0 The Indian Constitution: A Short Introduction

A short book of mine, The Indian Constitution (Oxford India Short Introductions), will be published by Oxford University Press towards the end of this month, and is now available for pre-order on flipkart. The books aim to introduce the Indian Constitution and ask questions about some of the most important debates that surround Indian constitutionalism. The following are details from the jacket cover: Giving identity to over a billion people, the Indian Constitution is one of the world's great political texts. Drafted over six decades ago, its endurance and operation have fascinated and surprised many. In this short introduction, Madhav...

1 Legal Education: Protesting the BCI's Consultative Deficit

Mainstream media has been abuzz with news of a paralytic strike by the Bar Council of India (BCI), protesting against the divestiture of their control over legal education via the proposed Higher Education and Research (HER) bill. The strike has had its fair share of critics, including a contempt petition as also a letter to the Supreme Court of India.  Without going into the merits or otherwise of the HER bill, it is clear that the BCI has never consulted meaningfully with legal academics, despite a statutory mandate to do so under the Advocates Act. In an Indian Express editorial, I'd argued as below:"Some say that law is an instrument...

0 Information Technology Act, Mandatory Disclosure, and Self Incrimination

Abhinav’s post on the scope of protection under Article 20(3) provides an extremely interesting insight into the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. Here, I adopt those legal standards (which some clarifications) to test the validity of Section 69(2)-(3) of the IT Act – which mandates the disclosure of encrypted information by a ‘subscriber’ on the direction of the Controller. Under the IT Act, a subscriber must extend all facilities and technical assistance to decrypt the information. A ‘subscriber’ is defined under Sec. 2(zg) as a person in whose name the Digital Signature Certificate is issued. In default, a subscriber shall be punished with...

0 NLSIR: Call for Papers

(The following announcement is being posted on behalf of the National Law School of India Review) The National Law School of India Review is now accepting submissions for its upcoming issue - Volume 25(1). The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) is the flagship law journal of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India. The NLSIR is a bi-annual, student edited, peer-reviewed law journal providing incisive legal scholarship on issues that are at the forefront of contemporary legal discourse. Over the last 20 years, the NLSIR has regularly featured articles authored by judges of the Indian Supreme Court,...

0 India's Higher Judiciary: A Male Bastion

In many ways it is not important to discuss who was appointed as the new President of the UK Supreme Court today. It is certainly more important to discuss who wasn't. The fact that Baroness Hale was one of the three shortlisted candidates but yet was not chosen as President will bring back into sharp focus the massive gender gap in judicial appointments in the UK. Baroness Hale was the only woman ever to be appointed as a Law Lord to the House of Lords and remains the only woman judge on the UK Supreme Court in its short history. An outspoken supporter of gender diversity in the judiciary, Baroness Hale has emphasised the role of gender in...

0 Encryption and Self-Incrimination

Encryption of data is a means to secure and sensitive private data and prevent third parties from obtaining that information. It is a part of our everyday life, and we come across encryption each time we conduct an online transaction through our credit/debit cards, or install a new software on our computer by inserting the product key. The easy availability of such software however makes it easy to be used for a number of nefarious purposes, with "criminals including drug traffickers, pedophiles and terrorists [turning] to encryption to conceal their activities". To drive home the point of the security issue, you can see a slightly old but very...

0 A Dangerous Precedent for the ‘Right to Information’ in India

In a grave setback for the ‘Right to Information’ movement, the Delhi High Court in the case of Registrar of Companies v. Dharmendra Kumar has ruled that the Right to Information Act, 2005 will not apply to those documents which can be accessed under existing legislation and rules. In this particular case the documents which were requested by the RTI applicant could also be accessed by the applicant under Section 610 of the Companies Act. There are several Indian laws which have provisions similar to Section 610 i.e. a certain class of records held by the RoC are required to be open to general public inspection. The difference however...

0 Campaign for commutation

The stage is set for a major campaign in favour of commutation of death sentences awarded to 12 convicts, with Justice Prabha Sridevan's excellent piece in The Hindu today highlighting the case of the 13 convicts, who suffered capital punishment because of erroneous Supreme Court judgments. Of the 13, President Pratibha Patil has already commuted the sentence of one convict, Bantu in June this year. She is yet to decide the mercy petition of another convict, Saibanna, although she has received the advice from the Ministry of Home Affairs. With her term as President ending on July 25, it is likely that she may defer from taking any more decision...

0 Remembering Justice Khanna

This month will mark the birth centenary of Justice Hans Raj Khanna, one of the most important judges to have served on the Supreme Court of India. In a short piece in the current issue of Caravan, I reflect upon Khanna's legacy and judicial philosop...

0 Chief Justice Roberts Exercises the Swing Vote as the US Supreme Court Upholds the 'Individual Mandate' in Obama's Health Care Law

The US Supreme Court handed down its decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius yesterday and upheld the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act. In this post, my attempt is to provide a clear and simple analysis of the issues involved and the opinions expressed in the case. It would be stating the obvious to say that today's decision had tremendous institutional and political significance. The extent of its importance may be understood from the fact that the court, in a rare departure from the usual one hour of oral arguments, allocated six hours to hear arguments concerning the constitutionality...

0 We the People

As we know, not a great deal has been written on the founding of India's Constitution. Kalyani Ramnath, who teaches legal history at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, has a new article on the Constituent Assembly Debates in South Asia Research. I haven't had an occasion to read the piece, though it looks very interesting. The abstract is as follows: ‘We The People’: Seamless Webs and Social Revolution in India’s Constituent Assembly Debates Although the Preamble of the Constitution proclaims that ‘We the People’ have solemnly adopted and enacted it, there is almost no further mention of ‘the people’ in the constitutional...

0 The Legal Context to the Supreme Court of Pakistan's Disqualification of Prime Minister Gilani

(I must thank Professor Ali Qazilbash at the Department of Law and Policy, Lahore University of Management Sciences for answering some of my basic questions concerning this controversy and constitutional law in Pakistan. Any inaccuracies, however, are my own responsibility.) To better understand the order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan disqualifying Prime Minister Gilani, it might be useful to get a grip on the legal context in which this order was handed down. My apologies for making this largely a descriptive post but I think it might help readers better understand the complexities involved and avoid a narrow and superficial analysis like...

0 Minority Quotas: Failed Lessons

Lessons on how not to pitch for a Quota  Reservation on the basis of religion has always raised serious constitutional concerns and recent ruling of the Andhra Pradesh High Court (which the Supreme Court refused to stay) declaring the sub-quota for minorities as unconstitutional only illustrates this constitutional tension. This is not the first time that the Andhra Pradesh High Court has declared reservations for religious minorities as constitutionally invalid. In 2005, a five-judge-bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down the Government Order giving the reservation of 5% to Muslims on the ground that it was given without...

0 Opportunity for Lawyers Interested in Financial Policy

The Macro/Finance Group at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy has work opportunities for lawyers on interesting and important policy work connected with India's economic reform.  One of the important projects being undertaken, at present, is research support for the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC), which involves rewriting financial sector law for India. Ajay Shah has this post on his blog with more details on these opportunities.  If this interests you, please contact Anurodh Sharma (anurodh54 at gmail.com) with your resume by 22 June 2012, where you clearly identify where your interests...

0 Courting Legal Talent: Announcing Litigation Fellowship

In a rather provocative post around two years ago, I bemoaned the fact that a disproportionately large number of National Law University (NLU) graduates opt for "corporate" careers (defined largely as jobs involving a significant dose of corporate transactional lawyering in some form, either in law firms, companies (in house) or even in LPO's). And that very few think laterally outside of this "corporate" career box, despite the fact that a law degree (and one from an alleged "island of excellence") is pliable in so many different and diverse career directions. I'm currently co-authoring a paper that touches on this theme; the statistics...