~By Paras Khetan The right to counsel of an accused has been constitutionally guaranteed under Article 22 of the Constitution of India. This right is available to the accused during the trial. However, the question arises whether the same is available to the accused at the time of police interrogation. There is ambiguity with regards to the … Continue reading Right to Counsel During Police Interrogation: An Analysis
-By Kashish Khandelwal In Riley v California, while holding that an accused cannot be forced by the police to reveal their password, the US Supreme Court observed that owing to the rapid development of technology, the majority of the people “typically carry a cache of sensitive personal information” in their pockets. However, this has also … Continue reading Virendra Khanna v State of Karnataka –Passwords and the Dilution of the Right Against Self-Incrimination
-By Abhijeet Shrivastava Background This post concerns Bechu Kurian Thomas, J.’s recent judgment as a part of the Kerala High Court’s (“HC”) Single Bench in District Collector v. District Legal Service Authority (22.12.2020). The decision involved a temporal question over the scope of the provisions of Section 357A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 … Continue reading ‘Retrospective’ Victim Compensation? Evaluating The Kerala HC’s Dworkinian Judging
-By Abhinav Sekhri Munawar Faruqui might have been about to crack a joke, but he was arrested by Madhya Pradesh police before he could do that. A case was registered against him which invoked offences such as Section 295-A IPC that are cognizable and non-bailable (more on that later). One court has dismissed his bail as well … Continue reading Munawar Faruqui is not an Exception: Systemic Malaise in Bail Hearings
-By Khushi Agrawal INTRODUCTION With the incidents of domestic violence increasing by manifolds during COVID-19 times, it becomes pertinent to throw light on a 2017-judgement which reduced the importance of section 498-A IPC to a major extent. Section 498-A provides that if any person being the husband or the relative of the husband of a … Continue reading Rajesh Sharma And Ors. v. State of UP – Wrongly Feeds into the Narrative of 498A being Misused?
-By Esha Goyal Section 32(1) of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 allows for a dying declaration in the form of a statement regarding the cause of the declarant’s death to be made a relevant fact. The criminal rules of practice of each State in India require the declarant to be in a ‘fit state of … Continue reading ‘Fit State Of Mind’: An Argument for a more Objective Test for Recording Dying Declarations
by Prannv Dhawan & Ishwar Singh The Supreme Court’s recent judgment in Hitesh Verma v. State of Uttarakhand [decided on 05.11.2020] reversed an order of the Uttarakhand High Court and quashed the case with respect to allegations under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 (‘the Act’). The Court held that insulting or intimidating a person belonging … Continue reading End of Justice? The Supreme Court’s Order in Hitesh Verma v State of Uttarakhand
-By Sudev Singh This is the second part of a two-part series. In the first part the author throws light on the case of Yashwant Sinha v. Central Bureau of Investigation, more popularly referred to as the Rafale case. An attempt has been made to highlight the importance of this case in the context of … Continue reading Privileged Evidence under S.123, Yashwant Sinha v. CBI and Beyond?-Part II
-By Sudev Singh Introduction - Background of the Controversy Yashwant Sinha v. Central Bureau of Investigation, more popularly referred to as the Rafale case involved a bundle of petitions, pertaining to the purchase of Rafale Fighter aircrafts by the Indian Government from France. Opposition parties and leaders alleged that the deal entered into by the … Continue reading Privileged Evidence under S.123, Yashwant Sinha v. CBI and Beyond?-Part I
By Abhinav Sekhri On July 10, the Delhi High Court delivered its judgment and final order in a petition filed by Sharjeel Imam [Crl. M.C. 1475/2020] challenging the order passed under Section 43-D(2) of the UAPA, by which the police have been granted additional time to complete the investigation in a case filed against him. The extension … Continue reading Snippet: The Delhi High Court Order In Sharjeel Imam’s Case
By Mayank Udhwani and Ragini Agarwal An investigation into whether the highly acclaimed crime thriller had an element of truth on the basis of real cases from Indian Courts. [SPOILER ALERT] When Pataal Lok released on Amazon Prime, it received raging reviews for its fast-paced, engrossing narrative and stellar acting performances. The crime-thriller also irked … Continue reading Paatal Lok: Fact or Fiction?
By Abhinav Sekhri “81. As mentioned in para 37 of this judgment, while addressing his arguments on the ideology nourished and nurtured by the detenue, the learned Advocate General submitted that such ideology cannot be confined or limited to time to qualify it to be called stale or fresh or proximate, unless, of course, the person … Continue reading Preventive Detention and the Dangers of Volcanic, Ever-Proximate, Ideologies
By Neelabh Niket On 2nd March 2020, the Constitutional Court of Colombia with a 6-3 motion refused to change the status quo of the restrictive abortion laws in the country which allowed the practice of abortion only on selected grounds. While doing so, the Apex Court missed a golden opportunity in heralding a transformative trend … Continue reading Columbia Constitutional Court’s Judgment on Abortion: A Missed Opportunity
By Bodhisattwa Majumder and Ritika Acharya A pandemic does not discriminate on the basis of class, community or character and strikes every section of the society equally. However, the precautions one can take against the virus are highly prejudiced and biased based on an individual’s financial, social and geographical position in the society. While society … Continue reading COVID-19 – XVI: Monitoring the Prisoners Beyond the Prisons: GPS Tracking for Interim Bails/Paroles
By Alivya Sahay and Raj Krishna INTRODUCTION On 23rd January 2020, the International Court of Justice in a landmark ruling has directed the state of Myanmar to cease all atrocities and human rights violations against the Rohingya Muslims. It is interesting to note that for the very first time the ICJ has heard a genocide … Continue reading Gambia v. Myanmar: Critical Analysis of the ICJ Ruling on Rohingyas
By Abhinav Sekhri On April 22, 2020, a Three Justices' Bench of the Supreme Court decided a reference made to it in Hira Singh [Crl. Appeal No. 722 of 2017, decided on 22.04.2020]. The primary issue before the Court was the correctness an earlier decision by a Two Justices' Bench of the Supreme Court, E. Micheal Raj v. Intelligence Officer [(2008) … Continue reading There are No Right Answers: The Supreme Court and the Purity / Mixture Debate under the NDPS Act
By Harpreet Singh Gupta Recently, while hearing a revision petition, the Jharkhand High Court enlarged the accused on bail who was sentenced for one year for obstructing running of trains, etc. under Section 174(a) of the Railways Act. The conditions that the court put were rather interesting. The accused were directed to: (a) deposit Rs. … Continue reading COVID-19 – X: Jharkhand High Court’s Recent Bail Conditions: Improper exercise of Judicial Discretion?
By Kartik Agarwal India went into a state of despair on December 16th, 2012 when a 23-year-old girl was raped by six men in a moving bus in Delhi. Five of them were sentenced to death in 2013 by the Fast track court and one was sent to the juvenile justice board. The death penalty … Continue reading Are Rights of Victim Subservient to the Rights of Convicts: An Analysis in Light of the Nirbhaya Case
By Raj Krishna and Rishika Introduction Human dignity is harmed when minority groups are marginalized. – Judge Michael Leburu On 30th March 2020, the High Court of Singapore, in Ong Ming Johnson v Attorney-General and other matters, upheld the colonial-era law that criminalized homosexuality between two consenting adults. The Court held that Section 377A of … Continue reading Singapore High Court’s Judgment on Homosexuality: A Critique
By Jagriti Pandey and Deeptangshu Kar On 11th February 2020 in Praveen Kumar Chaudhary & Ors. v Election Commissioner of India and Ors., the Delhi High Court re-affirmed the constitutionality of Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 that deprives prisoners of their right to cast vote in elections. The Section … Continue reading A Critique of Section 62 (5) of Representation of the People Act, 1951
By Raj Krishna and Jagriti Pandey INTRODUCTION “Rape is a very serious offence, constituting as it does a humiliating, degrading and brutal invasion of the privacy, the dignity and the person of the victim. The rights to dignity, to privacy, and the integrity of every person are basic to the ethos of the Constitution and … Continue reading South African Constitutional Court Affirms Doctrine of Common Purpose in Rape Cases
By Abhinav Sekhri Basit, Talib, and Amir are three students of the prestigious KLE college in Karnataka. They are all in their early 20s and received scholarships to pursue their college education. They also happen to be Muslim, and hail from the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. These students made a short video … Continue reading Descending into the Abyss: The Denial of Bail in the KLE Students Case.
By Gopal Gour Introduction The criminal justice system works in a set of the hierarchy of institutions which make the process of justice-seeking smoother. It starts with the police and finally leads up to the court which imparts justice. For the sake of impartial and efficient working of the criminal justice system, the courts have … Continue reading Cognizance of the Case after Committal: An Analysis of the Dharam Pal Judgment
By Aastha Agarwalla and Daksh Aggarwal Prefatory The principal aim of the administrative and judicial processes is to provide a mechanism to protect the interests, physical and psychological well-being and dignity of the victims of serious crimes. One of the prerequisites to achieve the same is to enable the sufferer to be defended and represented … Continue reading Rekha Murarka v. State of West Bengal: Arbitrarily Undermining the Victim’s Rights
By Priyadarshee Mukhopadhyay INTRODUCTION “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” - George Orwell. Over the last five years, India has been thunderstruck by a growing number of informal public executions or extrajudicial killings commonly recognized under the term “Mob Lynching”. However, … Continue reading The Epidemic of Mob Lynching in India: Analysing Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India
By Abhinav Sekhri A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court decided a reference made in Sushila Aggarwal & Ors. v. State (NCT of Delhi) & Anr. [SLP (Crl.) 7281-82/2017, decided on 29.01.2020], where two questions had been posed for consideration: (1) Whether the protection granted to a person under Section 438 Cr.P.C. should be limited to a fixed period … Continue reading The Constitution Bench Reference in Sushila Aggarwal v. State
By Ishan Kumar Introduction “I know that it's hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. ― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race On 17th December 2019, the Sri Lanka Supreme Court in the case of Rathnayeke Tharanga … Continue reading Custodial Death Verdict by Sri Lankan Supreme Court: Justice at Last
By Raj Krishna and Alivya Sahay Introduction “Gender identity refers to each person's deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body which may involve a freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or functions by medical, surgical … Continue reading Nathanson v. Mteliso & Ors.: Zimbabwe High Court Affirms Human Rights of Transgenders
