Poems & FIRs - Standard Of Freedom Of Speech In India

An Analysis Of The Pratapgadhi Judgement and its precedentWhen a Rajya Sabha MP shared an Urdu poem on X, the Gujarat police saw incitement. however the Supreme Court saw poetry. But the more interesting story is not that the FIR was quashed — it is the standard the Court used to quash it. Resurrecting a 1947 pre-independence Nagpur High Court formulation, the Court held that speech must be judged through the eyes of a "reasonable, strong-minded, firm and courageous" person. This raises a...

Constitutionalising Road Safety Under Article 21

The Story So FarThe case of In Re: Phalodi Accident, delivered on April 13, 2026, concerns a series of very tragic incidents that happened in early November 2025, where two accidents in the States of Rajasthan and Telangana resulted in the death of 34 persons within two days. These accidents, which took place on Bharatmala Expressway at Phalodi in Rajasthan and in Rangareddy District in Telangana State, cannot be called isolated incidents because they revealed a certain trend of neglecting the...

AI In Digital Forensics: Are Indian Evidence Laws Equipped To Handle Machine-Generated Proof?

As algorithms begin to testify in our courtrooms, the scales of justice are facing a digital recalibration that challenges centuries of traditional jurisprudence. There is a need to move beyond the Section 65B straitjacket to frame AI not merely as a digital record, but as a distinct form of machine-generated expert opinion. By leveraging the historic transition from the Indian Evidence Act to the Bhartiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, a concrete statutory roadmap specifically a particularly designed...

Fixed Term Employment: Contractualisation As A Tool For Fragmentation Of Labour Rights In India

The Regression From Status To ContractAs the Supreme Court's April 2026 ruling in Madan Singh v. State of Haryana effectively barricades the backdoor to permanency by denying regularisation to ad hoc employees hired without formal recruitment, the promise of security has transitioned from a legitimate expectation to legal mirage. As the Apex Court noted in D.N. Banerji v. P.R. Mukherjee, industrial disputes must be viewed through the standpoint of “status” and social justice rather than a mere...

Recusal Controversy: Why Supreme Court Should Frame Interim Standards

The recent recusal controversy in the Arvind Kejriwal proceedings before the Delhi High Court has revived an old but unresolved institutional question: how should courts respond when apprehension of bias is alleged against the judge seized of the matter? The immediate temptation is to reduce every such controversy either to judicial hypersensitivity or to political theatre. Both reactions are inadequate. A recusal plea, even when it fails, touches the moral architecture of adjudication, because...

Punjab's Anti-Sacrilege Amendment: A Dangerous And Disproportionate Precedent

The AAP government's eleventh-hour legislation raises serious questions about intent, proportionality, and the risk of misuseThe Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab has, in nearly four years in office, been conspicuous for its legislative inactivity. Having swept to power in 2022 on a wave of popular mandate, it has passed precious little by way of substantive law reform. It is, therefore, both striking and concerning that the government has chosen, in what is effectively the final year of its...

Is Raghav Chaddha's Merger With BJP A Valid Defence Under Anti-Defection Law?

The MP's move gives rise to certain intricate legal questions.

The Soul They Could Not Amend

Fifty-Three Years of Kesavananda Bharati: India's Finest Constitutional HourOn the 26th of November each year, the Republic pauses to mark Constitution Day — the day in 1949 when the Constituent Assembly adopted its supreme document and gifted a continent of people their fundamental law. It is a date rightly venerated. Yet India has another date, equally consequential, equally dramatic, and almost wholly uncelebrated — the 24th of April, 1973. On that day, in a wood-panelled courtroom in New...

A Comparative Critique Of 2025 IBC Amendment

The 2025 Amendment to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code introduces structural shifts that mirror international best practices. Whether India's ecosystem is ready to absorb them is the more urgent, and far less comfortable, question.Nine Years On, A New WagerThe Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (“the Code”) 2016 is often hailed as the most significant economic reform since the 1991 liberalisation. The pre-existing insolvency landscape was a creditor-hostile regime, scattered with numerous...

Doctrine Of Merger Vis-à- Vis Order 9 Rule 13 Explanation

Code of civil procedure, 1908 (CPC) does not provide for the definition of ex- parte decree or ex-parte judgment. The term ex parte is a Latin term which means “from one side” or “or for one party only”. In other words, in an ex parte proceeding the case of the plaintiff proceeds in the absence of the defendant.HISTORY OF THE PROVISIONProcedures analogous to ex parte proceedings can be found as far back as Roman law. The provision regarding setting aside of an ex parte decree first found it...

Denied Entry At NLUs? Reservation Policy In Shadow Of Economic Barriers

“Opportunity to acquire education cannot be confined to the richer section of the society.” - Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka (1992).As admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at National Law Universities (NLUs) proceed this season, a structural problem that has persisted for years demands renewed attention. NLUs occupy a pre-eminent position in India's legal education landscape, often ranked alongside the IITs, IIMs, and AIIMS. Yet for students from Scheduled Caste (SC) and...

Quiet Interrogations: Custody In Issue, Parenting In Fragments

Quiet Interrogations is a reflective series that examines the subtler tensions within the law—where formal doctrine may appear settled, yet lived reality continues to raise difficult questions. In this essay, it turns to custody litigation to explore how disputes over a child often expand into the fragmented judicial management of parenting itself, and why family process must move from serial applications toward a more thoughtful structural design. ……………………………….. A guardianship...