Articles
Two Pathbreaking Judgements: Undoing The Dickensian Nightmare
A survey of the functioning of the Family Courts in India will reveal the Dickensian nightmare faced by the children in custody proceedings. The children are mute spectators and at the receiving end of the harsh system of divorce and custody litigations. The voices of these children are never ever heard. According to a recent report, 1.36 million people in India were divorced. Using the...
Admission & Denial Of Documents In Suits
Prior to enacting the Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act, 2015 ("Commercial Courts Act"), documents filed with the plaint and the written statement, especially in respect of the existence of the documents, were denied by the parties with impunity. With the introduction of the Commercial Courts Act an elaborate process was formulated in order for a...
Dr. Ambedkar's Thoughts On Nation, Democracy, And Constitutionalism
[This is an edited excerpt from the introduction titled "The Resurgent Icon" written by Anurag Bhaskar for the book "A Stake in the Nation" (2020), which is a collection of Dr. BR Ambedkar's selected speeches. The volume is the result of life-long struggle of late Bhagwan Das, one of the Ambedkarite chroniclers. Das brought out the first edition of this book as far back as 1963 under...
Important Supreme Court Judgments: November 2020
The Supreme Court of India has pronounced numerous judgments in the month of November, 2020. In this write-up, the important pronouncements are briefly discussed. Arnab Manoranjan Goswami v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal Appeal No. 742 of 2020 (Decidedon 27/11/2020). A Bench of Justices Dr DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee summarized the factors which the High Courts must take...
Trial Lessons From K G Kannabiran: Nitya Ramakrishnan Remembers Parliament Attack Case
[This lecture, originally titled "Justice Measured Out in Coffee Spoons: Parliament Attack Case" was delivered on 30 November 2020 as part of the KG Kannabiran Lectures on Law, Justice and Human Rights – organised by the family of KG Kannabiran (1929-2010) to celebrate his life, work and its futures]. [Abstract: Nitya Ramakrishnan reviews the legal challenges in the Parliament...
Democratising The Cyber Laws
According to Professor Ronald Dworkin, freedom for hate speech or group defamation is the price we pay for enforcing the laws that the haters and defamers oppose. His argument which appeared as a foreword in the book 'Extreme Speech and Democracy' came to be referred to as the 'Legitimacy theory'. It focuses on the significance of free and unrestricted speech in ensuring the...
Professionalism- Bar And Bench
December 3 is observed as Advocates Day. It marks the birth anniversary of Dr. Rajendra Prasad, our first President, who was also the President of the Constituent Assembly, and, of course, a truly eminent lawyer. He had a brilliant academic career. After a Master's degree in Economics, he obtained his Master of Law from Calcutta University and later Doctor of Law from Allahabad...
'Judiciary And Social Justice, Dignity And Personal Liberty, Human Rights And Frights': Justice Madan Lokur
"Dissent and disagreement are slowly being turned into sedition; sedition is slowly being turned into an offence under the UAPA and an offence under the UAPA will soon be turned into a national security issue inviting the frightening prospect of an invocation of the draconian preventive detention law".
What's In A Name?: The Need For The Government To Take IPR Seriously
On 27th October, 2020, the Ministry of Railway inconspicuously published a short Notification in the National Gazette which simply stated that the Central Government has decided to change the name of "Diesel Locomotive Works", Varanasi to "Banaras Locomotive Works". The obsession of the present regime to change names of cities and names of Railway Stations is not unknown. However,...
Punishing 'Faithless' Electors: The Case Of Chiafalo Vs. Washington Of The US Supreme Court
In a significant development touching upon the voting behavior of presidential electors the American Supreme Court has come down heavily on 'faithless' electors of the electoral college which elects the American President. The American President, like the Indian President, is not directly elected by the people but is indirectly elected by electors of an electoral college constituted...
How The Constitution Helps To Maintain The Integrity And Unity Of The Nation
The belief that individuals have natural rights- inherent and inalienable- and anterior to any written instrument like a constitution, that government acquires its authority from the people and that the purpose of government is to promote the common good is what conceives and conceptualizes a constitution made in the name of the people, defining the powers of the main institutions...