Super-important Legal GK: round up 3

Ok, here is the next round up for legal gk for all the law aspirants and anyone who needs to keep up with current legal and political affairs to crack competitive exams. This year, these topics are supercharged, and miss them only at your own peril. Don't say I never warned you!

If you find this helpful, thank Jishnu Sanyal and Radhika Misra, both my students at IMS Kolkata, for assisting in compilation.

The procedure of impeachment of a judge: Impeachment of High Court and Supreme Court judges in light of the move against J. Dinakaran – this is generally a favourite area with examiners, and super important this year in light of possible impeachment of Dinakaran. You need to be through with the following:

Article 124 of the Constitution provides for the removal of a judge on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. Impeachment is the only way of removing a high court or Supreme Court judge. While the basis for impeachment is found in the Constitution, the detailed procedure is laid out in the Judges Inquiry Act, 1968. According to the Act, a complaint against a judge has to be made through a resolution by 100 Lok Sabha MPs or 50 Rajya Sabha MPs. These MPs have to go through the complaint and if they are satisfied then they can submit a memoramdum to the Lok Sabha Speaker or the Rajya Sabha chairman, who may constitute a three-member inquiry committee comprising two judges of the Supreme Court and a jury to examine the complaint and to determine if a case is established prima facie. It can also order investigations through some agency.

The final step is to pass a resolution with two third majority in both the houses to remove the judge. The resolution has to be passed by two-third majority in both Houses in the same session, and then the resolution is to be sent to the President who will then order removal of the judge.

Earlier, an impeachment attempt against J. Ramaswamy of Supreme Court failed. Why is impeaching a judge made so difficult? It is so stringent to ensure freedom of judiciary. Politicians should not be able to remove judges on frivolous grounds.

• 75 members from the opposition in the Rajya Sabha submitted an impeachment notice against him. The charges levelled in the petition against Justice Dinakaran, who was denied elevation to the Supreme Court, included possessing disproportionate wealth, land grabbing, entering into benami transactions, violating human rights of Dalits and poor and misuse of official position. A notice of the Motion under the Judges (Enquiry) Act, 1968, for removal of the judge was presented to Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari.
  
  
  
• Read up the other charges against Dinakaran, which mostly consists of nepotism.
• The Rajya Sabha Chairman will set up a three-member committee mentioned earlier.
• Do read about the procedure to impeach the president and vice-president too.
• Who was the US president to be impeached? Can the Prime Minister be impeached in India?

Read this Wikipedia entry on impeachment for a general overview.

Land Acquisition in India: Following widespread protests over land acquisition by government for different purposes, including industrialization and violence as took place in Nandigram, Orissa and elsewhere, a land acquisition bill has been proposed. Accordingly, a Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, is expected to be introduced in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.

A State Land Bank Corporations to scientifically acquire large tracts of non-cultivable and other lands, and to develop these as land banks for the future and have a transparent mechanism to pass these on to the private sector has been proposed.

National Judicial Commission: this is being proposed for a while to oversee the working of the higher judiciary (HC and SC) for a while, and NLS once asked a short note on this when subjective questions used to come in NLS entrance. This is brought back to prominence now because recently some eminent jurists, led by the former Chief Justice of India (CJI) J.S. Verma, have suggested the immediate setting up of an independent national commission empowered to appoint judges to High Courts and the Supreme Court. This is also important in the light of corruption charges against Dinakaran.

Currently India follows a system in which a collegiums of judges in consultation with the government picks judges for the higher judiciary. S. P. Gupta v. Union of India was a major case that dealt with appointment of judges.

The Supreme Court collegiums had recently proposed to elevate Karnataka High Court Chief Justice P. D. Dinakaran to the Supreme Court. Now the judiciary has effectively the final say about appointment of judges.

Setting up the National Judicial Commission would also help expedite appointments to the higher judiciary leading to speeding up of justice.

The Constitution and terrorism: in light of the recent spate of terrorist attacks across the country has led to a demand for creation of a national agency to investigate acts of terrorism. The UPA government has cited the Indian Constitution as the only obstacle for the creation of such a national agency. The government asserts that since the entries “police” and “public order” are in the state list of the Indian Consitution, the Centre cannot create a national agency to deal with acts of terror without amending the Constitution.

You need to read up on the following things in light of recent developments:

POTA, misuse of the same and eventual repeal, Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act which is used in the North Eastern states, center state division of legislative powers in the sixth schedule and what it implies.

Trial of Kasab: In a society based on the rule of law, an accused, whoever it may be, is entitled to a fair trial and legal representation. Question about the trial being unduly protracted has been raised. Speedy justice is also an important element.

A question as to whether the prosecution really needed to introduce hundreds of witnesses, when even one or two good witness would have been sufficient in light of strong evidence available otherwise, thereby wasting time and resources of the state, is being raised.

Adultery: If a woman commits adultery, given Indian law, she can neither be prosecuted nor punished. However, a man is to be punished for the same. Law Commission recommends is high time the discrimination in favour of women in matter of adultery is done away with because the social and economic state of women is vastly different from the times of Lord Maculay in the mid-nineteenth century who justified the distinction.

Debates over tenth schedule: Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution has been introduced to the Constitution by an amendment (do you remember which one?) to prevent horse trading and colour changing after election by Parliamentarians and state legislators. This is highly important in light of recent cases in different states including Goa, Jharkhand, Bihar and Mizoram.

Rajiv Gandhi government introduced The Constitution (Fifty Second Amendment) Bill 1985 to add the Tenth Schedule to the Indian Constitution. At that time, it was hailed as a major reform of the political system. The Schedule’s mandate was to curb the growing tendency of political defections.

Initially the Schedule penalised individual acts of defection while if one-third of the members of a legislative party defected, they could continue as members of the legislature.

The NDA government, through The Constitution (Ninety First Amendment) Act 2003 omitted disallowed one-third of the parliamentarians/ legislators to split from their parent party. However, two-thirds of the members of a parliamentary/ legislative party can still merge with an existing political party or form a new political party.