Landmark judgments follow new CJI's assumption of office.
Venugopal, who is the recipient of Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan, is likely to represent as the top law officer for the second time, as he was one of the Additional Solicitors General during Morarji Desai's government.
He took exception to an "ideological group of people", activists, intellectuals for giving "identification marks" to as to "who is an independent judge" and said that according to them a judge must be necessarily anti-establishment.
The top court reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking a collegium-like system for the appointment of ECs and the Chief Election Commissioner and asked the parties to file written submission in five days.
In the second judgment, she said sole testimony of the victim in rape cases is sufficient to fix criminal liability. "However, in the present case, considering the sub-standard quality of testimony of the prosecutrix, it would be a grave injustice to send the appellant behind bars for 10 years, her order said.
Underlining the importance of having a chief election commissioner who is "independent and a man of character", the Supreme Court on Wednesday wondered will it not be a case of "complete breakdown of system" if the CEC does not act against the prime minister in case there are allegations against him.
A day after Parliament approved scrapping of collegium system for appointment of judges in higher courts, the Chief Justice of India R M Lodha on Friday said Parliament and Executive should not interfere in the domain of Judiciary.
The United Progressive Alliance government's efforts to rein in the judiciary may come unstuck as its ambitious bill scrapping the collegium system of appointing judges to the Supreme Court and high courts as the Bharatiya Janata Party is unlikely to allow the passage in the ongoing Parliament session.
Senior advocate K K Venugopal's name has been cleared for appointment as the Attorney General for India, following the decision of Mukul Rohatgi to step down as the top law officer.
Delhi's power circles can expect a surprise when a not-so-known officer is appointed to head the CBI.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress were at loggerheads on Wednesday over the government's move to appoint a jurist to Lokpal selection panel with the main opposition approaching President Pranab Mukherjee to press its demand for a consensus on such an issue.
'Under Justice Gogoi's tenure, the Supreme Court has gone from an institution that was at least formally committed to the protection of individual rights as its primary task, to an institution that speaks the language of the executive, and has become indistinguishable from the executive,' warns Gautam Bhatia.
In a move aimed at insulating the Central Bureau of Investigation from political interference, the Union Cabinet on Thursday approved recommendations of a Group of Ministers which include setting up of a panel of retired judges to oversee the investigations of the agency, besides increased financial powers of its director.
Justice P Sathasivam was on Friday sworn in as the 40th Chief Justice of India by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Justice Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu was appointed as the next Chief Justice of India on Friday and will have a tenure of 14 months. The President is pleased to appoint Justice Dattu as the CJI with effect from September 28, 2014, the law ministry announced in New Delhi.
'My question is not why he has accepted the governorship, my question is why did the government offer it to him? By his accepting it, an impression is sought to be created that judges are no better than anyone else and will accept anything.' Fali Nariman, the legendary lawyer, speaks on the controversy over the National Judicial Appointments Bill and former Chief Jusice P Sathasivam's appointment as Kerala governor in an exclusive interview.
Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad believes governance finally on track. An exclusive chat with Rashme Sehgal.
The establishment of a National Judicial Commission to give the Executive a say in appointment of judges and setting up a special investigation team on blackmoney stashed abroad are the priority areas for the Modi government, newly-appointed Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
The past three weeks have demonstrated that the Congress is still to recover from the drubbing it received in Lok Sabha elections, says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal
The controversy over appointment of Gopal Subramanium as judge of the Supreme Court took a new turn on Tuesday with the Chief Justice of India R M Lodha making it clear that segregation of his name was done "unilaterally" by the executive, which he said was "not proper".
The finance minister said he said, "The judgement has upheld the primacy of one basic structure -- independence of judiciary -- but diminished five other basic structures of the Constitution, namely, Parliamentary democracy, an elected government, the Council of Ministers, an elected prime minister and the elected leader of the opposition."
The four judges -- Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph -- have taken up their respective business on the first working day of the top court after the January 12 press conference.
'No Indian political party functions in a democratic way.'
A look at the key decisions taken by the Narendra Modi government in its six months.
Attorney General K K Venugopal told a bench headed by Justice Bobde that the Constitution (103 amendment) Act, 2019 granting 10 per cent reservation to EWS is intended to uplift around 200 million people who are still below the poverty line.
"Courts rooms are locked down. Do you want to lock down the judiciary," a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur said, adding, "You cannot bring the entire institution to a grinding halt."
The apex court, which quashed the NJAC Act in an unanimous verdict, also declared as unconstitutional the 99th amendment to the Constitution to bring in the Act to replace the collegium system.
The recent meeting of chief justices and chief ministers skirted vital issues, which could have helped in improving the efficiency in the functioning of courts
The decision of the Union Cabinet based on the Group of Ministers recommendations only creates an illusion by removing the political executive and creating a proxy institution instead, says Arun Jaitley
The decision of the Union Cabinet based on the Group of Ministers recommendations only creates an illusion by removing the political executive and creating a proxy institution instead, says Arun Jaitley
A proposal to set up a panel of retired judges to oversee the investigations of the Central Bureau of Investigation to insulate it from political interference is in conformity with existing legal provisions, Finance Minister P Chidambaram indicated on Friday.
One of the two eminent persons to be included in the National Judicial Appointments Commission will have to hail from communities belonging to SC, ST, OBC, minorities or be a woman under a provision in the bill being prepared in this regard.
'The best remedy would be to scrap Section 124-A of the IPC, a colonial vestige, altogether.' 'However, if legislators don't want to do so, they can do two things.' 'They can formally amend Section 124-A to bring it in line with what the Supreme Court has said about sedition.' 'The words which stand on the statute book today were inserted in 1898.' 'The Supreme Court's words are not a part of Section 124-A.'
Jagdish Chhokar, founder-member of the Association for Democratic Reforms says there should be a law to regulate the functioning of political parties.
In a new twist, Chief Justice of India H L Dattu has refused to participate in a three-member panel for selecting two eminent persons in the six-member National Judicial Appointments Commission on whose validity a constitution bench began hearings on Monday.
As the government came under attack from the Opposition during the debate on the recent communal riots in the national capital that have claimed over 50 lives, the BJP members alleged that the violence was a pre-planned conspiracy and the home minister and authorities took pro-active steps to control the situation.
Referring to Article 124 of the Constitution, the sources said the notice should have grounds of 'proved misbehaviour or incapacity'.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said there was "some amount" of intolerance in the society which has to be identified and dealt with firmly, instead of generalising it.
He also made it clear that judiciary cannot depend on executive in choosing judges.
'All of Indira Gandhi's bad economic ideas are being strengthened, from nationalised banks to anti-poverty, handout yojanas,' says Shekhar Gupta.
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