Book Reviews
Book Review: Prophets With Honor by Alan Barth
"There are some who think it desirable that dissents should not be disclosed as they detract from the force of the judgement. Undoubtedly, they do. When unanimity can be obtained without sacrifice of conviction, it strongly commends the decision to public confidence. But unanimity, which is merely formal, which is recorded at the expense of strong, conflicting views, is not desirable...
Book Review- The Proof: 'Uses of Evidence in Law, Politics, and Everything Else'
Evidence forms the ground for what we know, but at the same time, it is complex in nature not only in terms of the determination of its validity but also in terms of the degree of reliability in different contexts. The Proof by Frederick Schauer is one such book which analyses the various aspects of evidence in a detailed and innovative manner, not just from a legal perspective but...
Book Review: How Gourango Lost His O
I have been reading articles of Mr. Sanjoy Ghose, Senior Advocate for a while. He usually packs legal developments in juicy anecdotes. Mr. Ram Guha, historian, is also anecdotal. But Mr. Ghose is different and does something more, he mocks without a pause. Himself first and all creatures involved in the affair, soon. I remember his one piece wherein he talked about 'rivalry' of...
Book Review: "The Power Of The Ballot: Travail And Triumph In The Elections" By Vipul Maheshwari & Anil Maheshwari
This book is through a spectacle of a Veteran Journalist and a Senior Supreme Court Lawyer, they begin their memoir by stating contradictions that occurred during the 2020 elections in India. Indians seem to be 'homoelectionus' in that they love to remain in election mode perennially, knowing well that elections are the bedrock of a democracy which India chose to be more than 75...
Book Announcement : "The Finished Article: Essays on Indian Designs Law"
The Finished Article: Essays on Indian Designs Law (Thomson Reuters, 2022, ISBN-13: 978-9393702173) is a recent book published by Eashan Ghosh, intellectual property lawyer. The book is available for purchase online at this link. This is his second book on Indian intellectual property law, following Imperfect Recollections: The Indian Supreme Court on Trade Mark Law (2020). The Finished...
Book Review : "Soli Sorabjee – Life and Times" By Abhinav Chandrachud
When Abhinav Chandrachud started chasing eminent jurist Mr.Soli Sorabjee, Senior Advocate and former Attorney General for India, to convince him to write latter's autobiography in 2018, he didn't know that he himself will have to write it in the form of a biography a few years later. Soli Sorabjee succumbed to Covid in on 30th April 2021 leaving behind his legacy and an...
Book Review: Arvind Narrain's 'Undeclared Emergency: Constitutionalism And The Politics Of Resistance'
Arvind Narrain's "Undeclared Emergency" is one of the pioneer books in capturing the legal and political dynamics of the Indian state in the process of ongoing transformation. It is both empirically fulfilling and analytically detailed. It traces the analogical similarity between the two phases of the Indian political epoch, namely, Indira Gandhi's Emergency era of 1975-77 and...
Book Review| Patients' Rights in India by Dr Mohamed Khader Meeran
Past few years, there have been increasing incidents of assault on doctors without adequate condemnation from civil society or effective intervention by Police. There were jury awards of heavy compensation to the patients on avoidable medical negligence. Very often the clarifications provided by the treating doctor about the dilemma in diagnosis and uncertainty of prediction of...
BOOK REVIEW: Rohan Alva's: "Liberty after Freedom: A History of Article 21, Due Process and the Constitution of India"
Rohan Alva seems to be the best sort of dangerous man. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, arguably the world's most popular scientist living today, writes in a letter to a well-wisher: "My aim is simply to empower people to think for themselves, rather than have others do the thinking for them. Therein blooms the "soul" of skepticism and the "spirit" of free inquiry."[i] Alva is...
Josy Joseph's 'Silent Coup' : How Inherent Biases of Non-Military Security Establishment Lead to Constitutional Subversion
Democratic erosion in a constitutional democracy, according to Aziz Haq and Tom Ginsburg, occurs either through authoritarian reversion or constitutional retrogression. Reversion is a sudden collapse like a coup. Since the Constitution of India came into force in 1950, around 460 coup attempts have been made across the globe, none of which were in India. In comparison, retrogression is...
Supreme Whispers: Unheard Stories Of Supreme Court
Among the three organs of government, Judiciary has great respect for its working, judgments, and impartiality, and Higher judiciary has more respect than its lower counterparts. Although we see the inclination of the judges towards the government, yet these stories of allurements could not shake the people's faith in the judiciary. It is undisputable fact that if there is a group of persons...
'Law, Humour And Urdu Poetry': Off-Record And On-Record Anecdotes And Poetry
Indian courts are courts of record, which means that the court proceedings are recorded for the purpose of appeal and the precedent value. There is however so much that happens in courtrooms "off the record" which is later discussed in court corridors and at the canteen. These corridor and canteen conversations are probably one of the things the whole fraternity has been missing the...