Sedition or rather disputes surrounding sedition are the flavor of the season. Both in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Hyderabad Central University (HCU) conversations around nation, nationalism, freedom, democracy and dissent have been doing the rounds.
There have been demands to...
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Experts & Views
Constitutional Law
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Previously on this blog, we have discussed how Article 15(2) of the Constitution, which guarantees non-discriminatory access to shops, public restaurants, hotels etc., has been read expansively by the Supreme Court to cover the domain of economic transactions more generally,...
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Previously on this blog, we have discussed the judgment of the Supreme Court in Venkataramana Devaru (constitutional validity of temple-entry legislation), and the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Sinha in Sardar Saifuddin (constitutional validity of prohibiting excommunication). What unites these two opinions is not...
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“[W]hen you are a judge … it’s important to be able to imagine what other people’s lives might be like, lives that your decisions will affect. People who are not only different from you, but also very different from each other....
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In response to the bail order granting bail to JNU Student Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, Indira Jaising reminds us that there can be no anticipatory restraint on free speech
Dear Judges,
The time has come for us to remind ourselves what nationalism is, and...
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(In this guest post, Tejas Popat analyses the recent Supreme Court decision on the suspension of Tamil Nadu assembly lawmakers (discussed in the previous post), from the perspective of the freedom of occupation)—Justice Chelameswar authored the judgment in the case of Alagaapuram...
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(In this Guest Post, Rahul Bajaj, a fourth-year law student at the University of Nagpur, examines a recent Supreme Court judgment – Algaapural R. Mohanraj v TN Legislative Assembly – on parliamentary privileges and constitutional freedoms. This is the first of two guest posts...
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(In this second and concluding post, Abhinav Sekhri, a Delhi-based criminal lawyer, discusses the application of Article 20(3) to persons “accused of an offence”)—RecapPreviously, we talked about how the words ‘person accused of an offence’ present in Article 20(3) of the Constitution...
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(In a two-part series, Abhinav Sekhri, a criminal lawyer, explores some of the problematic issues with the operation of the constitutional right against self-incrimination)—Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India is extremely fascinating. Tersely worded, it can be quoted in full:...
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Schooled In Socialism Featured
2016 is not 1947, here's how we must redraft educational policy
Of late, we have had a lot of legislative and stakeholder activism in the K-12 and higher education space in India. States like Tamil Nadu, Rajashthan & Maharashtra has seen...
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‘Mother tongue’ education is great on paper but highly impracticable in practice.
21-Feb is celebrated as ‘Mother Tongue’ day around the world. Advocate K.V.Dhananjay speaks here about ‘Mother Tongue’ desired as a compulsory medium of instruction by scholars and politicians vis-à-vis...
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In light of the apparent misuse of the law of sedition by the Delhi Police in the JNU slogan shouting incidents, a closer look at the essential ingredients of the crime of sedition under Section 124A of the Indian...
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(In this guest post, Aratrika Choudhuri, a student at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, discusses the recent discussion of the Pakistani Supreme Court on the basic structure doctrine)—The Supreme Court of Pakistan (“SCP”), by an overwhelming majority of...
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The Narendra Modi led Government has used the Delhi Police to slap the very serious charge of sedition against JNU students who allegedly shouted objectionable slogans in a peaceful gathering and did nothing else.
The law on sedition is being routinely...
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Yesterday, the Telecom and Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released the Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services Regulations, 2016. These regulations prohibit Telecom Service Providers from charging different tariffs from consumers for accessing different services online. A lot of...
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The Indian Constitution’s religious freedom clauses (Articles 25 and 26) constitute an extremely complex web of relationships between individual, community and State. To navigate this web, the Courts have developed two broad doctrinal tools: a distinction between the religious...
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January 26, 2016 · 12:25 pm
The Centre for Law and Policy Research has developed a website for searching the Constituent Assembly Debates. So far, researchers have been using Vivek Srinivasan’s fantastic search engine for our research, which has been...
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Priya Ravinchandran has started a new blog called Women Architects of the Indian Republic, which aims to document the contributions of women members of the Indian Constituent Assembly, to the Debates and the Framing. It promises to be a fascinating enterprise. First...
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(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...
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(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...
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