Let's Make India A Global Hub Of Arbitration: PM Modi

The three-day Global conference on National Initiative Towards Strengthening Arbitration and Enforcement in India came to a close on Sunday in New Delhi with the Prime Minister's address. Organised by the NITI Aayog, the conference was meant to identify the inherent lacunae in arbitration in India and to define a roadmap to strengthen the same. In the course of three days the conference...

Blow To Pharmas: SC Upholds Centre's Notifications Fixing Retail Price Of Drug Formulations [Read Judgment]

The Supreme Court has upheld the legal validity of notifications issued by the Central government for fixing retail prices or ceiling price of certain formulations under the Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO) of 1995.Appeals filed by the Union of India against orders passed by other high courts were allowed and appeals filed by Dr. Reddy’s laboratories were dismissed.The appeals filed...

Swaraj Abhiyan To Launch A Unique Stir To Draw Attention To Non-Compliance With SC Orders

The Supreme Court passed landmark orders in May after hearing Swaraj Abhiyan’s petition seeking directions to the Central and State Governments to provide timely and effective relief to drought affected people in several States. The Supreme Court, after passing orders, in the case, decided to monitor its implementation.In a subsequent hearing, Swaraj Abhiyan brought it to the notice of...

SC Dismisses Petition Seeking Recognition Of Living Will [Read Order]

The Supreme Court bench, comprising the Chief Justice T.S.Thakur, and Justices D.Y.Chandrachud and L.Nageswara Rao, on Friday, declined to consider a Public Interest Litigation,  seeking a declaration that any person, in a mental capacity to make decisions, has the right to choose or refuse any kind of medical treatment, which cannot be curtailed by any health care provider.The petition...

We Need Basic Institutional Reforms To Strengthen 0ur Arbitration Framework: President Pranab Mukherjee

The President Pranab Mukherjee Today stated that while India has the basic legal and physical infrastructure to support international arbitrations, we need basic institutional reforms to strengthen our arbitration framework. He was inaugurating the Global Conference on ‘National Initiative towards strengthening Arbitration and Enforcement in India’ in New Delhi today. He added that...

Uniform Civil Code Or Codified Personal Law?

In the background of a bunch of writ petitions filed before the Supreme Court, by some Muslim women’s organizations and individual victims, challenging the regressive and arbitrary practices of triple talaq, halala and polygamy among India’s Muslims, the Law Commission has come out with a questionnaire on the viability of a uniform civil code. The timing of the release of this...

SC Slams Developers For Delaying Completion Of Flats, Orders Compensation [Read Order]

A three judge bench of the supreme court headed by Justice Dipak Misra slammed the developers Unitech Resorts Private Ltd. for delaying completion of flats and putting the flat buyers in severe “financial crisis”. The bench stated in it’s order that the developers must “respect their contractual commitment”.In it’s order dated October 19 2016, the bench recorded the submissions...

Reforming the Evidence Act or Re-inventing Caste System?

The recent statement of Abhay Bhardwaj, a lawyer from Gujarat, recently appointed as a part-time member to the Law Commission of India, must be seen as a retrograde to the legal fraternity. Mr. Bhardwaj has called the 144-year-old Indian Evidence Act, 1872 as “outdated”, while mooting the idea of its reformation “along the lines of millennia-old Vedas and shastras”. As per him,...

Gang Rape Accused’s SC Acquittal Raises Questions On Rape, Prostitution & Consent

Many years ago, a bus I was traveling in hit a scooterist and badly injured him, maiming him for life. I was one of those who accompanied him to the hospital. I was asked to attend a court hearing about five years later in a case filed by the police in the said accident case. I could only vaguely remember the place where it had occurred and other details of the chronology of events of that...

“Post-1980s, The Judiciary, Rather Than The Legislature, Has Held Our Nation And The People In Better Stead", Says Author And Academic, Krishna Ananth

Dr. V.Krishna Ananth teaches history at Sikkim University, Gangtok. He did his PhD from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and was associated with The Hindu newspaper in various capacities, reporting and commenting on national politics, until 2003. Alongside he taught at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, lecturing on contemporary Indian politics and constitutional history and practiced at the Madras High Court for a brief while. Dr. Ananth continues to contribute to various...

I'm Happy to 'Debate' in SC on Soumya Case if SC Says No Bar Under Article 124(7): Justice Katju

Justice Markandey Katju has made it clear that he would be happy to appear before the Three Judges Bench of the Supreme Court considering the Review Petition in Soumya Case, if the judges consider that a former Supreme Court judge is not debarred from appearing by Article 124(7) of the Constitution.Article 124(7) states that “No person who has held office as judge of the Supreme Court...

The Uninformed Debate Over The Uniform Civil Code

The Uniform Civil Code “debate” can hardly be described as one. It is a debate where even those in favour of it have not been able to come up with a clear and coherent definition of what they mean by the “Uniform Civil Code”. Even those proposing seem to have very different ideas as to what a Uniform Civil Code is. As I pointed out in a recent article, a UCC can be anything from...