Author: A G Noorani
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 396
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0 195659082
Description
This volume demonstrates how citizens can assert their rights and bring to account those who wield power. The issues raised have far reaching consequences and are recurring themes in India’s politics, making this collection of enduring interest.
This volume of essays written in A G Noorani’s trademark lucid and accessible style deals with crises in various institutions including the judiciary, the civil services, and elections.
It highlights the process of accountability in these institutions, the citizens’ right to know and correspondingly the states accountability to the people. It analyses the working of commissions of enquiry, the decline in the quality of the political process in recent years, the amplitude of Article 370 on Kashmir, and the armed forces. The essays are thought provoking and comparative in approach drawing examples from British and American experiences.
Shorn of knotty legal details, yet replete with quotations, citations and references for interested readers, this collection of essays will interest all sections of the legal fraternity. It will also be of relevance to political scientists, journalists as well as interested lay readers.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
SECTION I: THE JUDICIARY
Tackling Judicial Delinquency
The Judiciary in Decline:
The System’s Prestige at its Lowest Since Inception
Farce or Obsolescence of Impeachment Process
Imputing Bias and the Law of Contempt
Courts and the Media
Courts and Bar Associations
The Bar and the Bench
The Supreme Court and Demolition of Babri Masjid
The Supreme Courts Judgment on the Ayodhya Act, 1983
The Supreme Court on Hindutva
The Judges’s Case
A Code of Conduct for Judges
Justice Shivappa’s Case
SECTION II: THE PROCESS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
When a Minister Ought to Resign
The Law of Sanction for Prosecution
Integrity of Prosecutions
The Supreme Court on the CBI
Satish Sharma’s Case
The Kargil Inquiry
The Kargil Report
SECTION III: ELECTONS
Appointing the Chief Election Commissioner
Debarring Criminals
Debarring Purveyors of Religious Hate
Election Commission and Poll Surveys
Delimitation of Constituencies
SECTION IV: COMMISSIONS OF INQUIRY
Dissolving a Commission of Inquiry
Publishing Inquiry Reports
Jain Commission’s Final Report
The Tehelka Commission and Press Freedom
The Commission as Vendetta
SECTION V: THE CIVIL SERVICE
Civil Servants and Ministers
The Vasudevan Case
Transfer of Civil Servants
The Civil Servants’ Truth
Papers of previous Regimes
SECTION VI: THE RIGHT TO KNOW
Pamphleteering and Politics
Split Politics in South Asia
Election of Party Leaders: Two Political Cultures
The Congress (I)’s Constitution
The Party Organization and its Parliamentary Party
Expelling a Party Member
Law for Parties: The German Model
SECTION VII: THE POLITICAL PROCESS
Copyright in Nehru’s State Papers
Freedom of Expression in Maps
Libel as Crime: A Void Law
Media Ethics and the Tehelka Operation
Film censorship: An Unconstitutional System
The Foreigner in the Media
SECTION VIII: ARTICLE 370 AND KASHMIR
Articles 370: Law and Politics
SECTION IX: ARMED FORCES
The Doctrine of Civilian Control