The Leaflet
Comprehensive coverage, analysis, and breaking news on judicial accountability.
Over a year after piles of burning cash were recovered from his official residence, Justice Varma became the second ever judge to resign while the three-member Inquiry Committee was yet to conclude findings.
Staff Writer
Chief Justice Surya Kant will reflect on where the Indian judiciary stands fifty years hence, while historian Manu S. Pillai traces the colonial legal order and the making of the modern Indian constitutional republic.
Justice Dipankar Datta's separate opinion in Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agarwal lifts the curtain on a critical, and entirely unregulated, phase of India's judicial process. Four decades after Justice Thakkar sounded the same alarm, the Supreme Court of India has yet to act.
From courtroom to classroom, the debate over a banned NCERT textbook raises urgent questions about the constitutional limits of banning school textbooks, and the tension between judicial authority, pedagogical autonomy, and the freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a).
In its latest decision, the Collegium has also transferred Justice Lisa Gill to the Andhra Pradesh High Court, where she will become chief justice later this year.
The reconstitution comes due to Inquiry Committee member Madras HC Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Srivastava’s impending retirement on March 5.
Justice Bhuyan’s recent critical remarks on the Collegium transferring judges at the ‘government’s request’ brings to memory a long list of judicial transfers that denote executive interference in judicial appointments.
As structural vulnerabilities in the Collegium system become harder to ignore, the need for a Judicial Council emerges as a constitutional necessity, not a political concession.
While rejecting Justice Varma's challenge to the Lok Sabha Speaker's decision, the Supreme Court held that rejection of a removal notice in one House does not bar the other from proceeding independently with impeachment inquiry