I am interested in the distance between what a law says and what actually happens to the person it was written for. India is not short of rules. It is short of consequences when the rules are ignored, and those are two different problems with two different answers.
So these essays begin as questions rather than summaries. What does the provision actually say, as against what everyone repeats it says? Who was under a duty to act, and what follows for them if they did not? Is the judgment everybody cites for this still good law? The subjects vary, from maintenance and guardianship to the regulation of the profession, artificial intelligence and the condition of a road. The question underneath them rarely does. Who is answerable, and through what procedure?
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole France, The Red Lily, 1894
Essays on law and its limits
Women’s rights
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Nirbhaya Changed the Law. It Did Not Change the Bus.
After 2012 India wrote one of the most severe sexual offence codes in the world, and also a rule requiring a panic button in every public service vehicle. In May the Supreme Court found fewer than one per cent comply.
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Maintenance Arrears Are Not Time-Barred After One Year
Maintenance arrears are routinely refused as time-barred after a year. The Supreme Court settled that they are not in 2005, again in 2013, and again in 2020.
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Mental Cruelty Is Recognised in Law but Almost Impossible to Prove
Indian law has recognised mental cruelty since 1988. What it has never solved is how to prove it, and by the time the criminal law is engaged, the only witness is usually dead.
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Why Mothers Are Still Not Equal Guardians Under Hindu Law
Githa Hariharan is remembered as the case that made mothers guardians. It answered a narrower question, and the hierarchy it was asked to dismantle is still in the statute book.
Child rights
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Why a Child’s Custody Hearing Should Be on the Record
A child’s custody can turn on a report she is never shown and a conversation no one records. The right to be heard is empty if being heard leaves no trace.
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Indian Law Sets No Age for Hearing a Child in Custody Cases
Indian law fixes an age whenever it needs to bind an institution. It fixes none when the question is whether to listen to the child.
The legal profession
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How to Read a Judgment
Reading a judgment is extraction, not reading. The anatomy of an Indian judgment, how to read it out of order, and what the Indian courts have said about finding the ratio.
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NLSIU Should Not Have Cancelled Its Convocation
Students objected to two guests. The university cancelled the ceremony for everyone, and called the reason unavoidable. Neither part of that is right.
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What a Neutral Citation Is, and Why It Should Come First
One judgment can carry five different citations. Only one of them was given to the case by the court that decided it. What the Supreme Court actually prescribed, and why it belongs first.
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The Bar Council Had No Power to Bar the NALSAR Batch From Enrolment
The Bar Council barred an entire graduating batch from enrolment for objecting to a judge. Its own rules protect an advocate who does exactly that.
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How to Do Legal Research in India
From the moment a matter walks in to the note you actually write: fixing the facts, finding the statute, searching for authority, reading a judgment properly, and checking it is still good law.
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Why Indian Advocates Cite Cases They Have Not Read
The Supreme Court has called fake AI citations misconduct. It has been complaining that counsel cite judgments they have not read since 1967.
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Why You Cannot Study Law Part-Time in India
There is no upper age limit on studying law in India. There is a rule that the degree must be taken full-time, which closes the profession to anyone who has to earn while they learn.
Cyber law
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Who Owns the Copyright in AI-Generated Work in India
A book or a painting made by a machine, with no real human contribution, is an original work under Indian law. The Copyright Act then has nobody to give it to.
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Who Is Responsible When AI Gives Wrong Information
When an AI invents a case and an advocate cites it, India now has an answer about who is responsible. It runs in one direction only.
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Why a Social Media Ban for Children Would Fail the Constitution
Karnataka has proposed one and a bill would go national, but a blanket ban could not lawfully stand. A consent-and-design regime is the less restrictive tool the Constitution prefers.
Constitutional law
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Nine Judges Have Been Asked to Abolish Public Interest Litigation. History Says Otherwise.
Public interest litigation gave India most of what Article 21 now means. A nine-judge bench is being asked to abolish it, and costs of twenty lakh rupees are doing the work in the meantime.
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The Right to Safe Roads, and What a Pothole Death Is Worth
A pothole death is now worth six lakh rupees in Maharashtra, because a court treated it as a breach of Article 21. Where that right comes from, and why almost nobody can enforce it.
International & other
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The UN Veto Cannot Be Abolished Without the Veto Powers’ Consent
The five permanent members hold a veto over resolutions, and, through Article 108, a veto over abolishing the veto itself.