Diluting Identity: The New Transgender Amendment

The amendment to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 [the 2019 Act], introduced on March 13, 2026 by the ministry of social justice and empowerment, and passed by Parliament on March 25, marks a troubling shift in India's legal approach to gender identity. The bill is presented as addressing implementation challenges, but in substance undermines transgender rights. The new transgender bill risks undoing years of constitutional progress. The move raises the question that is...

Myth Of Formalisation: Economic Survey Projections And Governance Challenges In India's Labour Codes

India's new labour codes have been promoted as reforms with the potential to bring major change whose draft rule was issued in December 2025. The Economic Survey 2025–26 presents an optimistic outlook: the codes are expected to raise formalisation from 60.4% to 75.5%, create 77 lakh jobs, lower unemployment, increase female labour force participation, and add 1.25% to GDP by 2029–30. These projections are based on the assumption that simplifying compliance for firms will encourage formalisation...

Beyond Words - Why Chhattisgarh High Court's Approach To Victim Testimony Matters

The history of criminal law in India has had a long history of being plagued by an extremely tedious criminal process, right from filing a complaint or FIR to the passing of the final order. The intermediate stages are long and exhausting1, and given the adversarial functioning of the Indian judicial machinery, a lot depends on the judge's interpretation and how evidence presented is perceived. The role of the court becomes particularly important in sensitive cases, like those involving sexual...

End The Linguistic Apartheid

Justice is frequently conceptualized as a procedural outcome, yet its true essence is communicative. In the Indian Republic, a profound ontological chasm exists between the "Law of the State" and the "Life of the Citizen." This divide is primarily linguistic. When English remains the language of legal education and the highest courts, it is a 'structural injustice' that enables what theorist Miranda Fricker calls "Epistemic Injustice", the silencing of a subject's ability to convey lived...

A Constitutional Critique Of Rajasthan's Disturbed Areas Bill, 2026

Imagine you own a house and want to sell it. You have a willing buyer. You have agreed on a price. Both of you are acting freely, with full knowledge of what you are doing. And yet, a government officer can step in and say no — not because there is anything fraudulent about your transaction, not because either of you is being coerced, but because the officer has formed an opinion that your sale might affect the demographic composition of the neighbourhood. If you proceed with the transaction...

When The Law Looks Away

On March 6, 2026, ten police officers in plain clothes arrived in Krishnarajapuram in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu and took away a 26-year-old Dalit engineering graduate, R. Akash Delison. He had been accused of attacking two men, a serious allegation that required investigation and trial. Instead, within forty-eight hours, he was dead.In his dying declaration, Akash described how he was blindfolded, his legs placed on stones, covered with a wet sack, and beaten repeatedly with an iron rod....

Extension Of Arbitral Tribunal Under Section 29A Of The Arbitration & Conciliation Act

The Dispute Resolution process through Arbitration has always been appealing due to its efficiency and quick resolution. However, over time, the reality of Arbitral proceedings became similar to Court Proceedings due to the long delays in pronouncing Arbitral Awards. Hence, to resolve this, the Indian Legislature in 2015 introduced Section 29A in the Arbitration & Conciliation Act of 1996 ('1996 Act'). Section 29A of the 1996 Act imposes a deadline on the Arbitral Tribunal by requiring it to...

Res Gestae Under Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023: Re-Examining Hearsay Exception In Digital Age

Res Gestae is a Latin phrase meaning “things done” or “things transacted”. It refers to the facts, statements, or acts so closely connected with the main event that they form part of the same transaction.The doctrine of Res Gestae provides one of the most important exceptions to the hearsay rule by allowing courts to use spontaneous or contemporaneous statements linked to the same transaction.In the modern digital age, the application of this doctrine has become increasingly complex. Courts are...

Beyond Policy Matters: How Jaya Thakur Verdict Redefines Menstrual Autonomy

In India, the topic of menstrual justice has been increasingly discussed in constitutional conversations over the past few years. It has emerged from the fringes of social activism. The Supreme Court's recent landmark ruling in Dr Jaya Thakur v. the Government of India recognised menstrual hygiene infrastructure as a fundamental right under Article 21, stating, “A period should end a sentence, not an education.” Earlier, in Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India (2023), when a PIL was filed...

Rape On The Pretext Of Marriage - Section 69 Of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 : A Provision Built To Be Abused

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Act which replaced the Indian Penal Code, 1860, introduced a new offence which had not been codified in any previous statute—namely, sexual intercourse by “deceitful” means. Prior to the enactment of the BNS, this offence was not codified and did not form part of the IPC. This is not to say that the idea did not exist earlier, but rather that it existed only as a judicial construct, developed by combining two distinct offences—rape (Section 375, IPC) and...

From Lalita Kumari To Section 173(3) BNSS: Navigating The New Frontier Of FIR Registration

The First Information Report (“FIR”) serves as the primary jurisdictional trigger within the Indian criminal justice system. It is the formal mechanism that transitions a private grievance into a state-led prosecution, thereby activating the statutory powers of investigation, search, and arrest. For decades, the procedural governance of FIR registration has centred on the division of power between the informant and the police officer. The legal framework determining when a police officer is...

The Black Box Of Fraud: AI And Reinvention Of White-Collar Crime

The accelerating digitalization of global finance has spawned new frontiers for illicit financial behavior, notably in the realm of white-collar crime. White-collar crime, traditionally encompassing non-violent financial misconduct by individuals in positions of trust, has evolved dramatically with the advent of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and blockchain. Once characterized by manual accounting fraud and deceptive bookkeeping, modern white-collar...