Apex Imprimatur On Acquittal Of ‘Peepli Live’ Co-director Mahmood Farooqui In Rape Case

In this era of me-too and him-too naming and shaming campaigns, which have placed the issue of consent centre stage, we have the dismissal by the Supreme Court of the appeal against the acquittal of Mahmood Farooqui by the Delhi High Court. It is to be borne in mind that Farooqui was convicted by the trial court judge for rape and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. The conviction was reversed by the Delhi High Court. The throwing out of the petition at the threshold without deeming it fit to...

Police Should Grant Bail For Non-Bailable Offence: A Discussion

Normally, it is believed that only in a bailable offence, an accused can ask the police official to release him from the custody on furnishing bail and for a non-bailable offence no such facility is available. The system apparently has not been able to dispel this misconception either from the mind of general public or of the police officials. Result is that Magisterial courts are burdened unnecessarily with the production of accused and dealing with their remand application and bail...

A Little Sunlight Hurts None

The controversy about the press conference by the four senior-most Judges of the Supreme Court recently has not fully died down and most critics have already given it a political flavour. While some celebrated the revolutionary step taken by Justice Chelameswar, Justice Gogoi, Justice Lokur and Justice Kurian, there has been considerable conservativism which seems to propagate that the problems of the court must be dealt with within the four walls of the court - the “dirty linen in public”...

Repeal Of Redundant Laws: A Step In Right Direction

During the Winter Session of Parliament the Lok Sabha passed two Bills to repeal 245 archaic laws. Some of these laws include the Calcutta Pilots Act of 1859 and the 1911 Prevention of Seditious Meeting Act. Law Minister Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad noted that many old and irrelevant pre-Independence laws were the "unfortunate part of the colonial legacy" and repealing them was a progressive move that reflects the "pro-reform" approach of the government.The act of repealing redundant laws is as...

Aadhaar Hearing [Week-1] Preliminaries

From 17 January 2018, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India started hearing final arguments in the much-awaited Aadhaar case. For reasons that have been extensively debated elsewhere (see for example here, here and here), the Aadhaar challenge will require the Court to answer questions of critical constitutional significance.This is the first among a series of posts where I will outline my thoughts on the arguments in the Aadhaar case. It is not my aim to predict or pre-judge the...

The Murky Course Of Sohrabuddin Case

Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Kauser Bi and Tulsiram Prajapathi- these names would not have got national significance, in ordinary course of things. Ironically, their deaths, in alleged fake encounters by the officials of Gujarat State Police, gave a fresh lease of life to their names, continuing to send ripples of shock over the judiciary and the larger canvass of Indian politics. The public discussions about Sohrabuddin case gained momentum following the unprecedented press conference held by four...

Admiralty Jurisdiction Vis A Vis Company Court- Which Will Prevail?

The Madras High Court recently while hearing a batch of applications filed by various maritime claimants has passed a landmark judgement on a significant question of law. The query which arose for consideration was whether the leave of the Company Court under Section 446(2) of the Company’s Act, 1956 was mandatory prior to hearing the various applications of the claimants while exercising its special Admiralty Jurisdiction conferred by virtue of it being a Chartered Court.To briefly state the...

What The National Law Schools Don’t Teach

Law as a profession has been often ridiculed for its lack of integrity, greed and immorality. Justice as a profession has been criticized for the joyous self-exiles of its people behind their ivory towers. Some would be even offended by me calling it a ‘profession’. It is a ‘service’ they would claim. I don’t entirely subscribe to the disparaging tone against lawyers, not because I am to become one myself, but because I could claim to vouch for their constant moral and ethical dismembering...

Apex Saga – A Sublime Appeal And Not A Mundane Mutiny

 An inevitable dissent from inside...!!! The system undergoing tremendous in-house pressure has ultimately showed its cracks to the world.  The unprecedented confession and the appeal to the nation by judges underline one thing that it is not the Constitution, but the People of India that is sovereign.  The Constitution is only an instrument which the People of India have adopted, enacted and given unto themselves for their governance on the 26th of November 1949.  People are Supreme – the...

Absenteeism In Voting – An Oxymoron

This note deals with the question whether, in determination of the assent at a Committee of Creditors in resolution proceedings, the votes of such creditors who (a) do not vote at all, at an electronic voting; or (b) abstain from voting at the meeting itself [collectively referred to as "abstaining creditors"] will be considered while computing the voting strength of 75% required.The relevant provision of law for this purpose is sec. 21 (8) of the Code which provides as follows:(8) All decisions...

Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process Under Insolvency And Bankruptcy Code And The Dilemma Surrounding Guarantee

India is on the cusp of a major shift in its recovery, insolvency, and bankruptcy jurisprudence post introduction of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 (hereafter, the "Code"). Several well established concepts are being challenged and at the same time, new concepts are being evolved. For instance, it is a well-known principle of law that every dispute should be contested within the limitation period prescribed under the Limitation Act 1963. However, in Neelkanth Township and Construction Pvt....

From A Culture Of Authority To A Culture of Justification: The Meaning of Overruling ADM Jabalpur

The nine-judge bench judgment of the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India is now four-and-a-half months old. The verdict, which held that there exists a fundamental right to privacy under the Indian Constitution, has been analysed threadbare. Its implications for decisional autonomy, personal choice, State surveillance, informational self-determination, and many other facets of privacy, have been debated and discussed. In the coming months, the Supreme Court will have an...