Some Legal Concepts

Section 11 of the CPC through its maxim res judicata prohibits the matter which has been judicially resolved from being agitated again. There are two relaxations to the rigour of this rule - statutory and Constitutional appeals as well as taxation matters where the courts have said the rule of res judicata does not apply because a matter of one particular year can be agitated the next or subsequent years.

Sub Judice

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines sub judice as a matter under judicial consideration and therefore prohibited from public discussion elsewhere. Does this prohibition hold sway in India? The answer is in the negative. Barring one or two cases where the courts had interjected to prohibit media discussions, by and large the Indian judiciary has been generous in permitting free discussions and airing of views on matters pending before it.

Whistle-blowers Act gets President’s Assents

The Whistle-blowers Protection Act, which aims to protect the identity of whistleblowers, got the assent of President Pranab Mukherjee.

“Right to be Forgotten”

The decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU), which affects the region’s 500 million citizens, requires that internet search services remove information deemed “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”. Failure to do so can result in fines. Europeans can submit take- down requests directly to Internet companies rather than to local authorities or publishers under the ruling. If a search engine elects not to remove the link, a person can seek redress from the courts. Google Inc. is already getting requests to remove objectionable personal information from its search engine after Europe’s top court ruled that subjects have the “right to be forgotten”. A simple way of understanding what happened here is that you have a collision between a right to be forgotten and a right to know. From Google’s perspective that’s a balance.