Personal Liberty: Moving Towards Police Raj

Lord Macaulay is credited with codifying the criminal laws in India in the mid-nineteenth century. The said codification gave birth to three major criminal Acts in the form of “Indian Penal Code, 1860”, “Indian Evidence Act, 1872” and “Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Amended)”. While applauding a Brit for giving us a fair criminal code which sought to bring about equality between the subjects as far as the criminal law was concerned, it must be not be forgotten that India was still under the...

Enforceability Of Termination For Convenience Clauses In India

When parties agree to enter into a contract they do so with the objective of ensuring that the purpose for which they got into the contract in the first place is accomplished. However, albeit all might be well between them while signing the deal, circumstances can quickly change leading to even the best of allies to a dispute, thereby precipitating the contract being put to an end. One such way this can happen is by way of termination.When embarking on a new project, termination is often the...

Lack Of Dedicated Healthcare Laws Make Sensitive Patient Information Vulnerable To Risks

The healthcare sector in India is making pioneering advances in terms of technology and patient care in methods of diagnosis, and treatment. However, when it comes to interaction with law it is still in an embryonic stage. Necessary digitization of medical records under the Clinical Establishment (Central Government) Rules, 2012 is one such development that comes attached with the threat of unwarranted disclosure against the will and acquaintance of the owner of such information, making medical...

Supreme Court- At Crossroads, By Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger of the United States Supreme Court made a profound statement that,“A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people and it is for the subordinate judiciary by its action and the High Court by its appropriate control to ensure it.”That is why it was once correctly said, “If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens you can never regain their respect and esteem.”Law commission in its Fourteenth...

The Irony Of A Former CJI Signing Ordinance To Nullify SC Order- Kerala Ordinance To Regularize Medical Admissions

It is really bizarre when a former Chief Justice of India has to collaborate with the Government to get over a Supreme Court order.  Justice P. Sathasivam, the present Governor of Kerala, had to confront this embarrassing situation, when he had to sign the ordinance mooted by Kerala Government to regularize admissions in two self-financing medical colleges, which were cancelled by the Supreme Court.In what could be termed as a blatant misuse of executive power and an affront to judicial...

False Implication Becomes Fabrication Of False Evidence

Present discussion is humble attempt to consider if a person by implicating another falsely by misinforming the police commits a trivial offence under Section-182 IPC or a grave offence of fabrication of false evidence which is punishable under Section-193, 194, 195 etc. Present paper will take considerable help from a judgment of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi in Shyni Varghese vs State 147(2008) DLT 691 which applies to the present facts situation on legal points. One may argue that due to...

An Analysis Of The Statutory Rape Dichotomy

The Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark judgment in the case of “Independent Thought Vs. Union of India (W.P. (c) No. 382 of 2013)” on the 11th of October, 2017, whereby it read down Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 to be meaningfully read as “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under eighteen years (instead of fifteen years as provided in the Indian Penal Code, 1860) of age, is not rape.” It was, however, careful in...

Supreme Court Starts Doing What It Preaches; But Much More Needs To Be Done

Supreme Court of India (SC) recently asked the union government to finalize the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for the appointments and transfers in the higher judiciary. Since the Supreme Court’s National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) decision of October, 2015 talks of finalization of new MoP are going on; but union government is insisting on ‘national security clause’. According to the union government, it must have the power to reject any name for appointment in the higher judiciary...

Law As A Therapeutic Agent: The Advent Of A New Age Research

Therapeutic jurisprudence is the “study of the role of the law as a therapeutic agent.”   Therapeutic jurisprudence focuses our attention on this previously under-appreciated aspect, humanising the law and giving law a human touch, emotional, psychological side of law and the legal process.Basically, therapeutic jurisprudence is a perspective that regards the law as a social force that produces behaviours and consequences.   A consequence which flows out of human’s intervention with law, mostly;...

#WheresTheDNA: DNA Evidence: Right To Fair Investigation And Trial

Fair and competent investigation in a criminal case is the backbone of criminal justice in any society.The  Supreme Court of India has time and again reiterated the imperative necessity of fair investigation and trial. Fair investigation and trial in a criminal case have been read as part and parcel of Article 21 of the Constitution of India which guarantees to every person the fundamental right to life and liberty.In Babu Bhai vs State of Gujarat (2010), the Supreme Court stated as follows:...

#WheresTheDNA: DNA & Indian Legal System: Code Of Criminal Procedure & Indian Evidence Act Must Be Amended

The Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act were enacted at a time when modern scientific advancement and DNA tests were not even in the contemplation of Parliament or legislature. Worldwide, it has been proven that the results of DNA test, if conducted in conformity with modern and latest protocol on the subject, are scientifically accurate.There is an urgent need to incorporate some provisions in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, to manage...

'An Eyewitness Account: When SC Judge Arun Mishra Came Across A Wheelchair-bound Senior Citizen'

Disclaimer -The author and the publisher has highest regards for the institution including judges. The aim of the post is to highlight the need of developing a disabled/differently abled friendly infrastructure in the Supreme Court. The readers are advised to read the article in this context alone.A miscellaneous day. A jam-packed courtroom. Litigants, advocates and court staff. Two judges. A list of cases, files and reported cases of the Supreme Court in binded SCCs all around. The scene inside...