Where Are We Heading? Disturbing Events

The defection of 7 AAP Rajya Sabha members and their joining the ruling BJP signals a dangerous portent for probity in public life.Defections flout the people's mandate which is the very soul of democracy. Democracy is reduced to a mockery. It is to address this malady that the Anti-Defection law - Schedule X to the Constitution was brought in. While members/legislators who defect suffer disqualification, some exception is carved out -in paragraph 4- that it would not apply in case of merger....

J&K Private Universities Act, 2026: Expansion Or Transformation?

For decades, students from Jammu and Kashmir have been forced to leave the region in search of quality higher education. The Jammu and Kashmir Private Universities Act, 2026, seeks to reverse this trend, but whether it can transform the system or merely expand it remains an open question. The legislation marks a decisive policy shift from an exclusively state-driven model to a mixed higher education system, responding to a long-standing demand from educators, civil society, and industry...

From Suspension To Civil Death: Rethinking Subsistence Allowance In Indian Service Jurisprudence

The legitimacy of a democratic state rests upon a social contract where the sovereign safeguards the livelihood of its servants. Within the framework of service jurisprudence, the provision of a subsistence allowance is the primary mechanism that prevents an administrative suspension from devolving into a violation of the constitutional right to life.[1] But the practical question arises, whether the state is capable of safeguarding such a right of employees facing suspension.The dictionary...

Supreme Court Clarifies: Section 480(3) BNSS Bail Condition Not Applicable To Offences Punishable Up To Seven Years

In a significant order passed on 22nd April 2026, the Supreme Court settled an important question of bail jurisprudence that trial court across country had been getting wrong since Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) came into force. In Narayan v. State of Madhya Pradesh, SLP (Crl.) No. 7011 of 2026, a division bench comprising Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Atul S. Chandurkar held that the mandatory conditions prescribed under Section 480 (3) BNSS do not apply to non-bailable offences...

From Rigid Law To Lived Reality: Delhi High Courts' Guidelines On Quashing Consensual POCSO Cases

In a Delhi High Court judgment delivered on 16th April 2026, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani invoked Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to remind us that “the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”The facts in Harmeet Singh v. State (GNCT of Delhi) are not new. A 22 year old man and a 17 year old girl entered into a relationship, the girl got pregnant, so they married and had the child. The criminal process was set in motion not by complaint of the girl, but by the hospital where...

How Government Control Affects Gender Identity: A Psychological View Of Transgender Law In India

The recognition of identity is central to an individual's psychological well-being, dignity, and sense of self (Erikson, 1968). For transgender people in India, identity is not merely a personal matter but also a legal right. Before the National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India judgment, the identity of transgender persons existed in a complex and marginalized form. The Court declared them as a “third gender” and recognized their right to self-identify their gender under Article 21 of...

Right Of Foetus v. Woman's Autonomy : Contrasting Judicial Approaches

'Pro-life' v 'Pro-choice' is an issue that countries around the world continue to debate. The significance of this issue is so profound that a country, which supposedly is the world's oldest democracy, overturned its 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision, which protected women's right to abortion as an intrinsic part of the right to privacy.Fortunately, India doesn't have that kind of problem...

Justice K.K. Mathew-Lest We Forget

Kuttiyil Kurien Mathew is one who is highly regarded for his erudition and seminal contribution to Constitutional and Administrative Law. Prof Upendra Baxi perceptively observed, “We live in an era of massacre of ancestors which is considered a public virtue and a sign of worldly progress. But collective amnesia of what happened in the past is not an estimable virtue. Without living in the past its recall is important, for, it necessarily presages a future.” It is in this backdrop that we have...

Reconciling Advocate's Dual Duties To Client And Court In Indian Legal Ethics

The adversarial system rests on a simple but powerful idea: if each side presents its case vigorously through partisan advocates, the court is best placed to arrive at the truth and to do justice. Yet, embedded within this model is a persistent ethical paradox. On the one hand, advocates are expected to display unswerving loyalty to their clients. On the other, they are also officers of the court, bound to support the administration of justice and to uphold fairness and truth. This dual role...

Ambedkar – Enigma Of Fire, Unshackling India's Soul

History has a habit of sanitizing its revolutionaries. It turns firebrands into statues and rebels into portraits. But Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was never meant to be a silent icon. He was a intellectual insurgent, a man who realized that in a land of graded inequality, a book is more dangerous than a bullet, and dignity is more sacred than the "unity" of a graveyard.In the annals of human history, few weapons have proven as potent as the book. For Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the library was his armory, and the...

Ticking POSH Boxes Won't Stop Harassment. Here's The Real Fix

From Compliance to Culture: Why Procedural Adherence Alone Will Not Change Indian WorkplacesOn August 12, 2025, the Supreme Court in Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa directed all States and Union Territories to conduct district-wise surveys to verify whether organisations had constituted Internal Complaints Committees (ICCs) as required under Section 4 of the POSH Act. The order was notable not because it introduced something new, but because it was still necessary. More than a decade after...

In Defence of “Constitutional Morality”: How It Can Aid Adjudication

A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India is currently hearing the Sabarimala reference case, which concerns the interpretation of Articles 25 and 26. One of the key issues that has emerged in the course of these proceedings is the criticism of the term “constitutional morality,” which figured prominently in earlier decisions of the Court, including the Sabarimala judgment, as well as in cases decriminalising homosexuality and adultery. This criticism is largely directed at the perceived...