fire him from a teaching position for being public about his gay marriage. Two days after that conversation, Mr Payne-Elliot, also a teacher at a Catholic High School in Indianapolis, was removed on the same ground and under the orders of the same Archdiocese. While Layton's school refused to follow the order and...
Ex CIC Sridhar Acharyulu Appeals To MPs: Fail NDA's Attempt To Backstab RTI
The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 will be a backstab to CIC and deathblow to RTI. It seriously undermines the autonomy of Information Commissions because it reduces the stature of Commissioners, which is now equivalent to Election Commissioner and Judge Supreme Court. Ever since it came into existence in 2005, the Information Commission had enough authority to issue directions to anybody including cabinet secretary, principal secretary, etc regarding disclosure of...
Anti-Defection Law: A Tunnel Of Darkness?
The anti-defection law as enunciated in the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution of India was to answer the menace of unethical political defections eating into vitals of democracy. Defections had reduced people's representatives to nomads wandering whenever and wherever they found lush green pastures to graze. Apart from destabilising duly elected governments, such switching of political loyalties had made a mockery of parliamentary democracy. Once elected and chosen by the voters, the...
ICJ Decision: Yet Another Wake-Up Call for New Delhi
Today's ICJ decision in Kulbhushan Jhadav's case serves to remind us how crucial it is to take recourse (and timely recourse) to international adjudicatory mechanisms to decide international issues. It is against the backdrop of India's success at the ICJ that one must consider whether taking the Kashmir issue to the ICJ is a viable option for New Delhi. It is, in my opinion, the first step towards a resolution of the multi-layered Kashmir problem for the reasons given in my doctoral thesis way...
Postscript: The Supreme Court's Problematic Order In The Karnataka Case
Yesterday, I wrote that the ongoing Karnataka controversy represents a breakdown of constitutional conventions. This breakdown creates a space for inevitable judicial intervention – but a space that is fraught with risk for the Court. In fashioning a remedy, the Court ought to make it as difficult as possible for the warring political functionaries to subvert constitutional conventions, while leaving the final solution to the existing democratic processes.Today morning, the Court passed an order...
Judicial Supremacy Amid The Breakdown Of Constitutional Conventions: What The Karnataka Controversy Tells Us About Our Parliamentary Democracy
It has long been observed that the smooth functioning of parliamentary democracy depends upon constitutional conventions. Put simply, a constitutional convention refers to a set of uncodified norms that are sanctified by a long tradition of unbroken practice. Political functionaries tend to adhere to these norms either out of a sense of public duty, or out of fear of paying a political cost by breaking them.A written Constitution can reduce the extent to which governance relies upon conventions....
Navtej Johar Case: Depriving Married Women Of The Remedy Under Sec. 377
Out of the fifty-two countries that recognize marital rape as a crime, India is not one. The Indian laws do not see a husband as having the potential to violate the sexual autonomy of his wife. The judgment of Joseph Shine v. UOI which upheld the sexual autonomy of a married women seems to have no influence on the Indian legislatures as they still believe that the Indian society is not ready for criminalization of marital rape and consider that even the allegations of it would damage the...
'Doctrine Of Political Thicket'- Throwback to Baker v. Carr
The Chief Justice's Court of the Supreme Court witnessed an exchange of fierce arguments on Friday in the Karnataka MLA Case.The matter at hands of the 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court was whether the Speaker of Karnataka Assembly was right in not acting on the resignation of the rebel MLAs swiftly. An argument was advanced by Dr. Rajeev Dhavan, who appeared on behalf of the Chief Minister of Karnataka, that the Court was drawn into a political thicket by the MLAs and made to pass orders on...