Parliamentary Privileges Of Parliament & State Legislatures Vis-À-Vis Fundamental Rights Of Citizens

The Parliament and State Legislatures don their privileges from the Constitution as provided under Article 105 and 194, respectively. Although, few privileges such as a member's freedom of speech within the Parliament/ State Legislature have been expressly mentioned in Articles 105 & 194, a vast majority of parliamentary privileges have not been enumerated or codified under the Constitution. This decision of framers of the Constitution, has left the future parliamentarians to...

How The Supreme Court Of Pakistan Has Legitimized Every Military Coup Under The Doctrine Of Necessity

Pakistan is known to be a country where the military prevails in influence and power over its civilian government since its very inception in 1947. The country has faced military coups which have sprung up military dictators such Ayub Khan, Zia Ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf. The irony of these coups is in its legitimacy as provided by the Courts especially the Supreme Court of Pakistan which has put their seal of approval on every betrayal of democracy by the military in Pakistan since 1955....

Construction Contracts: Rising Importance Of Enforceable Arbitration Agreement

In the past two decades, India has witnessed large scale infrastructure developments across the country. High stake construction contracts are awarded by the government agencies to Indian and/or foreign contractors by executing construction contracts. The Parties to construction contracts usually adopt arbitration as a mechanism to resolve their disputes expeditiously as against the long drawn procedure before a Civil Court. The Arbitration Agreement therefore assumes importance and it...

Liquidated Damages: Settled Law Yet An Unsettling Dispute

One of the most usual term in any standard form contract requiring delivery or performance within a stipulated time period, is a clause providing for application of an agreed pre-estimated compensation amount termed as “Liquidated Damages” against delay in such delivery or performance of the contract. It is generally provided that consequent upon delay in performing the contract by the promisor beyond the stipulated time period, the promisee shall be entitled to recover from the promisor...

Revisiting The Arrest And Bail Process Under PMLA: A Call For Review Of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary's Verdict

In the realm of legal discourse, few judgments have sparked as much debate as the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India[1]. Delivered on 27th July 2022, the judgment upheld the validity of certain challenged provisions relating to the power of arrest, attachment, search and seizure conferred on the Directorate of Enforcement [“ED”] under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 [“PMLA”]. Amongst other issues, the Supreme Court held that the ED is...

Stay Or Not To Stay - An Enigma Of An Arbitral Award

The dichotomy between an arbitral award and its enforcement is intricate in its sweep. The courts reel under immense docket explosion and more specifically with regard to the challenge to arbitral awards, which gulp down much time of the courts. Many a time, an arbitral award is challenged by the award debtor, and at the same time an execution petition is filed by the award holder, creating a pandora's box for the courts to deal with such a quandary. The question facing the courts is - if ...

A Gear In The Right Direction: How The Apex Court Came As A Rescue For Vulnerable Couples Seeking For Protection

A couple from Kerala had moved a Petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that one of the partners were forcibly being kept by her parents in their custody. In this case, both the Petitioners were female and it was a lesbian couple which were in an intimate relationship. The Kerela High Court heard the Petition and ultimately interacted with the family of “X” (Name has not been disclosed) and the outcome of the interaction was that the High Court directed “X” to undergo a...

Anti- Discrimination In Labour Laws

Anti-discrimination laws in the realm of labour encompass legal provisions designed to prevent and proscribe discriminatory practises targeting employees or individuals specifically on the grounds of certain protected attributes. Main purpose of the anti-discrimination law is preventing discrimination related to matter of employer-employee transactions based on gender, sex, race, religion or anything based on certain attributes. In India protection is explicitly provided under Article ...

Under A Market Logic, Even Pathogens Have Proud Owners

Exactly after four years of the Covid-19 hit the globe, WHO is ready with a draft negotiating text of the Pandemic Agreement with 'prevention, preparedness and response' as its purpose. An international law student would be surprised at how negotiators are able to produce a ready-made treaty text in such a short period, as it is expected to get finality or perish within months. More traditional treaties sometimes took decades to materialize since several philosophies used to vie for dominance...

A Christian And A Hindu Walk Into A Gurudwara: A Legal Catch-22 In Marriage Laws

A petition under Section 27 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (SMA) before the Family Court, Patiala House, New Delhi for the grant of the 'first motion' for divorce recently brought to light an anomaly that has been created by judicial interpretation in the validity of a marriage celebrated in any other form and subsequently registered under Section 15 of the SMA. In a situation not uncommon these days, a Christian and a Hindu were married in an anand karaj ceremony at a gurudwara and...

Politics On Katchatheevu Island Is Unjustified

Even though the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) was demarcated and settled finally by a bilateral agreement between India and Sri Lanka on 26th and 28th June 1974, the continuous high-handed acts against Indian fishermen by Sri Lankan authorities forced the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu in 2006 and followed by the Chief Minister K Karunanidhi in 2008 to plead Indian Ministry of External Affairs to extract a “lease in perpetuity” over Katchatheevu island from Sri Lanka[1]. ...

Default Bail In Indian Criminal Law

Bail laws play a decisive role in the history of Criminal jurisprudence. It acts as a serving mechanism to uphold individual rights, considering the manifest of legislative mandate, which significantly impresses upon the need for expeditious completion of the investigation in order to prevent laxity on that behalf and forthwith embodied the necessity and scope of such statutory exercise, keeping in mind the basic principles evolved in the process of interpretating the expression...