Unnao Tragedy : Why Allahabad HC Granted Bail To Prime Accused? [Read Order]

Ten days before the complainant in the Unnao rape case was set ablaze by five men including two of her alleged rapists, the Allahabad High Court had granted bail to the prime accused Shivam Trivedi. "Applicant will not try to influence the witnesses or tamper with the evidence of the case or otherwise misuse the liberty of bail", Justice Rajeev Singh had ordered on November 25 while...

Who Will Judge The Judges?

History is full of examples that when there is an attempt to create a totalitarian state, judiciary is made an instrument to carry out that plan instead of becoming a force to resist it.

Kill Rape Culture, Not Rapists

Knee-jerk reactions demanding harsher punishments for rape are patriarchal in principle and harmful in practice.

Fake Encounter Killings : An Anathema To Rule Of Law

'Short-cut' justice may give a momentary sense of relief to the public who felt outraged by the crime; but it will deflect attention from major structural issues which allow the culture of impunity and lawlessness to prevail.

Rape & Murder - Speedy Justice: Challenges Before Judiciary & Society

One of the major reasons for increase of the incidents of rape is that our judicial system takes extremely long time in punishing the perpetrator.

[On Death Anniversary]Ambedkar's Internationalism And Anti-Discrimination Discourse

Few months after the demise of B.R. Ambedkar on 6th December 1956, Ram Manohar Lohia wrote to one of his closest associates (Madhu Limaye) that Ambedkar could be shown to the outside world as "a symbol of upright India". While Lohia would have said this because of Ambedkar's enormous contributions in reforming India, the latter's works and efforts provide us with a platform to build a global anti-discrimination discourse. Ambedkar developed his ideas for the Indian Constitution by...

Domestic Violence Act & Senior Citizens Act : Delhi HC Issues Guidelines For Balancing Claims Under Both Laws [Read Judgment]

Taking note of the competing claims arising under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 and the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, the Delhi High Court has issued certain guidelines to strike a balance.In the case Vinay Verma v Kanika Pasricha and another, Justice Prathiba M Singh observed that in several cases, the claim of a daughter-in-law...

Delhi HC Notifies Practice Directions For Petitions Filed Under Article 227 Of Constitution & S. 115 CPC [Read Notification]

The Delhi High Court on Thursday notified practice directions for Civil Miscellaneous (Main) Petitions, filed under Article 227 of the Constitution and Civil Revision Petitions, filed under Section 115 of CPC. These directions shall come into force from December 15. Advance Service of Petition In the aforementioned petitions, arising from an order in a pending proceeding before a...

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill Is Unconstitutional

The BJP-led Union government is determined to table the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in this parliamentary session, after it lapsed earlier in the year. The bill proposes to amend Section 2 (b) of the Citizenship Act – which defines 'illegal immigrants' – by excluding "persons belonging to minority communities, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan" from the ambit of "illegal immigrants". The bill also reduces the period of...

Would You Give An Unconditional Apology About Your Tweet on Justice Muralidhar: Delhi HC Asks Gurumurthy

Delhi High Court has asked S Gurumurthy as to whether he would add a statement of unconditional apology in his reply, and tweet the same on his account, in a contempt case against him. The matter pertains to the tweet of S Gurumurthy where he had posted a question stating whether Justice Muralidhar was P Chidambaram's junior. This tweet was made after interim protection...

No Data To Conclusively Establish That Imposition Of Death Penalty Leads To Reduction Of Crime: Calcutta HC [Read Judgment]

While observing that there is no statistical data to conclusively establish that imposition of death penalty will definitely lead to reduction of crime committed by others in society, the Calcutta High Court allowed the Death Reference Appeal of a habitual offender. The Appellant-convict, Ansar Rahmanand had been convicted for possession of heroin above commercial quantity...

What Is 'Zero FIR' And When Can Police Register 'Zero FIR'?

In the aftermath of the recent incident that happened in Hyderabad, where a young lady was brutally raped, smothered and burnt by four men; a question arose about the legality of refusal to register the First Information Report (FIR) by the Shamsabad police by saying that the place of incident was outside their jurisdiction.The Cyberabad police commissioner on Saturday suspended three cops...