Blogs

Guest Post: Unconstitutional Laws and Non-Citizens

by Gautam Bhatia on in Constitutional Law
(In this guest post, Vikram Hegde, a Delhi-based Supreme Court lawyer, discusses how Section 66A of the IT Act, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal’s Case, nonetheless continues to exist insofar as non-citizens are concerned) — For those who happened to have been living unde...

Aadhaar challenge soon before the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court

by OneLawStreet on in Litigation, arbitration & dispute resolution
aadhaar-card As per a circular issued by the Supreme Court of India on January 22 , petitions challenging the validity of UIDAI Aadhaar card may soon be heard by the five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India. Listed as item seven on the list, the batch of petitions will be heard fr...

Supreme Court refuses to stay contempt notice against Arundhati Roy [Read Order]

by OneLawStreet on in Litigation, arbitration & dispute resolution
Arundhati_Roy Supreme Court of India has refused to stay the contempt notice issued to author Arundhati Roy issued against her by the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court. However court has issued notice in her special leave petition to appeal against the notice. Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court had o...

Cryptoparty – January 2016

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | January 22, 2016 SFLC.in will be organizing a cryptoparty on 30th January 2016 at 3pm in its office in Jangpura, Delhi. It will be a hands-on workshop where we teach and learn basic cryptography tools to secure our digital communication, to understand data privacy and mass surveillan...

Wuzhen 2015: Evaluating China’s Competing Vision of the Internet

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
The 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC) was held in the town of Wuzhen in China from 16th-18th December, 2015. Organized by the Chinese government since 2014, the WIC is China’s attempt to present an alternate vision of internet governance, with its pitch for increased ‘cyber-sovereignty’. This is i...
(Previously on this blog, we have looked at the intersection between the Constitution, and criminal procedure. In this guest post, Abhinav Sekhri examines how the Official Secrets Act is constitutionally suspect by enabling the possibility of retrospective creation of offences. The post first appear...

What were the past judgments of our future Lokayukta?

by K.V.Dhananjay on in Constitutional Law
What were the past judgments of our future Lokayukta? Supreme Court Advocate K.V.Dhananjay points to increasing tension in several States in the matter of appointment of their Lokayuktas. Dhananjay says, if one were to raise the question, ‘What were the past judgments of our future Lokayuktas’, almo...

Free Basics Investigation

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | January 20, 2016 So while all of us were busy turning the consultation paper on differential pricing of data services put out by TRAI into a battle ground for Net Neutrality in India, on the sidelines, we decided to checkout Free Basics in action. So we got hold of a Reliance SIM car...

A Constitutional Right against Free Basics? The Link between Article 19 and Zero Rating

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
The past month has witnessed a rise in tide of public debate surrounding net neutrality once more, accompanying the release of another Consultation Paper by TRAI, and another AIB video urging public participation in the ongoing consultation process. To add to this mix there has also been an effort f...

Dirty Picture Project: Bajirao Mastani

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
By Vidya Dronamraju and Devdutta Mukhopadhyay Breaking away from the conventional damsel in distress trope, the trailer of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest production enticed us with the promise of a powerful warrior heroine in the form of Deepika Padukone’s Mastani. Walking into the theatre, we had h...

No Recognition for the New Generation of Digital Rights

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
The original article was published on The Wire on 5th January, 2016. 308357541_222d1b2e2a_b Plenty of Loose Ends. Credit: Pascal Charest/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 The international community’s attempt to shape a new agenda for the Information Society by taking forward the Declaration of Principles and ...

Sabrimala and the PIL

by Gautam Bhatia on in Constitutional Law
January 17, 2016 · 4:59 am Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear final arguments on the question of whether women between the ages of 10 and 50 can be excluded from the Sabrimala shrine – an issue that has gained a degree of notoriety in the last week. On the constitutional question, I think the arg...

Counter Comments: TRAI Consultation Paper on Differential Pricing

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | January 14, 2016 Based on the comments received by TRAI on the Consultation Paper on Different Pricing for Data Services , SFLC.in has submitted these counter comments as solicited by TRAI. Below is the full text of the counter comments submitted by TRAI.[ PDF ] Executive Summary The...
Part I Buildup to Bharati This year marks an unlikely milestone in the history of India’s judiciary. It is the 40th anniversary of both the Emergency and of the review petition that sought to overturn the most famous case in India’s judicial and constitutional history: Kesavananda Bharati vs State o...

No assembly session in Arunachal till January 18: Supreme Court

by OneLawStreet on in Litigation, arbitration & dispute resolution
The Supreme Court of India has on January 13 held that the Legislative Assembly session in Arunachal Pradesh shall not be convened till January 18 in view of the ‘seriousness of issues’ surrounding the political crisis in the state following the ‘voting out of the present government’ and removal of ...
On July 1, 1983, Justice P.A. Choudary of the Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, which allowed the Court to pass an order for ‘restitution of conjugal rights.’ In simple language, if the Court was convinced that either a husband or a wife had ‘without reasonab...

Supreme Court refuses to allow Jallikattu, again [Read Order]

by OneLawStreet on in Litigation, arbitration & dispute resolution
A_bull_being_tamed_in_Jallikattu_held_in_palamedu Supreme Court of India has refused to vacate its order which had put a stay on the bull taming game Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. A bench comprising of Justices Dipak Misra and NV Ramana passed this order while hearing an application filed by an interven...
ginsburg_tom Prof. Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law and Deputy Dean at the University of Chicago Law School as well as a Professor of Political Science at the University. He is a prominent scholar of comparative and international and has authored or edited several books, ...

Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal get their own version of YouTube

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
In a significant development, Google announced yesterday that it has launched a localized version of its immensely popular video-sharing website YouTube in Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. With this launch, users in these countries will access country-specific homepages. Moreover the architecture of ...

Parliamentary Standing Committee on a New Online Hate Speech Provision

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
(My thanks to Mr. Apar Gupta for providing this lead through his Twitter feed.) Amidst the noise of the winter session of Parliament last month, a new proposal to regulate online communications was made. On December 7th, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs presented a status report ...
The Bar Council of India (“ BCI ”), in a press release on Saturday, has said that it will file an application in the Supreme Court seeking modification of the order which allowed fresh law graduates to become judicial officers. It said that the BCI and the State Bar Councils are “strongly in favour”...
Thirty years ago, nobody could have accurately predicted the job market of today. The intervening technological progress must be blamed or credited for it. However, we seem to be able today to satisfactorily predict the job market we will have thirty years hence – plenty of machines and Artificial I...
Writing a great legal article is truly amazing. Not only it will be published in a good, well-known website or blog, thereby increasing your brand value and visibility, but also be read by many people who are in need of that information. It may help litigants, researchers, other lawyers or a reporte...

CLAT and the Law of Cognitive Inertia

by JayP on in Career in Law
The distinguished Prof. Shamnad Basheer recently launched an online petition in the form of a poem to make a fervent appeal to the invisible CLAT powers to make the critical shift to a permanent, centralized CLAT body that will conduct the CLAT examination every year. However, every effort till now ...
CLAT 2015 will go down in the history of national competitive exams in India as the most ludicrous and incompetent examination that openly insulted the intelligence of thousands of candidates and played with their careers with an unbelievably sick mentality. The entire CLAT 2015 affair reflected an ...

Connecting Legal field to the fourth estate.

by Nikhil Nair on in Career in Law
Law and journalism are two fields which demand up-to-date knowledge in this proliferating world. Neither of them is stagnant and obsolete. As a first year law student,I used to think that legal profession only meant to argue in courts. It was later that it dawned upon me that legal field has no peri...

Why this Ko-Law-very ??

by Nitin Gaurav Srivastava on in Career in Law
Why This Ko-Law-Very ?? The moment you enter an elite Law school campus,you will be tired of answering this question to everyone, from your Orientation day to Farewell.One simple question -“Why law?” Few oversmart kids would try to impress the first class by saying “Because I couldn’t make it to IIT...
Introduction Law has been the most variegated stream ever since it was incorporated in the human society. When one thinks of a vocation in law the first image that strike its mind is a dexterous person, dressed in black and white, going through some gigantic books, running in and out the court, figh...

Photo by Gulshan Sachdeva, via here.

At the outskirts of the Metropolitan court, life is not so fair and lovely

by amrut patil on in Advocates, the bar & litigation
LIFE IS NOT SO FAIR AND LOVELY At the outskirts of the Metropolitan court, I begin my day with the sight of all street smart lawyers who are out for today’s hunt. The hunters instinct is still seen in them when their roving eyes are targeting their next catch cum client. Sipping the cutting chai and...
What happens when you spend 5 years of your law school having the time of your life. Like literally, time-of-your-life!!! [Time of your life- excludes any such activity that requires paying attention in classes, taking internships seriously, taking moots seriously and/or taking anyone/anything serio...

Unlike Katju, I think “lady lawyers” must be banned from the courts

by Kian Ganz on in Advocates, the bar & litigation
A lady (not a lawyer) Retired Justice Markandey Katju published a blog post today entitled “Lady Lawyers” . In typical Katju blogging fashion (whenever not causing a media storm about judicial corruption), it’s a trip down memory lane starting with his time as a lawyer in 1970 Allahabad. Katju is tr...

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What you can repair is what you own

by Abhay on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
Last year, European Union has ratified the ‘Right to Repair’ regulation. According to these regulations, the manufacturers of the household electronic appliances i.e. lighting, washing machines, dish washers, and refrigerators, will have to make it easier for the consumers to get them repaired. Thou...

[RTI] 23030 websites/URLs currently blocked in India

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | October 9, 2017 According to the Cyber Laws and E-Security Group under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Group (MeitY), as many as 23,030 websites /URLs are currently blocked in India. This information was received as a reply to a Right to Information application fil...

Digital Security Training in Kochi

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | October 4, 2017 We live in an era where human activity is producing unprecedented amounts of digital data. The popular saying these days is ‘data is the new oil’. The high value of this data along with the lack of awareness among people about rights has prompted corporations and gove...

Summary Report: Digital Citizen Summit, 2017 (September 21-22, 2017; New Delhi)

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | September 27, 2017 The second Digital Citizen Summit was organised on September 21-22, 2017 by Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. SFLC.in was an associate partner of the summit. The summit aimed at fin...

Notable technology and rights related litigations

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications

Notable technology and rights related litigations

SFLC
SFLC
Software Freedom Law Centre

Defender of your digital Freedom
Defender of your digital Freedom

You have the freedom to choose your color. Pick one:

First published here.

Author: sflc_admin

Workshop on Secure Communication

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | September 22, 2017 SFLC.in is organising a workshop on “Secure Communication ” in association with Sukhbir Singh, TOR Developer, on Saturday, September 23, 2017, from 11:00AM-:1:30 PM at the SFLC.in premises at K-9, Second Floor, Birbal Road, Jangpura Extension, New Delhi -110014 nea...

[RTI] Darjeeling Internet Ban: 3 months and counting

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | September 18, 2017 The ongoing Internet shutdown in Darjeeling, West Bengal completes 3 months today. This day, three months earlier, mobile Internet was shutdown in the city due to the ongoing agitation for a separate Gorkhaland. Two days later, on 20th June, the orders were extende...

CCG on the Privacy Judgment

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
Written by the Civil Liberties team at CCG A 9 judge bench of the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark judgment last week, which unanimously recognized the right to privacy as a fundamental right under the Constitution of India. The Court found the right to privacy to be a part of the freedoms g...

An update on Sabu Mathew George vs. Union of India

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
Today, the Supreme Court heard the ongoing matter of Sabu Mathew George vs. Union of India . In 2008, a petition was filed to ban advertisements endorsing sex-selective abortions from search engine results. Advertisements endorsing sex selective abortions are illegal under Section 22 of the PNDT Act...

Summary Report: Celebrating the Right to be Let Alone [Sep 02, 2017; New Delhi]

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | September 4, 2017 On Sep 2, 2017, SFLC.in organized a discussion titled “Celebrating the Right To Be Let Alone” to commemorate the recent recognition of right to privacy as a fundamental right, discuss the privacy judgment, its key takeaways, the impact it will have on pending Aadhaa...
The sub-committee of Insolvency Law Committee (ILC) of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India (MCA) in its report dated October 31, 2020 has proposed the framework for the pre-pack and prearranged insolvency resolution process which the Government may adopt with / without modificatio...
Analysis of the Condonation of Delay Scheme, 2018 of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs The Scheme is by way of a General Circular No.16/2017 dated 29 December 2017. It is in exercises of powers u/Ss. 403, 459 and 460 of the Companies Act, 2013. Who can avail the scheme? A company registered under th...
Diwali is one of the most anticipated and celebrated festivals in India. It is also a festival of giving gifts, which is often a challenge for compliance professionals who struggle with policies and nuances of law around this time, on giving gifts that might seem like bribes. Under the Prevention of...

It’s a Yes – for Banks!

by Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas on in Corporate law
The RBI has amended the Master Directions on Financial Services provided by Banks. This is a significant move permitting Banks to invest in Category II Alternative Investment Funds. As of June 30, 2017, Alternative Investment Funds ( AIFs ) had raised the cumulative figure of Rs. 48, 129 crores, aga...
Image credit: Scroll.in, September 26, 2017 Sociologists know that the formation and survival of civilization is conditional upon the universal adherence to a framework of acceptable norms and guidelines of human conduct and interaction. Moses therefore set out as God’s message, the directive to lov...
Financial investors in India are scared of regulatory uncertainties. Not that uncertainties are exclusive to our country but it’s a critical risk factor that is assessed by those making substantial investments. Historically, one of the most important regulatory concerns for such investors is related...
India has long recognised the right of foreign creditors to participate in the winding up of Indian companies. As early as 1961, the Supreme Court of India, in Rajah of Vizianagaram (AIR 1962 SC 500) , clarified that foreign creditors have the same right as Indian creditors in winding up proceedings...
Photo credit: Indian Express, August 23, 2017 Through its historic ruling delivered by a five-judge bench in the case of Shayara Bano and Ors v. Union of India on August 22nd 2017, the Supreme Court of India ( SC ) liberated Muslim women from the perpetual fear of arbitrary and whimsical divorce. Th...
The ability to attract large scale Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI ) into India has been a key driver for policy making by the Government. Prime Minister Modi seems to be going along the right track, with India receiving FDI inflows worth USD 60.1 billion in 2016-17, which was an all-time high. Henc...
On August 31st 2017, the Supreme Court of India in the case of Innoventive Industries Limited v. ICICI Bank Limited* delivered its first extensive ruling on the operation and functioning of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 ( Insolvency Code ). The Court said that it is pronouncing its detail...