Holiday cravings in India

Two occurrences in the month of March 2015 were eye openers as far as our holiday cravings were concerned. When the Chief Justice of India convened a conference of high court chief justice’s to be held on April 3rd, 4th and 5th, one of the days (3rd April) happened to be Good Friday. This evoked murmurs of protest and there were demands that the conference be cancelled. The protest was raised mainly by the Bishops Conference of India, which was later followed by a motion before the Supreme Court...

"Free speech, Obscenity and 'Respected Historical Personalities': A Troubling New Doctrine

When the Supreme Court struck down S. 66A of the IT Act in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India two months ago, the verdict was hailed as a landmark milestone in Indian free speech jurisprudence, for two reasons. First, for once, the Supreme Court followed up its platitudes about the value of free speech in a democracy not with a sentence beginning with “but...”, but rather with actual concrete action – striking down a speech-restricting provision. And secondly, it was a judgement in which the...

Conversion of Law Professors into Justice: Is it a Dream or Possiblity?

1. PrefatoryThe law professors constitute a big constituency of academics in India who are engaged in law teaching and research in different universities and colleges, producing thousands of lawyers and judges over the years. They are highly qualified, in fact more qualified than their other counter parts, judges and lawyers, but their stake in legal profession is less recognized. In fact, they are highly ignored by their other counterparts, as well as the Government. They have very few...

Direction for Third Gender not an acceptable legal proposition

Supreme Court of India has declared that Hijras, eunuchs,  apart from binary genders, be treated as “third gender” for the purpose of safeguarding their rights under Part III of the Indian Constitution and other laws. The Central and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or third gender. Other directions to protect them is also issued by the judgment of the Supreme Court of India in the case filed by the National Legal Services...

A Damocles Sword that never falls

The  Supreme Court directions  in Priyanka Srivastava 2015 (2) KHC SN 30 SC raise many curious issues.  The Apex court said that, for sending a matter for investigation under section 156 (3) Cr.P.C, the complaint should be supported by an affidavit.   The reason behind it is sound. But it will in a way curtail the power of the magistrate !When a complaint is before the magistrate, he can either take cognizance by himself and proceed with the matter or send it to police for investigation.  There...

An indefensible decision

Chief Justice H.L Dattu has refused to participate in the National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC) which practically “stalled any immediate chances of constituting the new judicial appointments body” (Krishnadas Rajagopal,The Hindu, 28.4.2015).  Thus, even without   a judicial interdiction against NJAC, an impediment has been created by the Chief Justice by his personal decision to stay away from the Commission.The vacuum due to non-constitution of the NJAC also is a serious matter....

Collegium in Collation with Executive’s Frailty

Essential attributes of State are Government, Territory, Sovereign and Population.  Sovereign power, with the evolutions of State, got distributed in Executive, Judiciary and Legislature.  Each component acted as countervailing forces against the other to prevent accumulation of Sovereign power in one entity.  ‘Separation of Power’ of Montesquieu lends credence to this system with a political philosophy contained in his ‘Spirit of Laws’.  We, with rich heritage of this philosophy from the...

Is RTI Act taking away the sanctity of Hippocrates oath ?

The Chief Information Commissioner, while rendering his decision of 10-4-2015 in Case No:CIC/KY/A/2014/001348SA (Ms Jyoti Jeena v. PIO, Institute of Human Behavior & Allied Science ) has held that a wife who is applicant therein is entitled to get copies medical records of her estranged husband. The correctness of the decision is doubted by many including activists of medical ethics. The reason is that it makes inroads into the principles of confidentiality of patient related information...

Insulted disabled; non-functional legal framework

Exercising one’s right or freedom of speech and expression every so often creates hatredness aiming insult of a class of people. A former minister of Kerala abused the physically handicapped or differently able persons accusing that the various schemes of reservations and privileges granted to them is one of the major reasons for loss in public sector undertakings. The factual merit of his statement is not a matter for discussion, because, his statement did not contain any data to justify his...

Removal of the Governors in India

Recently the NDA Government sacked Mr. Aziz Qureshi, Governor of Mizoram. Last year Mr. Qureshi had fiercely objected to being asked to put in his papers and later dragged the Government to the Supreme Court against attempts to remove him. As Governor of Uttarakhand he had alleged that the then Home Secretary Anil Goswami, had called him on the Government’s behalf, asking him to put in his papers or face a transfer for certain allegedly inappropriate comments on rapes that were attributed to him...

NJAC and The Tragedy of the Library of Alexadria

The Royal Library of Alexandria was founded by the Greek general Ptolomy II, the successor to Alexander the Great. Built in the 3rd century BC, it was the  centre of learning of the classical world. It had a precious collection of 5,00,000 papyrus scrolls of world's greatest and foremost thinkers, astronomers, philosophers, mathematicians, litterateurs, scientists like Homer, Plato, Socrates, Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Erasistratus, Hipparchus, Aedesia,  Theon, Hypatia and Aristarchus of...

A Judgment inviting Police Raj

BhagwanDass ( God’s servant) has despised and dishonored his Divine name by an honor killing and was convicted by the apex court. Bhagwan Dass Vs State (NCT of Delhi) (2011) 6 SCC 396, (2011) 2 SCC (Cri)985.Honour killings have to be stopped. It dishonours the society. Even its nomenclature is misleading and it is to be rewritten as “dishonor killings”The apex court verdict is welcomed. But the revolting method that was adopted for evaluating a particular set of evidence is against the basic...