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Go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you’ll see farther, goes a saying attributed to Thomas Carlyle. The Supreme Court has gone as far as invalidating an attempt to provide a legislated  alternative to its own collegium system  of judicial appointments. After restoring the judge-made system, it has to necessarily see farther and come up with improvements that will enhance transparency in appointments and provide reasonable eligibility criteria for prospective judges. Having both struck down the Constitution amendment to set up a National Judicial Appointments Commission and admitted to serious shortcomings in the system it has been implementing for over two decades, the court has to take the next logical step of reforming the existing mechanism. It has embarked on a unique process to involve the entire society in the exercise by inviting suggestions from the public. For the first time, the average citizen will be involved in a process hitherto seen as arcane and...

The Law Commission of India has recommended amending the Constitution to ensure that children below six years of age are protected from “all forms” of neglect, harm and exploitation. The commission has also recommended that their right to basic care and assistance be made an enforceable right. It has said that the early childhood is the phase of “maximum vulnerability” and deprivation can seriously impact a child’s health and learning potential.The commission, in its report submitted to the Law Ministry, has also recommended amendments to the Right to Education Act, Maternity Benefit Act and creation of a statutory authority for early childhood development to ensure “proper emphasis” on the promotion of early childhood development. The report of the commission, whose term is ending on August 31, is the result of demands made by representatives of Alliance for Right to Early Childhood Care and Development and Mobile Creches who highlighted the issue relating to the rights of children u...

As one of the tens of thousands who marched in protest along with my daughters on the streets of New Delhi in December 2012 following the gang rape and murder of a young physiotherapy student, I often find myself asking: So, what has changed? Yes, we have tougher laws. But news of the brutal gang rape and murder of a 28-year-old woman in Rohtak, Haryana, bears uncanny parallels with the Delhi crime two years ago, with one significant difference: The scale of violence seemed higher and the level of outrage was almost absent. Violence against women is the topic du jour, not just in India but all over the world. In the US, the government has stepped in to crack down on an epidemic of sexual violence in colleges and universities where a White House Task Force reports that one in five women is sexually assaulted, most often by someone she knows. In the North Kivu province of the

Download PDF version Using the framework of informal logical fallacies, this article looks at the link between prejudices and certain contemporary social debates involving women and gender, and analyses how the law accommodates these prejudices. Surya Binoy ( suryabinoy@gmail.com ) is an author and lawyer based in Kerala. We are all susceptible to prejudices as we are to diseases. We can only hope for better resistance, not perfect immunity, from either of these influences on our lives. A part of such resistance emanates from our recognition of the power of prejudice, which I define as preconceived notions of credibility, merit, character or culpability of another. This article looks at the link between prejudices and certain contemporary social debates involving women and gender, and analyses to what extent the law accommodates these prejudices. The analytical framework I use is that of informal logical fallacies. Informal fallacies, as distinguished from f...

The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday declared as “unconstitutional and invalid” the University Grants Commission (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulation 2010 pertaining to governance system, admission and fee structure and opening of campuses of deemed-to-be universities in the country.

A nude or semi-nude picture of a woman cannot be called obscene per se unless it is designed to excite sexual passion or reveal an overt sexual desire, the Supreme Court has held. Quashing a case against a newspaper for publishing a nude photo of German tennis legend Boris Becker with his fiancee in 1993, a bench of justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and A.K. Sikri said only those sex-related materials can be held to be obscene which have a tendency of exciting lustful thoughts.

The disability sector is torn between rejecting the Bill outright and assemblinga few non-negotiables to have the Bill passed by the Lok Sabha

The death penalty cannot be administered in a manner that does not attract some form of injustice

The Supreme Court on Wednesday observed that the provision on sanction for prosecution was impeding the anti-corruption law and asked the Centre why it was protecting the top bureaucracy by having it on

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014, a three-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court reaffirmed the value in due process of law, even in its application to those whom we as a society have shunned, by commuting

Scheme infringes on right to privacy, says petition The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Union government whether it obtained the nod from the

Now, Christian spouses in Karnataka need to live separately only for a year, instead of the existing two-year period, for seeking dissolution of marriage by mutual consent.

The Supreme Court Judge Kurian Joseph said that an independent council for conciliation should be formed under the aegis of the Kerala Chamber of Commerce and Industry as part of the alternative

In the last two years the highest courts in the country have responded to a mass call for more protection for women. Alongside, there have been many judgments from non-constitutional decision-

The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its nod for a stand-alone law to protect waqf property from encroachment.

Seventeen years after the first plea was made, the Supreme Court on Tuesday commenced hearing to examine the constitutional validity of the law which makes it mandatory for the CBI to take approval of

Environment Ministry contradicts Moily’s statements Contradicting the statements made by M. Veerappa Moily, the Union Environment and Forests

In a major setback to gay rights activists, the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review its December 11 judgment, holding that homosexuality or unnatural sex between two consenting adults

The incident in Subalpur village in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, in which a 20-year-old tribal

In order to inquire into complaints of sexual harassment of women at any place, a law must be enacted to deal with offences, delinking them from employment rules