The New Land Acquisition Law: A Critical Review

As detailed in the Part I of the article, the new LARR Act try to bring a humane face to the land acquisition process. Part II of the article, analyse the rights based approach provisions in the new land acquisition legislation, relating to social impact assessment, public participation and requirement of informed consent.Mandatory Social Impact Assessment Study Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is a new introduction to the land acquisition process by LARR Act. The SIA is considered as a tool which...

Right to Environment and Right of Environment

The philosophical discourse of International Environmental Law has been cantered around two diverse concerns in the protection of environment by and large. One, environmental ethic rest upon anthropocentric approach wherein human beings are considered to be the centre of concern and therefore the protection of the environment is considered to be the right to environment of every human being. The other, approach is the Bio centric approach wherein the biological species act as the central concern...

Transgender rights Judgment: Seeds for a positive judgment in Sec. 377 curative petition sown?

On his last day as a Supreme Court judge, Singhvi J pronounced the much awaited Naz Foundation judgment upholding the constitutional validity of Sec. 377 of IPC. The review petition filed was dismissed by the court without allowing an oral hearing and consequently, a curative petition was filed by the petitioners which was agreed to be heard in an open court by the Chief Justice of India on 3rd April 2014.3 days back in NALSA V. Union of India, the Supreme Court through Radhakrishnan J and Sikri...

India among 12 countries to end US hegemony over the Internet

In the beginning when the Internet became, was the United States. The Internet is primarily the invention of the US “Enterprise” from the 1960s, and is the biggest technological boom the world has ever witnessed; which has never stooped nor stopped. The Internet has encouraged the biggest and most successful entrepreneurial ventures and has led to the strident transformation in how humans communicate.Yes, the Internet is big.But, contrary to popular belief, the Internet is not a centralised...

Unique Identification Disaster? SC holds UID not mandatory, no biometric data to be shared without consent

Recently, the Supreme Court passed an ad-interim order in Unique Identification Auth. of India and anr. v. Central Bureau of Investigation, Petition (s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl) No (s).2524/2014 in the Supreme Court, Order dated March 24, 2014 where it held that the Unique Identification Authority of India was restrained from transferring anyone’s biometric information with an Aadhaar number to any other agency without such person’s consent in writing.More importantly, the Apex Court...

Lenders Beware, the Property is Leased

The Supreme Court has given a very important judgement last week where the Court considered the validity of leases created on mortgaged property. The Court has examined whether the provisions of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (“SARFAESI Act”) have in any way affected the right of a lessee to remain in possession of the secured asset during the period of a lease.While delivering the judgement, the Court has made a...

Non-Judicial conduct

Judging the judges is an unholy activity in India. It’s not done in open, in particular by those who are living by letters of law, the reason being,  existentialism in its literal sense. That doesn’t mean judge bashing is not happening,  be it court canteens, corridors, farewell functions, regardless of time and place it continues unabatedly. The contemporaneous and commentarial judging occurs in the back seats of sacred court room itself. Lawyers, masked by their reverential faces towards the...

The case of Crimea takeover: has the time arrived to abolish the concept of ‘veto power’?

Are the sacred terms like ‘human rights’, ‘humanitarian rights’ and ‘International law’ at crossroad? Unfortunately, even after so many years of existence of different international conventions, much revered national constitutions and numerous declarations of human rights, the answer probably is affirmative.The recent example of Crimea take-over by the Russia raises certain serious concerns over the effectiveness of the international law and brings to our attention yet another important question...

The New Land Acquisition Law: A Critical Review

The new land acquisition law came into force on 1stJanuary, 2014.The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, (LARR Act) replaces the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, which existed from colonial times.The new LARR Act is an attempt to revamp and make the land acquisition process more effective by addressing the major lacunae in the old Land Acquisition Act. This article makes an attempt to analyse how the LARR Act tries to improve the...

How to bye-pass a Statutory Prohibition and a Supreme Court Veto; An illustrative Case

In a landmark Judgment [State of Bihar & Ors. Vs. Rajmangal Ram ] the Supreme Court yesterday re-iterated that the high Courts have no power to interdict a criminal proceeding midcourse on the basis of the legitimacy or otherwise of the order of sanction to prosecute. The Supreme Court was considering two appeals by the State of Bihar against separate orders passed by the High Court of Patna, the effect of which is that the criminal proceedings instituted against the respondents...

Bouquets But Brick Bats Too

The Lawyer Community throughout the country has reasons to rejoice and feel the moment of glory when the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India announced that the list of Lawyers recommended to be appointed Judges in the Madras High Court will be scrapped and a fresh list prepared. This was in view of the serious objections raised by the members of the Madras Bar regarding the ineligibility, inappropriateness and inequity in the appointments suggested and obtaining stay of the same.  This is indeed a...

Respect All, Suspect All; Top up on MRP? Where does the law permit, beg your pardon, Sir?

Does it surprise that charging a paltry three rupees in excess of declared ‘Maximum Retail Price’ could cause a commercial entity to pay a hefty sum of five Lakh rupees as punitive compensation under ‘Consumer Protection Act, 1986’? Yes! It did happen in the case against IRCTC as the aggrieved complainant approached the Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum in Delhi when, during the course of his travel in a train, he was made to pay rupees fifteen for a bottle of ‘Mazza’ the MRP of which was printed...