Law & Justice

SC: Article 142, Mass Amnesties, and the Panchayatisation of the Rule of Law

Within a month of youth-led protests in Delhi and at least half a dozen other locations, the Supreme Court’s September 1 Order invoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 to quash criminal cases registered across at least five states. This examines the limitations of this ad hoc jurisprudence, arguing that while protection from abusive state prosecution is welcome, linking it to the cancellation of the September 5 march sets a troubling precedent. Constitutional scrutiny demanded a rigorous examination of alleged executive and police overreach, including blanket prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS and the shutdown of metro stations and internet services. Instead, the alleged excesses of Delhi and other police forces remain unadjudicated.

Six Days Behind Bars After Bail: Patna High Court orders ₹2 lakh relief, flags state-wide pattern of illegal detention

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Washed Away by Floods, Targeted by the State: Hamela Khatun’s fight for citizenship

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‘They Have a Right to Be Heard’: Supreme Court suggests Union brings back alleged deportees from Bangladesh “at least as a temporary measure”

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A New Silence: The Supreme Court’s turn toward non-interference in hate-speech cases

The Court’s refusal to monitor rising hate-speech incidents marks a decisive shift from its earlier activist stance, exposing contradictions between judicial pronouncements, institutional capacity, and the lived realities of targeted communities

A Terror Case Without Evidence: Allahabad High Court’s ‘heavy heart’ acquittal After 28 Years

A devastating judicial analysis reveals how a mass-casualty blast, a collapsed investigation, and an inadmissible police confession led to the undoing of a decades-old conviction

Clarity Without Cure: The Supreme Court’s reinterpretation of Articles 200 and 201 and the future of federal governance

The opinion restores textual fidelity to Article 200, but its institutional hesitations risk enabling executive obstruction of democratically enacted State legislation

Beyond mere Recognition: The Jane Kaushik judgment and the next frontier of transgender equality

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged the dignity and rights of employment of transgender individuals, ordered monetary compensation for a transwoman teacher who had been terminated from her position, and ordered that a model Equal Opportunity Policy be made mandatory in all institutions, going further than the Constitution's promise of equality in private employment

Judicial Pushback against Cow Vigilantism: Allahabad HC flags arbitrary FIRs, demands accountability from top officials

The Court exposes the way a regulatory law has become a system of targeted persecution of minorities through arbitrary FIRs under the 1955 law while ignoring the Supreme Court’s binding directives to prohibit group violence

Due Process Strengthened: Supreme Court mandates written, language-specific grounds for arrest under special laws and general laws

Building on Pankaj Bansal and Prabir Purkayastha judgements, the Court constitutionalised a uniform standard—every arrest, whether under IPC/BNS or special enactments, must be supported by written grounds communicated in the arrestee’s own language, failing which the arrest stands void

Screens of Silence: What NCRB Data Misses about Cybercrime in India

As India’s online world expands, so does the gap between crime and accountability. NCRB data records numbers, but not the reasons behind their soaring increase; besides erasure of reporting of gendered cybercrimes constitute a glaring gap: there is an absence of adequate reportage within NCRB on stalking, cyberbullying, morphing, which are show a mere 5 per cent of rise

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SC: Article 142, Mass Amnesties, and the Panchayatisation of the Rule of Law

Within a month of youth-led protests in Delhi and at least half a dozen other locations, the Supreme Court’s September 1 Order invoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 to quash criminal cases registered across at least five states. This examines the limitations of this ad hoc jurisprudence, arguing that while protection from abusive state prosecution is welcome, linking it to the cancellation of the September 5 march sets a troubling precedent. Constitutional scrutiny demanded a rigorous examination of alleged executive and police overreach, including blanket prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS and the shutdown of metro stations and internet services. Instead, the alleged excesses of Delhi and other police forces remain unadjudicated.

Need for Clarity on the SIR: An Open Letter to the Congress Leaders of Karnataka

While the national leadership of the party, leads and articulates the national campaign for the scrapping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, the state leadership of Karnataka, a state governed by the party, gives conflicting statements almost endorsing a process that has disenfranchised close to 10 million there

From Arunachal to Delhi, anti-dam protesters face state crackdown; detained allege sexual assault

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Beyond Appropriation: Vidya Bhushan Rawat’s recovery of Bose’s inclusive nationalism

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After 22 years under suspicion, Assam’s Kashem Ali declared Indian by Foreigners Tribunal

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From treating Adivasi communities to being branded an instigator: Odisha jails doctor Randall Sequeira

Arrested in a case in which his name did not figure in the original FIR, Dr Randall Sequeira faces serious criminal charges amid an intensifying crackdown on Adivasi communities resisting bauxite mining in Odisha