Supreme Court Lifts Stay On Jaypee Infratech's Insolvency – Boon Or Bane?

The judgment passed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Allahabad in the matter of IDBI Bank Limited v. Jaypee Infratech Limited CP NO. (IB) 77/ALD/2017 (hereinafter referred to as "Allahabad Judgment") had been stayed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court by way of order dated 4th September, 2017 passed in the matter of Chitra Sharma & Ors. V. Union of India & Ors. being Writ Petition(s) (Civil) No. 744/2017 (hereinafter referred to as the "SC Stay Order").The said SC Stay Order has...

Unanswered Questions In Triple Talaq Judgment: Will TT Be Counted As One Or Are They Void Having No Effect On The Validity Of Marriage?

Shayara Bano’s dreams came crumbling down when she received a letter from her husband in October, 2015, declaring instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) to her, bringing her matrimonial life to an end. Finding every door of hope closed on her face, she decided to take the struggle for gender justice head on. Shayara Bano petitioned the Supreme Court in 2016 with the plea to pronounce talaq-e-biddat as illegal, null and void; and unconstitutional. Considering the social costs involved in the...

Bench, Bar And Behaviour

Bench and Bar, tied with a delicate thread of regard, the two complete each other. What is Bar, if Bench loses integrity. What is Bench, if the Bar is contemptuous. Between the two odd extremes is the vast arena of mutual respect. Respect, which cannot be seized but only earned.Let me sample a very small yet powerful section of the field - the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court carries perhaps the most diverse bar. Advocates belonging to various parts of the country including those settled in...

Philosophical Foundations Of The Right To Privacy

The ‘ right to privacy ’ is essentially an offshoot of the philosophy of ‘individualism’. The relationship between the individual, the society and the state and the areas of conflict in their mutual spheres of activity has engaged the attention of political thinkers for several past centuries in the west. There are however, little sources in the writings of ancient Indian thinkers on the subject.  The oriental peoples no doubt had speculated on the State and its problems even before the time of...

The Supreme Court’s Right to Privacy Judgment – V: Privacy and Decisional Autonomy

The Supreme Court changes its mind frequently, often holding that its own previous judgments are no longer good law. It is rare, however, for the Court to reverse itself in a case where the correctness of a prior judgment was not at issue, and was not argued by counsel. For that reason, the Puttaswamy plurality’s castigation of the Supreme Court’s 2013 judgment in Koushal vs NazFoundation – which recriminalised homosexuality – is particularly important. It is important because, in singling...

The Constitutional Status Of Article 35A

While Article 35A has socioeconomic and political factors, this article restricts itself only to the constitutional issue that whether the Article 35A is constitutionally valid or not?The Indian Constitution (IC) protects certain sections of the society which have faced injustice historically. In the similar vein, the IC protects certain States to immune from the Constitution under Part XXI titled “Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions” from Article 369 to 392. In this Part, the IC...

What You Don’t Learn In Law School: A Primer

Learning in law school and actual practice of law are two different experiences.It is often felt that there is a gulf between what is taught in law school(s) and what is needed to navigate in the early stages of a career in law. Law schools train to “think like a lawyer” by developing skills for identifying issues, legal research, drafting documents, and framing legal arguments. But there are many practical aspects which are not adequately addressed during the years spent in the law school....

Gender, Language And The Law

Is there equality of sexes in India? More than 225 years after Mary Wallstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), where she championed the cause of equality of sexes, and more than 75 years of the existence of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees, equality before law and equal protection of law, the Indian legislations or atleast their language tell a different tale. What’s in language, one may ask? What’s more apt than to turn to Chomsky, the intellectual giant of our times...

Arbitral Awards And "Existence Of Dispute" Under IBC – NCLAT Ruling In Annapurna v Soril

The judgment of Hon'ble National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), dated 29 August 2017, in M/s Annapurna Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. & Anr. v. M/s. SORIL Infra Resources Ltd., has thrown up some intriguing questions on the interplay between the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) and the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (A&C Act).Under IBC, an operational creditor can initiate the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) of a corporate debtor under Section 9 for...

Specialized Intellectual Property Enforcement in China: Implications for Indian Companies

China’s attempt to emerge as a key Intellectual Property (IP) hub began in 2008 with its formulation of the Outline of National IP Strategy (“IP Strategy”). This provided for a roadmap that will enable China to become a nation capable of creating, utilising and protecting IP by 2020. As part of executing this strategy China indulged in a number of judicial reforms to strengthen IP protection that included the establishment of a centralized jurisdiction over some hi-tech patent litigation,...

“Preliminary inquiry”, An Unnecessary Judge-Made Conundrum And It’s Scope Misapplied In “Lalita Kumari”

I propose to confine this article only with regard to the preliminary inquiry conducted in anti-corruptions cases, though the Apex Court of this country has enlarged the need for preliminary inquiry in other categories of cases as well. The first part of this article is devoted for convincing the readers about the illegality in the police conducting a preliminary inquiry before registering an FIR against a public servant in anti-corruption cases and the necessity to discontinue the preliminary...

The Supreme Court’s Right to Privacy Judgment – IV: Privacy, Informational Self-Determination, And The Idea of Consent

In our discussion of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Puttaswamy, so far, one common thread is emerging: the individual is at the heart of the Court’s understanding of the right to privacy. We saw this in the Court’s refusal to frame privacy in spatial or relational terms, in the plurality’s acknowledgment of the feminist critique of privacy, and in the judgment’s resurrection of Justice Subba Rao’s dissenting opinion in Kharak Singh in its discussion of privacy and the human body. In this essay,...