Articles
From Bangalore Water Supply To New Labour Code: Has India Redefined 'Industry'?
When talking about industry, I understood the word in its ordinary sense as “the people and activities involved in producing something, providing a service, etc.” But in law, “industry” gives a much broader perspective. It can encompass a wide range of organised activities through which goods or services are produced and provided. Governments and economies themselves rely upon productive activity; the level and organisation of production are closely connected with economic development and...
From Stolen Data To Frozen Bank Account
Cyber fraud frequently begins with compromised personal data and ends in accounts belonging to persons unaware of the scheme. This article examines the protections and liabilities that arise along that chain.A friend, a neighbour, a hostel mate or someone otherwise known to you comes with what seems a very simple request. “My account is not working. I need to withdraw some cash. I have a tax refund being credited. Can I use your account just for this? I will take out the amount once it is...
Corporate Criminal Liability – Who Forms Mens Rea For Company?
Corporate entities have long been regarded as incapable of being prosecuted for offences which constitute of mens rea, the mental component of criminality. The Supreme Court has dislodged this roadblock, and held that mens rea of natural persons can be attributed to corporate entities, making them liable for commission of such crimes.On 7 September 2026, in Sanofi India Ltd. v. Central Bureau of Investigation, the Supreme Court has made initial inroads towards creating a legal framework, for...
When Law Breaks Rule Of Principles
Law is one of the most persistent efforts of humankind to balance power and reason. It aims to change the nature of force into authority, authority into responsibility and social order into justice. But under this civilised scheme there is a philosophical contradiction: what is to become of the institution charged with upholding the law when it acts in contravention of the principles that give it its moral legitimacy? This contradiction is encapsulated in the phrase, “When Law Breaks the Law”....
Ethanol, AI And Agriculture: Who Has Right To India's Depleting Groundwater?
India is asking one depleting resource to feed its people, fuel its cars and power its technological future: groundwater.In Bhattu Kalan, a block of Haryana's Fatehbad district, a distillery cleared to draw water for a quarter of a million litres of grain ethanol a day is coming up despite the government itself calling it over-exploited. Fatehbad pumps groundwater at 117% of the rate it replenishes, and yet the plant has received environmental clearance anyway. This case study is symptomatic of...
Cobalt, Continental Shelf, And Cul De Sac: Unravelling Afanasi Nikitin Impasse
The Afanasi Nikitin Seamount dispute has frozen an Indian Ocean cobalt deposit for over two years. What the churning of the ocean of milk got right, and this deadlock has not, is that treasure and hazard rise together, and someone has to deal with both.Somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, roughly three thousand kilometres from the Indian coast and just over a thousand from Sri Lanka's, there sits a mountain[1] named after a 15th-century Russian merchant, Afanasi Nikitin. He was one of...
Beyond Binary - Employment Rights Of Transgender Persons In India
More often than not, in Indian society, conversations around sex, sexuality, and sexual orientation remain taboo, leaving many transgender persons to fend for themselves. Lacking family support, formal education, and financial security, many members of the community are forced to earn a livelihood through begging and sex work, making the transgender community one of the most unheard and ignored in India. Even those who gain formal education by keeping their identity under wraps face a fresh set...
Should Indian Courts Include 'Honourable Acquittal' In Right To Be Forgotten?
The “right to be forgotten” is acquiring a distinct place in India's constitutional privacy jurisprudence. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court recently raised concerns about whether a blanket restriction on name-based accessibility of judicial records was necessary and whether it could potentially be addressed on a case-by-case basis by the court concerned. Even the Supreme Court is also seized of a similar issue and has indicated the need to delineate the contours and parameters of the...
Section 18 Lens On Pre-Deposit Clauses In Arbitration
A contractor making a claim of ₹1.77 crore must first hand over ₹17.7 lakh in cash, more than double the ₹7,16,300 court fees that the same suit would incur in a Haryana civil court, before a tribunal will even hear him. That is the arithmetic buried inside M/s Santosh Associate Private Limited v. Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited, wherein a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 referred to a larger Bench the validity of a contractual...
Can Election Commission Disagree? Internal Dissent, Article 324 And Constitutional Accountability Of ECI
There is something odd about how we talk about the Election Commission of India. We speak about the ECI as though it is a single voice a unified authority that issues decisions on elections, Model Code of Conduct violations, and electoral disputes as if from one undivided mind. But the Commission has not been a one-person institution since 1989. It has three members: the Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners. And yet, when we ask whether those three members are actually...
