Equality In Accessing Quality Education

Equality in accessing quality education is a fundamental right under Article 14 read with Right to life under Article 21. Article 14 of the Constitution mandates all children to get equal opportunity to have good quality education without any discrimination based on caste, creed or financial status. Giving high standard KVS education to children of public/civil servants and denying the same to other children cannot be justified as ‘reasonable classification’. The Center or States cannot treat...

Legal Aspects Of Heritage In India

IntroductionHeritage is the identity of every respective state, and they are putting considerable efforts to preserve and protect their centuries old rich heritage. India is one of the countries possessing rich cultural and natural heritage. In this regard, the preservation of historical structures has to have an objective of safeguarding national cultural identity various policies and laws are framed for preservation, protection and proper management of the cultural heritage at the state and...

Struggle At The Bar: Remembering M.C. Chagla

“The only road to the highest stations in this country is that of the law.”Law is a great discipline for the mind. It teaches you how to think clearly, precisely and accurately. Every word has its definite meaning, and must find its proper place in its own context. Verbosity and diffuseness are foreign to a well – trained legal mind. Such a mind is essentially logical, and has the courage to face the results of its own mental processes, and not to hide them under a cloud of rhetoric and...

Freedom Of Speech v. Contempt Of Court

“Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it." - Thomas PaineArt. 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech & expression. It is also guaranteed under Liberty clause to the preamble. The major international & regional instruments on civil & political rights - the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights (ICCPR), the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), & African...

The Curious Case Of Criticism, Conflict & Contempt

Friday’s hearing in Courtroom No. 6 of the Supreme Court displayed a series of interesting events reverberating with judicial thunder when the Supreme Court issued contempt notice to a retired yet vocal veteran of the same court. In my previous post, I had written about as to why in my view the Justice Katju calling order was violative of Article 124(7) and the only provision permitting the Court to do so was Section 32 of the Advocates Act, 1961.In a nutshell, the Supreme Court’s bench speaking...

Justice VR Krishna Iyer: India’s Super Judge, Even After Retirement

On the occasion of Justice VR Krishna Iyer’s 101th birth anniversary, which falls on 14th Nov, Adv. PB Sahasranaman recalls the people’s judge and writes about how he continued to be a Justice for the masses even after retirementJudges, once appointed are always described as judges for ever, even after they retire from service. Justice VR Krishna Iyer was one such judge who had a fruitful 34 years after retirement. His achievements as an advocate, minister, judge of high court and Supreme Court,...

The Tata Episode: Corporate Governance And The Continuing Influence Of Promoters

It is generally understood that corporate governance norms ought to address agency problems between various actors in a company. Moreover, in companies with concentrated shareholding, the agency problems between controlling shareholders (referred to in India as “promoters”) and minority shareholders tend to be rampant, and hence corporate governance measures need to be targeted to address that agency problem. The corporate governance regime in India has considerably evolved over the last two...

Right To Petition To Right To Information: Evolution Of Human Right To Good Governance

Introduction The meaning of the history cannot be confined to the rise and fall of kings and wars around a territorial unit. The genesis of ideas and their rule over the civilization is significant history of mankind. For instance, the Great Britain has no written constitution, but declarations of Rights of Men and consequential developments constitute landmarks of legal history of Britain. The Magna Carta, meaning Great Charter first issued by King John of England in 1215 and 1689 Bill of...

Bhopal Police Encounter And The Quest For Justice

The aftermath of the recent Bhopal jailbreak and the subsequent police encounter epitomizes how the rule of law runs the risk of being forsaken at the altar of the modern day discourse around the idea of nationalism in India. The Constitution of India guarantees to every person who is accused regardless of the nature of crime, the right to fair trial and this is further bolstered by the one of the most fundamental principles of in Criminal Law which provides for the presumption of innocence...

UK Supreme Court’s Frontal Assault On Diesel Pollution

Andrew Marr in his book ‘Ruling Britannia: The Failure and Future of British Democracy’ had something interesting to say about the early post-war judges:“The Forties, Fifties and early 60s were the heyday of what we would call judicial passivism, when the generation of war time judges bravely tried to extend their political role, and interpreted their own constitutional powers modestly and bookishly. They didn’t read the records of the Parliamentary debates to try to discover the wider policy...

The Legal Scheme Of Withdrawal Of Rs. 500 And Rs. 1000 Notes

In the context of declaration that certain bank notes shall be ceased to be legal tender i.e., bank notes of denominations of the existing series of the value of five hundred rupees and one thousand rupees, this piece shall endeavour to briefly examine the legal scheme of these governmental measures and pose some questions. For the sake of ease and convenience, in this piece, such bank notes shall be referred to as “Invalid Notes”.Say, at an international airport, arriving and departing...

Why Do We Need A Mediation Law? After All, Mediation & Conciliation Are The Same Thing, Right?

I’ve strongly felt like there’s a lot of noise when you’re trying to understand consensual dispute resolution (also known as, CDR) in India. There’s, unfortunately, no uniformity in the way we understand labels like ‘conciliation’ and ‘mediation’ – our law and literature, both scarce and pointing towards a divide.I’m of the belief that the dichotomy is damaging to mediation practice, as well as the efforts of many who are preaching the gospel of CDR and access to justice. This piece has the...