Articles
Need For More Kannabirans Felt Now With Ever Increasing Human Rights Violations : Justice K Chandru
[This lecture was delivered on 7 December 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, his work and its futures]. [Abstract: Justice K. Chandru, recalling his association with KG Kannabiran, speaks on the importance of trial courts, advocates' strikes, violence against civil liberties campaigners and advocates, Emergency, encounter killings by the police and the incident of...
A Marketplace Of Wobbly ideas: How The Supreme Court Came To Use A Cold War-Era Invention
"We have been cocksure of many things that were not so." - Oliver W. Holmes Thanks to wide reportage across social media and here, it is well known that the Supreme Court is currently hearing a petition against Sudarshan TV's controversial show. To wit, the channel alleges that a religious cabal funds, deceives, and achieves way beyond its means and measures in the country's civil services examination. Their calculations suggest that a conspiracy is afoot and its international roots...
One Year Of CAA : Supreme Court Passive, High Courts Pro-Active In Upholding Right To Protest
Exactly a year ago, on December 11, 2019, the Parliament passed the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act 2019(CAA). The constitutionality of the Act - passed with the ostensible object of granting protection to refugees fleeing religious persecution from neighboring nations - was seriously debated on account of its exclusion of Muslim migrants and non-Muslim majority neighboring countries from its ambit. Why was the Act not received well? The changes brought to the core...
Human Rights- Judiciary Strikes Against 'Third Degree' Through Transparency
On this day of International Human Rights Day, can we hope that the third-degree treatment by police will become a thing of past? Whether the recent Supreme Court order put an end Rakshak Bhakshak syndrome in India. Perhaps. Hopes are raised by the apex court's order of 2nd December and Madras High Court's order of 3rd December 2020. 'Who will police the police' is a big question for which world could not give any answer till today. But SC gave answer - Cameras can police the police. ...
"Grant Of Pardon" Or "Sale Of Indulgences"
The lid is off exposing a can of worms. This time it's about presidential pardon power. In the dying days of Trump's presidency the spectre of corruption has come to haunt. The latest controversy involves allegations of a "bribery-for-pardon" plan as described in documents released by a federal judge. Political commentators, the world over, feel that the American Nation is witnessing a reenactment of the practice of SELLING THE INDULGENCES of sixteenth century Rome. Hark back in...
A Case Of Not An International Commercial Arbitration Rendering A Foreign Award
The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 of India is divided into three parts; Part I deals generally with arbitration and is applicable where the place of arbitration is in India, Part II provides for enforcement of foreign awards under the New York Convention and Part III governs the law on conciliation. Recognizing the distinction between domestic and international arbitration, the Act unambiguously defines "international commercial arbitration" as an arbitration arising out of ...
Gender And The Supreme Court Of India
A few days ago, the Learned Attorney General for India ('AG') Shri. K.K. Venugopal, made some important observations about the representation of women in the Supreme Court of India. Speaking on the occasion to recommend ways to gender sensitize the Judges, the AG remarked that more women judges in Constitutional Courts (i.e. Supreme Court and the High Courts) would improve gender sensitivity in the judiciary. He highlighted the under-representation of women in the Supreme Court i.e. 2/34...
Versus
While Lawyers are no strangers to taking sides and arraying themselves as 'versus' – a Latin term that means taking opposing stands in a lawsuit, the new fault-lines in the legal community are not just between those who are 'activist' and 'conformist' lawyers but it's giving rise to a new third category – those who seem to have entered into a Faustian Bargain – seemingly determined to use all their intellectual and legal prowess in the service of defending the Government. Activist v....
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 law of averages, we are looking at a million children crying for their voices to be heard. The Indian...