Paras Nath Singh | @parasnsingh95

Paras Nath Singh

Paras assists Senior Advocate Indira Jaising in the Supreme Court of India. He is a regular contributor to The Leaflet. At the age of 18, he filed his first case in Delhi high Court challenging a decision of the Central Information Commission wherein the Commission held that file noting by junior officers to superiors were third party information. Paras is passionate about utilizing Right to Information Act, 2005 as a tool to gain information in public interest. On his appeal CIC ordered for the inquiry into the missing records of the 1975 national emergency in the PMO. In the last seven years he has filed over 200 RTI applications.

Articles

Case update

SC: Rafale, right to publish documents is in consonance with freedom of speech

No power with the executive arm  to restrain publication or placing of secret documents before a court of law, says court.

April 10,2019

RTI: Disclosure of information

Supreme Court begins hearing appeals filed by the Supreme Court.

April 3,2019

Elections 2019

On the EVM Trail.

A backgrounder, as the petitions come to a head before the Supreme Court.

March 25,2019

Analysis

When a Governor behaves like he’s part of a marauding mob

The Supreme Court must step in to hold the Meghalaya Governor unfit for this constitutional post.

March 1,2019

The Long Read

Supreme Court on senior designation

The Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates of the Supreme Court has been constituted pursuant to the judgement dated October 12, 2017 of the Supreme Court in Indira Jaising v. Secretary General Supreme Court. This judgement introduced the objective system for assessing the Advocates based on 100 Point Index with an emphasis on domain expertise and pro bono work.

January 19,2019

Judiciary

Collegium - Prey to Judges

The Collegium has recommended names of Chief Justice of Karnataka, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Chief Justice of Delhi, Justice Sanjiv Khanna for elevation to the Supreme Court who are junior to Justices Rajendra Menon and Pradeep Nandrajog. There are no parameters available in public domain indicating as to how this elevation of judges to the Apex Court is assessed by the Collegium. The entire process is whimsical, random and highly arbitrary.

January 18,2019

Analysis

SC verdict in Alok Verma case: No embargo on probes

Doing investigation and registering preliminary enquiry into corruption cases or otherwise is a routine matter for the CBI and for that any other investigating agency. It is neither a fresh initiative, nor a policy decision that may or may not have institutional implications. Further, the policy decision with regard to CBI is taken with the consultation of Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) which is the nodal ministry for the CBI.

January 8,2019

Case update

Yogi government slapped with 5 NHRC notices in 2 weeks

NHRC observed that the Bulandshahr incident is indicative of ‘yet another violent protest and rampaging by the unruly mob exposing lawlessness and failure of the administration’ to tackle the sensitive issues and situations. It added that ‘even the police officers do not appear to be safe and can be easily eliminated at free will of the uncontrolled lawless elements’.

December 4,2018

Know Your Rights

Right to Information Act, 2005: An introduction

Having noticed this huge lacuna in the general public’s understanding and awareness of the RTI Act, The Leaflet will be running a weekly column on it, in an attempt to make Indian citizens more aware about the myriad uses of the Act, thereby encouraging its wider application in holding various government departments accountable and transparent in their functioning as well as decision-making process.

December 3,2018

Independence of judiciary

End of ‘face value’ in senior designation

The Karnataka High Court example amply demonstrates that the new process of senior designation gives confidence to the young lawyers without ‘connections’ in the legal profession. It gives them hope that if they are deserving, no one can take away their opportunity to be one day considered for the senior designation. Conferral of this distinction has been duly democratised.

November 25,2018

Former CJI Dipak Misra had nominated Justice A K Goel to head NGT

This nomination took place at a time when Justice Goel still had a week to demit his office as a judge of the Supreme Court. The letter written by the then CJI Misra to the Union Minister of Law and Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad, also reveals that Justice Goel had verbally conveyed to the then CJI, his willingness to accept the post-retirement assignment.

November 2,2018

Democracy and Rule of Law

Shunting out CBI director blatantly illegal

Why was there a tearing hurry in sending the Alok Verma on leave without placing the CVC recommendation for the consideration by the selection committee? Law does not envisage even the transfer of the CBI director without the consent of the committee, let alone sending him on the leave unilaterally at the behest of just the Executive.

October 24,2018

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