A CASH SCANDAL has rocked the Delhi High Court after an alleged fire at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma reportedly uncovered a large stash of cash, estimated by some to be as high as ₹50 crore. At this point, it is worth trying to understand whether this case represents an exception or something more endemic to the Indian judiciary.
There are four distinct possibilities regarding the source of the cash allegedly found at Justice Varma’s residence. Irrespective of whether it belongs to him or not, the implications on the common litigant’s trust over the judicial system are serious. India’s black economy, a complex enmeshment of political and corporate actors, has manifested itself through this scandal of our times.
Carrying capacity must serve as a tool for long-term sustainability rather than a restrictive measure that disproportionately affects vulnerable communities
Economic self-sufficiency is crucial for women’s emancipation because it fundamentally enables autonomy, freedom, and the empowerment necessary to make decisions. It also allows women to live beyond the limits imposed by patriarchal norms.
Equality in the workplace, along with the recognition and enforcement of women’s property rights, are vital instruments for ensuring women’s economic and financial independence.
Indian federalism, multilevel in its functioning, is based normatively on the principle of subsidiarity, which essentially means that the authority needs to be invested at the lowest possible level of institutional hierarchy. The subsidiarity principle seeks decentralisation and asserts, to deepen democracy, that the local levels, in relation to the central governments, must be ensured with some degree of functional independence and agency. The architecture of power distribution in the Indian Constitution indicates, more in spirit than in letter, that power must travel from Rajpath (the ruler’s site) to Janpath (where common people tread), down to gram sabhas, which is the real repository of people’s power.
Since 2014, under Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s socio-political discourse has shifted to the right, driven by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS’s) ideology. The unprecedented moves like the triple talaq ban, Article 370 revocation, Citizenship Amendment Act-National Register of Citizens (CAA-NRC) legislation, and the Ram Janmabhoomi project reflect this shift, enabled by capturing institutions, media, judiciary, and public imagination.
Moving beyond its established role as a socio-political-cultural ideology with core philosophy of othering of those not belonging to the wider Hindu fold, Hindutva’s new phase is now possibly shaping cities and the urban lived environment, as a site for demonstrating ideology – socially, culturally and spatially. The targeted demolition of homes of Muslims as an act of collective punishment, and the recent cases of staged violence including at Sambhal mosque are only facets of a broader, emerging urban manifestation of the Hindutva ideology.
The Winter Session of Parliament held from November 25 to December 20, 2024 was a period of significant legislative activity and parliamentary engagement also marked by considerable procedural challenges and disruptions.