- Reuters
- The Indian Supreme Court spends a great deal of its time on public interest cases, even though they're just a fraction of its caseload.
On a recent afternoon in room No. 9 in India's Supreme Court, public interest lawyer Anil Diwan was arguing a case that the Indian government has failed to crack down on traffickers in large amounts of untaxed cash known as "black money." He read from a document that claimed India hasn't followed up on potential leads about big tax evaders and money launderers.
Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium, who was on hand to defend the government, jumped out of his seat and lodged a protest to Justice B. Sudershan Reddy.
"My Lord, he's reading from a blog! A blog!" Mr. Subramanium said. "If we're going to read blogs, let's start downloading all of them from the Internet."
India's apex court has a regal atmosphere and some trappings of British heritage from black-robed judges and advocates to the use of the honorific "My Lord." But the Court's proceedings are surprisingly informal and offer some quality entertainment, from sparring lawyers to the opining of powerful judges.
In "public interest litigations," or PIL cases, the petitioner's evidence often isn't a series of witnesses or expert studies, but rather clippings from newspapers – or blogs, as it may be – that high [...]
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