Beyond Binary - Employment Rights Of Transgender Persons In India

More often than not, in Indian society, conversations around sex, sexuality, and sexual orientation remain taboo, leaving many transgender persons to fend for themselves. Lacking family support, formal education, and financial security, many members of the community are forced to earn a livelihood through begging and sex work, making the transgender community one of the most unheard and ignored in India. Even those who gain formal education by keeping their identity under wraps face a fresh set...

Should Indian Courts Include 'Honourable Acquittal' In Right To Be Forgotten?

The “right to be forgotten” is acquiring a distinct place in India's constitutional privacy jurisprudence. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court recently raised concerns about whether a blanket restriction on name-based accessibility of judicial records was necessary and whether it could potentially be addressed on a case-by-case basis by the court concerned. Even the Supreme Court is also seized of a similar issue and has indicated the need to delineate the contours and parameters of the...

Section 18 Lens On Pre-Deposit Clauses In Arbitration

A contractor making a claim of ₹1.77 crore must first hand over ₹17.7 lakh in cash, more than double the ₹7,16,300 court fees that the same suit would incur in a Haryana civil court, before a tribunal will even hear him. That is the arithmetic buried inside M/s Santosh Associate Private Limited v. Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited, wherein a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 referred to a larger Bench the validity of a contractual...

Can Election Commission Disagree? Internal Dissent, Article 324 And Constitutional Accountability Of ECI

There is something odd about how we talk about the Election Commission of India. We speak about the ECI as though it is a single voice a unified authority that issues decisions on elections, Model Code of Conduct violations, and electoral disputes as if from one undivided mind. But the Commission has not been a one-person institution since 1989. It has three members: the Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners. And yet, when we ask whether those three members are actually...

Is ECI Correct In Saying Supreme Court Upheld Its New Form 6 Declaration?

Did the Supreme Court's May 2026 judgment examine the present Form 6 Declaration?

MADA Fallout: Section 9D, Article 131 Split, And Validation Doctrine That Doesn't Fit

Jharkhand collected in time. Odisha did not.Both States were operating under the same judgment - the nine-judge Constitution Bench ruling in Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India (2024), which held 8:1 that States possess the constitutional power to tax mineral rights and mineral-bearing land, and that royalty is not a tax. A follow-up order allowed retrospective recovery from April 2005, staggered over twelve years. On paper, every mineral-rich State stood to gain. In...

Stamp Duty On Arbitral Awards: Chargeable Event After URC Construction

An arbitral award is chargeable with stamp duty under Article 12 of Schedule I to the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 (Stamp Act). The High Courts differ on when the duty becomes payable, and the consequence follows from the timing. If it was payable when the award was signed, as the Delhi High Court held in URC Construction (P) Ltd v. Airports Authority of India (1 September 2026), the award is impounded and enforcement waits on payment of the deficit and a penalty of ten times that amount. If it is...

Right Of Accused: Accessing FIRs At Earliest Stage

Does the law mandate that the police provide a copy of the FIR to an accused person? What rulings have courts made on the right of an accused person to obtain a FIR at an earliest stage? Why is it important for an accused person to have timely access to a FIR? The Supreme Court mandated that FIRs be posted on police websites within 24 hours of registration, or on the State government's official website in the absence of such a website. On 25th August, 2026 the Supreme Court ordered the Ghaziabad...

Secondary Victimisation In India's Criminal Justice System

A rape survivor in India who decides to report the crime goes through a Herculean situation. She goes through at least four: the assault itself, the police station, the medical examination, and the trial. Each later stage is supposed to be a step toward justice. In practice, each one can hurt her all over again. This is what criminologists call “secondary victimisation”: the re-traumatisation of a survivor by the very institutions meant to help her, distinct from the harm inflicted by the...

Better Road To Equity In Indian Bar

A dignified livelihood at the Bar cannot be secured by judicial affection. It has to be built by a fairer market for junior lawyers.The Supreme Court's latest word on a never-ending saga arrived on 21 August, in 'Bhumika Trust v. Union of India, [2026 INSC 904]'. Revisiting a year-old judgment dated 20.05.2025 in 'All India Judges Association v. Union of India [2025 INSC 735]', the Court squeezed the mandatory three years of practice for entry to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) down to...

Propriety Questions Emerge As Son Of Justice SC Sharma, Who Heard ECI & Medha Roopam Cases, Is Election Commission's Lawyer

Certain serious questions concerning judicial propriety have arisen in the light of newly surfaced information that the son of Justice Satish Chandra Sharma of the Supreme Court is the standing counsel of the Election Commission of India in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.This assumes significance as Justice Sharma was part of the two-judge bench which heard the petitions challenging the 2023 law governing the appointment process for the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election...

Recognising Public Trust, Recognising Legitimate Use, Compensation As Last Resort

India's legal framework facilitates compensation when individual or private land is acquired for public purposes, yet offers little protection to millions of people whose livelihoods depend upon commons. Commons support around 350 million rural people in India dependent on the commons. The Economic Survey of India 2025-26 highlighted the importance of village commons in rural India. Commons are central to livelihoods and income generation, yet they continue to face challenges such as...