Author: Samanwaya Rautray
Samanwaya Rautray
Samanwaya Rautray, editor, Nitiriti, was formerly with the Economic Times, and has covered the Supreme Court for 18 years for a number of organisations such as the Statesman, the Hindustan Times, Reuters India and the Telegraph apart from the Economic Times. She has also spent several years on the desk at the Indian Express, India Today and the Press Trust of India. You can write in to her at editor@nitiriti.com https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNsPoGEpKPNX3DvdGp6AGiw
Samanwaya Rautray There are too many loopholes in Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a criminal defamation case and his lightning quick disqualification from the Lok Sabha. Under Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, he won’t be able to contest elections for eight years unless he gets a stay on his conviction from an appellate court. This includes his conviction and another additional six years. Ironically enough, Rahul Gandhi had torn up a law that barred disqualification of convicted law-makers for three months. This when the top court had said that the disqualification would be immediate. To be fair…
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The government would have us believe that the collegium system is the root cause of all problems with the judiciary. If there had been no collegium system there would have been no problems. Under the collegium system, recommendations of names for appointing as judges of the constitutional courts i.e., the High Courts’ and the Supreme Court, are not made fast enough. The collegium dilly-dallies, as a result, the vacancies just keep piling up. This leads to a pile up of cases. This is too simplistic an explanation of the huge number of cases clogging the system. The figures speak for…
New Delhi, Dec 16. The Supreme Court is wrong in firmly shutting the door on the possibility of setting up any High Court benches in any part of the country. The court said that the advance of technology had ensured greater connectivity between courts and obviated the need to set up any new benches everywhere. The top court’s words were said in anger, after a lawyers’ strike for a separate Sambalpur bench in Odisha’s tribal belt turned violent and needed reconsideration. Justice cannot be left to the vagaries of technology. Virtual court links can snap during natural disasters and could also…
CAN THE AUTHORITIES BULLDOZE HOMES OF THOSE WHO ARE SUSPECTS OR ACCUSED IN CRIMINAL CASES?
The Supreme Court has released six convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case invoking its extraordinary powers under the Constitution to do “complete justice”, sparking off a controversy whether it was setting a wrong precedent for the future. There is also the issue of whether the court could have invoked these extraordinary powers to release convicts in such a gross case involving the killing of a former Prime Minister of this country over delay in taking a decision on their fate. Significantly, the top court had itself upheld death only for these six convicts in 1999. The top court while…
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud was sworn in on Wednesday as the 50th Chief Justice of India. He will hold office till Nov 2024. During his six-year stint as judge in the top court, CJI Chandrachud has earned a name as a liberal icon, as a judge whose heart beats for the marginalized. In his judgments, he has spoken up for free speech, a woman’s right to choose, her agency over her body and sexuality, and privacy. In his recent ruling on a woman’s reproductive autonomy, he pushed the frontiers of India’s traditional personal law jaundiced jurisprudence. His decision allowing all women…