When Referee Plays The Game: Ai, Data Foreclosure, And Limits Of Indian Competition Law

The Platform Paradox: Marketplace, Data Engine, CompetitorIndia's e-commerce sector, projected to exceed $160 billion in gross merchandise value by 2028,[1] is dominated by platforms that occupy three distinct commercial roles simultaneously. Amazon India and Flipkart operate as marketplace intermediaries hosting thousands of third-party sellers, as aggregators of granular transactional data generated by those sellers and their customers, and as direct competitors to those same sellers through...

“Intellectual Dishonesty” In The Dock: When Prosecution Withholds Truth From The Court

In a criminal trial, the Public Prosecutor is not a mouthpiece of the police but a Minister of Justice. Unlike the police, whose primary function is to investigate and collect evidence, the prosecutor's duty is supposedly owed to the court and the truth, not just to convicting the accused. Yet in the span of a month, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has accused the prosecution in Panna district of “intellectual dishonesty” for withholding exculpatory information and has characterized an entire...

'16-Year-Old Boy Can't Have Sex But Can Rape'- Need For Romeo–Juliet Clause In POCSO

This is not a dialogue but harsh reality of our Indian legal system which fails to change itself as per the evolving society. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) was enacted with a positive intent to address a serious and pervasive problem: sexual abuse of children in India. The law adopts a strict, child-centric framework by criminalising all sexual activity involving persons below the age of 18, irrespective of consent. While this approach was intended to ensure...

Asset Reconstruction Companies In India: High-Handedness, Judicial Reckoning, And Regulatory Reform

Anyone of us who have appeared before a Debt Recovery Tribunal, a High Court, or the NCLT in a Non-Performing Asset matter has, at some point, encountered an Asset Reconstruction Company on the other side of the record. They arrived with an ambitious mandate: to clean the Indian banking system's distressed debt backlog through professional, non-adjudicatory enforcement, free from the delays that frustrated bank-led recovery for decades. The Narasimham Committee I (1991) and Narasimham Committee...

Progress: The Great Lie That Is Destroying Us All

Imagine chasing a shiny dream that promises endless riches, bigger houses, faster cars. You run after it, day and night, trampling everything in your path—forests, rivers, even your own peace. That's “progress” for you. Not the real kind, but the fake story we have all swallowed. Samuel Miller McDonald nails it in his eye-opening book, Progress: A History of Humanity's Worst Idea. He calls it a deadly myth cooked up by the powerful to grab more, while the rest of us pay the price. And you know...

When Does A Broken Promise To Marry Turn Into A Crime?

For decades, criminal courts in India have grappled with a singular, messy question: When does a broken promise to marry turn into a crime? Under the Indian Penal Code this was usually dealt under Section 375, specifically relying on the "misconception of fact" clause. The courts were often forced to fit complex relationship dynamics into the rigid framework of rape laws.The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita attempts to fix this by carving out a specific niche. Section 69 introduces a distinct offense i.e...

Welfare Is Policy, Timing Is Politics - Why Supreme Court Must Lay Down Guidelines On Direct Cash Benefit Transfers And Freebies

The debate around direct cash benefit transfers and freebies in electoral politics is marked by a curious contradiction. Publicly, there is near-universal agreement that elections should not be influenced by material inducements. In practice, however, pre-election announcements of cash transfers and benefits rarely trigger discomfort- either among political actors or beneficiaries. This dissonance becomes more pronounced as governments increasingly unveil welfare schemes and direct cash...

Another Aberration, Another Overplay

January 2026 witnessed the Head of the State-Governors not delivering the Opening Address to the legislature and defiling the Constitution. Not to lag, in February we have another constitutional aberration, this time the head of the government- the Prime Minister not replying to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President for her address. There have been rare occasions earlier when the Prime Minister did not reply to the debate. But the reasons were genuine.Art 87 of the Constitution...

Kerala To Keralam: Decoding The Constitutional Process Of Renaming A State

The Constitutional Mechanism For Alteration Of State Names In IndiaThe Republic of India, as articulated in Article 1 of its Constitution, is a "Union of States." The territorial integrity of these constituent states, however, is not immutable. The Constitution of India confers upon the Parliament the power to reorganise the states, including the authority to alter their names. This power is a significant feature of India's quasi-federal structure, often described as an "indestructible union of...

Who Spoke First? Interpreting "Voluntarily Provided" Under Section 7(a) Of DPDP Act

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025 together establish India's framework for the processing of digital personal data. The Act governs the relationship between Data Principals (individuals whose data is processed) and Data Fiduciaries (persons who determine the purpose and means of processing), with enforcement through the Data Protection Board of India. At the centre of this framework is Section 4, which permits a Data Fiduciary to process personal data only...

Recognition Of Menstrual Health As A Fundamental Right Under Article 21

“A period should end a sentence, not a girl's education.” When the Supreme Court uttered those lines on January 30, 2026, it wasn't just grand rhetoric, it marked an earthquake moment in Indian law. That ruling,Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, didn't simply nudge policy; it redrew the map entirely. In clear terms, the Court folded menstrual health and meaningful access to menstrual hygiene management (MHM) inside educational settings right into Article 21 itself, the very backbone of life and...

When The Law Knocks On Parliament's Door

The Kuldeep Singh Sengar case exposed the deep structural ambiguities in India's child protection jurisprudence. Contrary to the popular perception, the controversy was not primarily rooted in the disputed facts, but in a doctrinal mismatch between nineteenth-century statutory definitions and twenty first century demands of child centric criminal justice. This article examines the interpretative conflict arising from the Protection of children from sexual offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, specifically...