Articles
Law Relating To Encounter Killings By The Police
"Encounter killings" or "retaliatory killings" or "extra-judicial executions" by the Police are disconcertingly on the increase now-a-days. Such killings most of which are alleged to be "fake encounters", however, evoke rapturous joy and exhilaration among the general public and also in the print, electronic and social media. Paying rich encomiums to the trigger-happy Police personnel, opinions are even aired that rapists and hardcore marauders should be exterminated through lynching in...
The Onus To Declare Rarest Of The Rare: Subtle Failures Of Substantial Justice
Judgments of criminal courts, more often than not, serve as messages to the society. Apart from settling the questions of law urged by the parties before the court, they go on to convey the message of judicial conscience to the society at large and this message emanating from the judicial conscience of the courts becomes crucial to be conveyed when criminal minds achieve new levels of depravity through criminal acts. The Indian society is venturing into newer areas of criminal depravity ...
Constitutional Economics And Its Relevance For Contemporary India
….How can we live together in peace, prosperity, and harmony, while retaining our liberties as autonomous individuals who can, and must, create our own values?- James M. Buchanan Jr., 1986 Nobel Prize winner in Economics for theory of "The Constitution of Economic Policy" The last month Chilean protest over its Constitutionally mandated norm of neoliberalism even in social services like Education reignited the debate over the two sides of the Constitution of Economic Policy: balance of...
Locus And RTI: To Be, Or Not To Be?
Recently Chief Justice S. A. Bobde had criticised how the concept of locus standi being conspicuous only by its absence in the RTI law and how the Act had come to be a tool for "blackmail and extortion", with "all sorts of people filing all kinds of applications". He said that the law which was intended to enable only affected individuals to draw out relevant information has now given rise to a full-time profession whereby parading as "RTI Activists", even persons unconnected with a subject are...
Government Powers Under The Data Protection Bill, 2019: A Critical Analysis
As a new decade dawn, India is likely to witness the passage of crucial and high-impact data legislation, which will a gamechanger in the digital landscape. A Bill, entitled the 'Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019', which was introduced in Parliament in the last month of 2019, comes in the wake of the categorical reaffirmation of the fundamental right to privacy by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, in the case of Puttaswamy v. Union of India. Specifically, the Court had recognized ...
NGT Yearly Round Up-2019: 20 Orders From NGT For A Greener 2020
Excess wastage of water by use of Reverse Osmosis (RO) process NGT dealt with the issue of conservation of potable water by preventing its wastage on account of unnecessary use of Reverse Osmosis9RO) systems. It was noted that the use of RO systems results in TDS level below the desirable threshold causing deficiency of calcium and other minerals. Wastage of groundwater by Delhi District Cricket Association in sprinkling RO treated groundwater on cricket ground was also considered by...
Who Is The State?: Reconsidering Article 12 In The Context Of Common Service Centres
The delivery of government services through the public-private partnership (PPP) model has been a key plank of the government's development agenda. Under the CSC 2.0 Scheme, Common Service Centres, or CSCs, have been set up in villages, and are empowered to provide essential government services, such as enrolling for PM KISAN pensions, or to provide documentation such as birth certificates. These centres are operated by a Village Level Entrepreneur in return for a small commission. ...
Delhi Air Pollution: Judicial Interventions In Abating Vehicular Emissions
For last few years now, Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) has been grappling with air pollution crisis. Scores of studies have emerged which attribute this state of affairs to coal-fired power plants, vehicular pollution, burning of crop residue, emissions from heavy industries, construction dust and bursting of Diwali firecrackers, among other reasons. While all these contribute to air pollution in varying percentages, most studies concur that vehicular emissions play a huge role in the...
Remedy Of The Licensor Is Mandatory Injunction And Not Eviction Or Recovery Of Possession
In the decision reported in Madhu Gupta v. K.T. Hassan Koya 2019 (5) KHC 42, a learned single Judge of the High Court of Kerala in a second appeal, after reversing the findings concurrently recorded by the Courts below that the suit transaction is a lease and not a license, remanded the case to the trial Court for disposal afresh after giving the plaintiff an opportunity to incorporate the substantial relief of eviction. A reading of paragraph 3 of the reported decision goes to show...