Parental Alienation : Silent Struggles

A matrimonial relationship is nurtured through love, care and understanding. However, when this relationship turns bitter, the entire equation changes which affects not only the couple but also their families that leaves a trail of misunderstandings leading ultimately to distraught court battles and shattered emotions. The complication further arises when there is a child in between and then begins the complex battle of custody with high conflict dramas, with both parents amplifying even the...

India Needs An Anti-Sanctions Law, And It Needs One Now

The growing use of extraterritorial sanctions is challenging India's contractual sovereignty and strategic autonomy. According to a recent report, 'India is looking to enact an EU-like anti-sanctions law'[1], a blocking statute. The Indian government's deliberations on the anti-sanctions statute were prompted by Microsoft's unilateral suspension of Nayara's IT services last July. Though the suspension was short-lived, it raised a loud alarm bell for the Indian government. Microsoft's restoration...

Bombay High Court At Goa Addresses Challenges To Goa's Planning Regime

Goa has long been a ground for the tension between developmental needs and environmental concerns. On one hand, its coastline is commercially lucrative; and on the other, 54.06% of its land area fall under ECO I Zone, regions of such ecological importance that no development is permitted, with a further 26.29% designated as ECO II Zones where only minor interventions are allowed.1 In between these extremes is a planning framework that has struggled to balance competing stakes for decades. It is...

Technical Members In Judicial Robes: Dress Code Controversy In NCLT

It is observed that the Hon'ble Judicial Members and Technical Members of the NCLT wear identical dress codes. Ideally, the dress code for Judicial and Technical Members should be distinct. However, at the NCLT, the dress code for Judicial and Technical Members is identical, showing no difference. Technical Members wear attire similar to Judges, including robes and neckbands, despite this being legally impermissible. The dress code is highly significant as it often reflects a person's...

A Question Returns To Three Judges

In November 1941, in the second year of World war-II, the House of Lords decided a case about a man called Robert Liversidge. He had been locked up by the Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, under a wartime regulation that allowed detention if the Secretary had “reasonable cause to believe” the detainee was of hostile association. Liversidge asked a simple question. What were the reasons? The Home Secretary declined to say. The Lords, four to one, held that he need not. Reasonable cause, in...

Regulating Love? Assam's UCC And Constitutional Limits Of State Control Over Live-In Relationships

The Assam Government's decision to introduce a Uniform Civil Code has once again revived one of the most complex constitutional debates in contemporary India: the extent to which the State may regulate intimate personal relationships in the name of legal uniformity and social reform. While discussions surrounding the UCC have traditionally focused upon marriage, divorce, succession and inheritance, the indication that Assam's proposed framework may also regulate live-in relationships marks a...

Peremptory Decrees In A Suit For Specific Performance Of A Contract

The word “peremptory” is defined as “putting an end to or precluding a right of action, debate, or delay”. In the field of law, when a peremptory/conditional order or decree is passed by a court of law, its effect is that if the conditions provided under the decree or order is not complied with strictly, the rights under the decree or order will get effaced. As a consequence, the court will not have any jurisdiction over the decree or order. The genesis of this article is in the question...

Deepfakes & Deception

Deepfakes are no longer a technological curiosity. Traditionally, the law has relied on the trustworthiness of what people hear and see, but deepfakes fundamentally challenge that assumption. Synthetic audio, video, and images can now imitate real people and real events with enough precision to mislead viewers before any verification is possible. That is what makes deepfakes more than a technological novelty. The emergence of deepfakes presents a distinct regulatory challenge, as the existing...

Attendance Rule And Future Of Legal Education: Why Supreme Court's Concern Matters

The recent observations of the Supreme Court on attendance rules in law schools have resurrected an important debate on the future of legal education in India. The immediate controversy was triggered by a Delhi High Court ruling that students should not be debarred from examinations merely on the ground of shortage of attendance. But the larger question facing the country is more basic. In an age when artificial intelligence, digital learning platforms and instant access to information rule the...

Algorithmic Threat To Rational Animals

The rational judgement of a human (rational animals) is being influenced in the algorithmic mediation of contemporary architecture of the digital era. Personalization of the social media and electronic-commerce platforms are re-organizing notions and preferences of the participants involved as they replace their independent assessments and free will with an algorithmically controlled set of saliences. Operationalizing of the Human brains decision-making is achieved through the dual cognitive...

Hash Value For Electronic Evidences

Every individual has their own fingerprints which is unique to them. In the same way, for every electronic record or digital record, a hash value could be created. This hash value acts as the unique digital fingerprint of the document, which is unique to them. By electronic records we mean files, data, videos, audios, chats, call recording and forth. It also encompasses any information created, processed or stored in a digital format. Digital records includes computer file such as PDFs, JPEG and...

How India's Labour Laws Fail To Protect Workers Behind AI Content Moderation

India's moderators power global AI giants and pay for it with their mental health, which the law has yet to catch up.Every time an artificial intelligence (AI) system declines to generate violent content or correctly identifies a graphic image, it is doing so because a human being taught it to. That human is often a young woman in a small town in Jharkhand or Uttar Pradesh, working from a bedroom or a verandah, reviewing hundreds of disturbing videos and images a day for a contractor she will...