Alienation Of Tribal Land Is Not Just A Legal But Cultural Issue

The recent judgment of Supreme Court in UCO Bank vs. Dipak Debbarma  in which  Section 187 of the Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960 was held invalid as it was said to be inconsistent  with the Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and  Enforcement  of Security Interest Act, 2002 (a Central Act). Section 187 of the Tripura Act prohibited the bank fromtransferring the land mortgaged by an ST member to a non-ST person as invalid. Despite the Tripura Act being placed in...

Forsaking Constitutional Morality At The Altar Of Constitutional Patriotism?

On 29th November the President elect of the United States of America (US), Donald Trump tweeted “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” The statement made by Donald Trump is significant because it goes against the Bill of Rights enshrined in the US Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, which had in Texas v. Johnson (1989) held that flag burning...

Women & Laws In India

IntroductionIn every era in the history of social development, the question of women and the question of gender justice remained on board. It remained on board in every era for the reason as rightly pointed out by famous theoretician Friedrich Engels in his classical writing “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” that “Woman was the first human being that tasted bondage. Woman was a slave before slavery existed”.In India, the constitutionally guaranteed equality for women...

Supreme Court Ignoring Perils Of Imposed Nationalism?

The Supreme Court has transgressed into moral policing yet again with its recent decision to make the singing of the national anthem compulsory before movie screenings. With a plethora of imperative pending cases in the pipeline, I find it rather odd that the Courts in India waste precious time and resources in defining something as personal as patriotism and the way a citizen should choose to express the same.National Anthem Must Before Movies In Theatres: SC [Read Order]Nationalism is the...

The Court Commands Subjects To Become Constitutional Patriots; Advent Of Judgocracy?

The Supreme Court in a PIL filed by Shyam Narayan Chouksey, awaiting response from the Government, laid down 7 interim measures to secure respect for National Anthem by the citizens. A friend at bar wrote on his blog that how the order is illegal and amounts to judicial censorship and another wrote on how it is judge centric and the same judge in a similar petition by the same petitioner had passed a similar order in his term as a judge in the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Readers may also read the...

The Law Of Encounters: The Immunity Of The Police And Their Impunity

In an unprecedented incident(with an exception to Naxal Varghese murder case)in the history of Kerala,the land of democratic and political movements,in the last week,two persons (or three, as the number revealed by the police is still wavering)alleged to be Maoists were killed by the security forces in Nilamburas a sequel to the encounter killing of eight under-trial prisoners monikered to be the members of another proscribed organization, the SIMI, that happened on October 31st in Bhopal.The...

The Constitution of India: A Citizens’ Charter

“Constitution is not a mere lawyers document, it is a vehicle of Life, and its spirit is always the spirit of Age.”                             - Dr. B.R. AmbedkarThe very fact that the Constitution of the Indian Republic is the product not of a political revolution but of the research and deliberations of body of eminent representatives of the people who sought to improve upon the existing system of administration, makes a retrospect of the constitutional development indispensable for a proper...

Informal Guidance or Informal Ordinance?

Preferential allotment of shares is the process by which a company increases its share capital base by issuing further shares to existing or new members. A company may be required to come out with preferential issue for a variety of reasons depending upon the circumstances such as for launching a new project, to meet company’s working capital requirements, to maintain debt-equity ratio or otherwise. In case the company which is desirous of making a preferential allotment of shares is a listed...

Who Will Guard The Guardians: A Glimpse At The Confrontation Of Justice Katju’s Contempt

In an unprecedented action, the Supreme Court on 11.11.2016 in Court Room No. 6, through its Suo Motu Contempt Petition (Criminal) No. 4 & 5 OF 2016 on the blog published by Justice Markandey Katju dated 17th and 18th September, 2016- Titled ''Soumya Murder Case” and “The Intellectual Level of Supreme Court Judges” respectively, while issuing a Contempt Notice to the Ex Judge of the Hon’ble Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju, has evidently created the unparallel history of the future.The...

Recognition And Enforcement Of Interim Measures:The Inadequacy Of The Indian Arbitration Amendment Act, 2015

IntroductionThe Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996 (‘1996 Act’) was India’s moment of adopting the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (‘Model Law’) [24 I.L.M. 1302 (1985)]. With a view to comprehensively cover international commercial arbitration as also domestic arbitration, the objects and reasons for its enactment was framing an arbitration system that empowered a tribunal, therefore, ensuring speedy disposal with the least court intervention. Section 17 of...

Legitimacy Of Demonetization

The legitimacy of demonetization of high denomination bank notes is being interrogated in legal and political circles. The Madras High Court dismissed a petition and observed that demonetisation was good for India. The PIL filed in the Karnataka High Court and Bombay High Court was too dismissed on similar grounds. Whereas the Supreme Court,though refused to stay the government order but asked the Centre to file a reply without formally issuing notice that what steps government has taken to...

Dignity Of Law Courts And The Contempt Law

***“Fluctuating facts and kaleidoscopic circumstances,bewildering novelties and unexpected factors,personal vicissitudes and societal variables may defy standard-setting for all situations; but that does not mean thathumane principles should be abandoned and blanketdiscretion endowed, making life and liberty the playthingof the mentality of human judges.”- (AIR 1979 SC 916) ***It is regarded as a very strange situation in the history of our nation that we had witnessed recently in our Supreme...