Refrain From Using The Word 'Dalit' For SCs And STs: Madhya Pradesh HC To Centre And State [Read Order]

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the Centre and the State to refrain from using the term 'Dalit' for members belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes."However, we have no manner of doubt that the Central Government/State Government and its functionaries would refrain from using the nomenclature “Dalit” for the members belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled...

Office Of Profit: Delhi HC To Hear The Challenge By Disqualified AAP MLA's Tomorrow

In a fresh plea before the Delhi High Court, the 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs on Tuesday challenged their disqualification which has been approved by the President on the recommendation of the Election Commission of India.The petition will come up for hearing on Wednesday.On Monday, the 20 legislators had withdrawn their petition challenging the ECI sending a recommendation for their...

Aadhaar Hearing [Week-1] Preliminaries

From 17 January 2018, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India started hearing final arguments in the much-awaited Aadhaar case. For reasons that have been extensively debated elsewhere (see for example here, here and here), the Aadhaar challenge will require the Court to answer questions of critical constitutional significance.This is the first among a series of posts where I will outline my thoughts on the arguments in the Aadhaar case. It is not my aim to predict or pre-judge the...

The Murky Course Of Sohrabuddin Case

Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Kauser Bi and Tulsiram Prajapathi- these names would not have got national significance, in ordinary course of things. Ironically, their deaths, in alleged fake encounters by the officials of Gujarat State Police, gave a fresh lease of life to their names, continuing to send ripples of shock over the judiciary and the larger canvass of Indian politics. The public discussions about Sohrabuddin case gained momentum following the unprecedented press conference held by four...

What The National Law Schools Don’t Teach

Law as a profession has been often ridiculed for its lack of integrity, greed and immorality. Justice as a profession has been criticized for the joyous self-exiles of its people behind their ivory towers. Some would be even offended by me calling it a ‘profession’. It is a ‘service’ they would claim. I don’t entirely subscribe to the disparaging tone against lawyers, not because I am to become one myself, but because I could claim to vouch for their constant moral and ethical dismembering...

Marital Rape Already Criminalized As Cruelty Under Section 498A IPC: Delhi Govt. To HC

The Delhi Government, on Thursday, contended before the Delhi High Court that the act of marital rape has already been criminalized as cruelty under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and hence, there was no need for creating a new offence penalizing the same.Section 498A criminalizes a situation where a married woman is subjected to cruelty by her husband or his relatives. Cruelty...

SC Has An "Inconsistent Jurisprudential Position" On Questions Of Individual Autonomy: Dr. Menaka Guruswamy [Video]

While delivering a lecture at the NALSAR University of Law, human rights advocate and constitutional lawyer Dr. Menaka Guruswamy asserted that the Supreme Court has had an "inconsistent jurisprudential position" when it came to questions of individual autonomy.Delivering a lecture titled ‘Crafting Methods and Contemporary Lessons: Constitutionalism Alive’, Ms. Guruswamy began by looking...

Time Slots, Actual Dates, Costs To Check Delays & Pendency In New Delhi HC (Original Side) Rules, 2018 [Read Rules]

The Delhi High Court has notified the Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018, which provides for cutting down time of litigation, weeding out frivolous cases, checking too many adjournments and imposing cost throughout, especially wherever delay caused is unjustified.The rules supersede the 1967 Rules with respect to practice and procedure for exercise of its ordinary original...

Indian Constitution: 'Time To Revisit Framers' Assumptions To Defend Rights Of Minorities'

At a book-launch, held recently at the National Law University, New Delhi, the author of the new book, ‘The Constitution of India: A Contextual Analysis’ (Bloomsbury, 2018, Rs.299), Arun K. Thiruvengadam, who teaches at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, emphasised the need to revisit framers’ assumptions, and reopen issues, which we had long taken for granted, as settled.Thiruvengadam...

From A Culture Of Authority To A Culture of Justification: The Meaning of Overruling ADM Jabalpur

The nine-judge bench judgment of the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India is now four-and-a-half months old. The verdict, which held that there exists a fundamental right to privacy under the Indian Constitution, has been analysed threadbare. Its implications for decisional autonomy, personal choice, State surveillance, informational self-determination, and many other facets of privacy, have been debated and discussed. In the coming months, the Supreme Court will have an...

They Should Not Have Done It?

12th January of the year 2018 will forever be etched in the history of Indian judiciary – for this was the day on which fissures within the judiciary, which were only well known to one and all, were officially out in the open. In the morning, I was shocked to see the ANI Twitter handle carrying a story about how senior judges of the country were going to hold a press conference at 12 noon! It is not unknown for judges to speak to the press off the record, but for the senior most judges to hold a...

Master Of Roster – Constitutional Limitation And Way Forward

In an unprecedented move, four sitting judges of the Supreme Court of India held a press conference on Friday (January 12, 2018), asserting that the administration of the apex court is “not in order” and that ‘things less than desirable’ have been happening over the past few months.The said judges, who are all members of the Supreme Court collegium, disclosed that they had written a letter to the Chief Justice of India airing their grievances. One of the grievances raised pertained to the...