V Venkatesan
This book is a fascinating account of the debates on some of the key Constitutional issues in India that engaged or failed to engage the attention of the popular media in the recent years. Together, these issues have a bearing on the past, present and future of India’s democratic experiment, which we can ignore only to our peril. Conveniently divided into four parts, namely, powers and limitations of Parliament and the Executive, federal tensions, the scope and limits of judicial activism, and the role of the Election Commission in ensuring free and fair elections, the book offers fresh perspectives on some of the recent Constitutional questions that confronted our institutions, and the Constitutional functionaries. The book adopts a unique approach to unravel Indian democracy and Constitutional experiment by seeking to unearth hitherto undisclosed facts under the Right to Information Act. The questions posed to, and the answers obtained from the authorities, which constitute as many as 25 annexures to the book, are a huge contribution to the public discourse. The author’s unique skills earned during his long journalistic career, combined with his legal acumen and scholarship help him to throw fresh light on some of the complex Constitutional questions, and make them comprehensible to the average reader. The author successfully separates facts from the factoids of some of the current legal controversies. The book is published under the series, 'Cross Currents: Law & More', aimed to document the concerns of our times and to contribute to the contemporary public debate.
