Volume 9, Issue III / 2026

This article examines the governance of artificial intelligence (AI) risks through the lens of Lorenz von Stein’s theory of the state (Staatswissenschaft), situating contemporary AI regulation within the conceptual framework of the administrative state. Stein conceptualized the state not as a passive guardian of formal legality, but as an active and mediating institution tasked with reconciling social contradictions and fostering the integrated development of society. His theory of the social state (Sozialstaat) provides a normative and institutional foundation for understanding the role of the modern administrative state in responding to the systemic risks generated by emerging technologies. In the age of rapid AI development, administrative states confront multiple and interrelated challenges: technological opacity and complexity, concentration of economic and informational power, structural asymmetries between public and private actors, algorithmic discrimination, and the amplification of social inequality. Traditional liberal regulatory paradigms—centered on ex post liability and market self-correction—are increasingly inadequate to address these anticipatory and systemic risks. Drawing on Stein’s insight that the state bears responsibility for harmonizing social development and preventing destabilizing inequality, this article argues that AI governance requires a proactive and integrative regulatory approach. Building upon Stein’s conception of the social state, the article advances three normative propositions. First, the administrative state should adopt preventive and anticipatory regulatory frameworks, including risk-based supervision, adaptive oversight mechanisms, and institutionalized impact assessment. Second, AI governance must incorporate mechanisms that promote technological democratization, ensuring meaningful public participation, transparency, and accountability in algorithmic decision-making. Third, the state must safeguard substantive social justice by addressing distributive and structural inequalities exacerbated by AI systems, particularly in areas such as labor markets, social welfare administration, and access to public services. The analysis further contends that effective AI risk governance requires balancing technocratic expertise with democratic legitimacy. While AI regulation demands high levels of technical specialization within administrative agencies, such expertise must be embedded within constitutional and participatory structures to prevent unchecked bureaucratic expansion or regulatory capture. Cross-sector collaboration, inter-agency coordination, and public–private partnerships are thus not merely managerial tools but institutional expressions of Stein’s vision of the state as a mediator between social forces. Ultimately, this article argues that AI risk governance should be understood as a contemporary manifestation of the social state’s responsibility to guide societal transformation while preserving cohesion and justice. By reinterpreting Stein’s state theory in the context of the administrative state, this study offers a normative framework for constructing adaptive, socially responsive, and democratically grounded AI governance regimes.

Vietnam’s pilot crypto-asset market marks a significant shift from regulatory hesitation to controlled legal visibility. Yet this shift raises a question that is often left behind in debates on digital assets. Once crypto-asset activities are brought into a supervised perimeter, retail investors may assume that the market has become safer, although the protective duties behind that perimeter remain incomplete and untested. This article examines investor protection in Vietnam’s pilot crypto-asset market through the relationship between recognition, vulnerability and remedies. It argues that retail investors should not be shielded from ordinary market volatility, but they should be protected where market risk is intensified by information asymmetry, digital persuasion, platform dependency and the practical absence of remedy. The article develops this argument through three connected mechanisms. Disclosure must become intelligible and usable rather than merely formal. Platform duties must address custody, segregation of client assets, operational resilience and conflicts of interest. Remedies must provide investors with a practical path to complain, preserve evidence, obtain explanations and seek compensation when legal duties fail. The article contributes to the emerging debate on crypto-asset regulation in Vietnam by shifting attention from legal recognition to post-recognition investor protection.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 was enacted as a special child-protection statute to address sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography involving persons below eighteen years. Its protective design, however, has generated a difficult legal problem in cases involving consensual teenage relationships, elopement, near-major adolescents, pregnancy, marriage and family opposition. Since the Act treats all persons below eighteen as legally incapable of consenting, the same statutory framework applies to predatory sexual abuse and to factually consensual adolescent relationships. This paper argues that the central defect is not the protective object of POCSO, but its inability to distinguish exploitation from near-age adolescent intimacy. However there are disagreement like the present law denies adolescent agency, and protection-based concerns, which warn that lowering the age of consent may expose children to grooming and abuse. The Law Commission of India recognised this tension in Report No. 283 but stopped short of recommending a reduction in the age of consent and instead it suggested guided judicial discretion in sentencing for cases involving de facto approval among adolescents aged sixteen to eighteen. This paper examines statutory provisions, judicial trends on bail, quashing and acquittal, limits of judicial leniency, and evidentiary difficulties relating to age and elopement. It concludes that India needs a narrow Romeo–Juliet clause, not a general dilution of POCSO, to prevent over-criminalisation while retaining strong protection against coercion, grooming, abuse of authority, trafficking, pornography and exploitation.

The legal Aid Defence Counsel System is a mechanism by virtue of which eligible accused within the scope of Section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 can resort to the qualitative defence mechanism established under the law. A fulcrum of rights of accused gets propelled when he/she is aware of his/her fundamental rights, especially the one enshrined under Article 21 of the mother law i.e., the Constitutional Law of India. The Constitution of India abrogated the draconian doctrine of ex post facto entanglement of accused in the law . But then situation may emerge regarding fairness in the trial. The trial is considered to be fair and fruitful only when the defence, as required by the manifestation of legal philosophy of ‘fair trial’ under Article 21 of the Constitution, is practically set up by accused. Accused must be given fullest opportunity of structuring his defence at the behest of defence counsel. The opportunity shall be practically be provided in every legally possible way. If the philosophy of fair trial is not assured in all practical sense, the trial gets stuck in a quagmire of unfairness. Therefore, in order to assure robust defence for the accused who are impecunious, indigent in their status, deprived of rights, eligible and fit person for the legal aid, the National Legal Services Authority, New Delhi (NALSA) has devised a Scheme called as Legal Aid Defence Counsel Scheme 2022 (For Short LADCs). Every District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) is conferred with effective monitoring of the mechanism of LADCs. The DLSA has every authority to undertake educational programmes and effective refresher courses for LADCs so that, the system works vibrantly. Thus, in propinquity with the above guidelines, it is desirable to have a compendium of cases of law so that, there would be a scope for knowledge sharing. Resultantly, the object of refresher training and knowledge sharing would be served in real and pragmatic sense.

The textile and apparel industry occupies a strategic position in India’s manufacturing sector due to its extensive value chain, high labour intensity, and high export share. The disorganised structure, coexistence of organised and unorganised regional agglomerations, and changing fibre content make the sector complex, even as it is important. The present study undertakes a descriptive sectoral analysis to examine the structure and composition of India’s textile and apparel industry and assess the recent trends in production, employment, and exports. The study is based mainly on secondary data sourced from official publications issued by the Ministry of Textiles, Press Information Bureau, and various other government reports. A descriptive-analytical approach is adopted to synthesise sectoral information on value-chain structure, fibre-wise composition, the organised–unorganised dualism, regional distribution, and recent performance trends. The results indicate that the textile industry in India maintains a broad fibre-to-fashion value chain that remains labour-intensive, with the unorganised sector equally important for employment creation. Though cotton-based textiles remain important, there is a trend towards man-made fibres, in line with changing demands from global markets. The exports indicate relative stability and selective growth, particularly in garments, products of man-made fibres, jute, and handicrafts. The overall trend being described indicates that the structural makeup of the textile and apparel sector is important in determining the recent outcomes. As it presents a detailed descriptive analysis using recent official statistics, it helps highlight the current organisational base of the textile and apparel sector in India and may serve as a basis for further research.

digital technologies are being used to help businesses facilitate employee work, improve productivity, make customer service lighter and faster, increase sales, and improve the Coordination of organizational work, and companies must use a balanced symbiosis of human and computer intelligence to create new work experiences. Currently, there is a significant lack of empirical research on how the use of new digital technologies (artificial intelligence) affects the work experience of employees. As such, this study aims to analyze how the work experience of employees who use new digital technologies can be improved. A survey was taken of 92 employees who work in organizations that use digital technologies with artificial intelligence (sales, service stations, restaurants, health care facilities and others that sell cosmetics). The study aimed to indicate that job enrichment, choice and stress management, higher sensitivity, better working conditions, less travel, more payments, job security and protection, more careers, dealing with change, Privacy, working with strangers, identification are key factors in the activities of organizations that use artificial intelligence, which play an important role in the work experience of employees and can directly affect the work experience of employees. So, using the results of this study, it is expected that service organizations will be more effective and profitable if they use artificial intelligence optimally to improve the work experience of their employees.

The Indian Constitution, often hailed as a social document, embeds labour rights within its framework, primarily through fundamental rights under Part III and Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) under Part IV. However, key labour rights, such as the right to form trade unions, collective bargaining, and the right to strike, are not recognized as fundamental rights, as clarified by judicial interpretations like All India Bank Employees’ Association v. National Industrial Tribunal. This article critically examines the constitutional and statutory provisions governing labour rights in India, the colonial legacy of the Trade Unions Act, 1926, and the implications of recent labour code reforms. It highlights the low participation in trade unions, the shift from a socialist to a facilitative state, and systemic issues like judicial delays and societal inequalities. Drawing comparisons with international standards, such as those of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the article proposes constitutional, legislative, and judicial reforms to strengthen labour protections and align with global norms.

On 1 July 2024, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 came into force, replacing the Indian Penal Code, 1860 in its entirety. In doing so, the Sanhita repealed Section 377 of the IPC—the provision under which Indian criminal law had, for over a century and a half, criminalised "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." The Supreme Court in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India had read down Section 377 only insofar as it criminalised consensual same-sex relations between adults; the Court expressly preserved the provision's application to non-consensual acts, acts on minors, and bestiality. The BNS's blanket repeal, unaccompanied by any equivalent provision, has produced what the Delhi High Court has described as a "vacuum" in the criminal law: adult male victims of sexual assault, transgender victims of sexual violence, and—on one reading of the statute—wives subjected to non-vaginal sexual violence by their husbands now stand outside the protection of the principal penal code. This article maps the architecture of the vacuum, traces it through the doctrinal history of Section 377 and the Sanhita's drafting record, evaluates the constitutional consequences against Articles 14, 15, and 21, and surveys comparative responses in the United Kingdom, Canada, and South Africa. It concludes that the vacuum is constitutionally untenable and proposes a calibrated reform pathway combining legislative amendment, executive notification, and Article 142 interim safeguards. The Supreme Court's recent reluctance, in Pooja Sharma v. Union of India, to issue any direction does not, on the analysis offered here, foreclose a more carefully constructed challenge.

These lines of Mother Teresa best describe the concept of sustainable development. Sustainable development implies making optimum use of resources with ample left for future generation to use. It’s a way of life that is required to be adopted by humans so that they do not destroy mother Earth completely in the name of development. No doubt that we are living in the era of globalization where it is important to keep pace with the fast pace of development but at the same time we should keep in mind that not all that is grown on Earth is renewable. Our Earth is full of resources (both renewable and non-renewable) but the pace of human excavation is much intense then the pace of regeneration. In such a scenario we have come to a situation that it becomes imperative for us to adopt measures conducive to the sustainable means off life. In doing so the efforts of every single individual matters how so small it is. It is import for the realisation of mankind that now it is high time that we should mend our ways, else the nature will take its revenge in the form tsunami’s, earthquake, land rifts, avalanches, flood, and drifts and so on. As rightly said by Leo Tolstoy, ‘One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.’ If this link is broken and we start disrespecting Nature, we have to pay a very high price. In the present paper it is the sincere effort of researcher to explain and highlight various National & International steps taken by World Civilization in protection of Environment and promotion of practice of sustainability.

The law relating to interim relief in arbitration in India has undergone a significant transformation after the enactment of the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015. The amendment marked a decisive shift from excessive judicial supervision toward a pro-arbitration framework that prioritises arbitral autonomy, efficiency, and minimal court interference. Among the most important areas affected by this legislative reform is the law governing interim measures under Sections 9 and 17 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. Judicial intervention in granting interim relief has evolved from a court-centric model to a tribunal-centric approach, thereby redefining the relationship between courts and arbitral tribunals in India. This article critically analyses the evolving judicial trends concerning interim measures in arbitration and examines how Indian courts have shaped the scope and operation of interim relief after the 2015 amendments. Prior to the amendment, parties frequently approached courts under Section 9 even after the constitution of arbitral tribunals because orders passed under Section 17 lacked enforceability. Courts exercised broad powers in granting injunctions, preservation orders, appointment of receivers, and security for claims. The absence of effective enforcement mechanisms for tribunal-ordered interim measures led to heavy judicial intervention and diluted the autonomy of arbitration proceedings. The 2015 amendment attempted to rectify this imbalance by strengthening Section 17 and introducing Section 9(3), which restricts judicial intervention once the arbitral tribunal is constituted unless the remedy under Section 17 is inefficacious. The amendment thereby elevated the status of arbitral tribunals and sought to minimise parallel court proceedings. This article evaluates how Indian courts have interpreted these amendments and contributed to the development of a more arbitration-friendly regime. Judicial decisions delivered after 2015 reveal a gradual but noticeable movement toward respecting arbitral autonomy while simultaneously preserving judicial safeguards in exceptional situations. Courts have increasingly recognised that the purpose of Section 9 is not to substitute arbitral proceedings but to protect the efficacy of arbitration itself. The judiciary has therefore attempted to harmonise the principles of party autonomy, procedural efficiency, and access to effective remedies.

Artificial intelligence is no longer merely a tool that assists journalists - it is, in a growing number of newsrooms, the journalist itself. Automated systems now produce financial summaries, election results, sports reports and weather bulletins with little to no human intervention. Yet the Copyright Act, 1957, which governs intellectual property protection in India, offers no coherent answer to the question of who owns content generated by a machine. Its authorship framework, built on the foundational assumption of human creativity, collapses when confronted with outputs that have no identifiable human author in the traditional sense. This article argues that the existing statutory framework is structurally incapable of accommodating AI-generated journalistic content, and that neither judicial interpretation nor piecemeal amendment of section 2(d) can adequately resolve the problem. Drawing on comparative analysis of the United Kingdom’s computer-generated works doctrine under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the evolving position of the United States Copyright Office, this article makes the case for a sui generis protection regime - a purpose-built legal framework that vests ownership in the deploying news organisation, mandates disclosure of AI origin, limits the term of protection, and defaults to the public domain upon expiry.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), is a milestone moment in the history of Indian criminal law as it came into force on the 1st of July 2024.The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) marked a revolutionary step in Indian criminal law, introducing community service as a valid form of punishment. This is a law which is not only a procedural adjustment, but a change in the way Indian sentencing works and in the mindset of Indian sentencing from retributive to rehabilitative and restorative. The BNS realizes that incarceration is not necessarily the best way to deal with criminal activity particularly minor, non-violent crimes and introduces community service as a sentence for six crimes. This paper looks to the principles of reformative justice, reviews the provisions of the BNS which provide for community service as punishment, the implications of this for a paradigm shift of Indian criminal policy and explores the challenges to its implementation and the transformative potential it holds.

Surrogacy arrangements give rise to a unique category of children who may have two to five parents, biological, gestational, and intentional, scattered across different jurisdictions. This article examines the rights of children born out of surrogacy transactions from a child-rights perspective. It analyses the best interests of the child principle as applied to surrogacy disputes, the risks of commodification, the psychological and developmental concerns documented in the Brazier Report, the rights recognised under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and the judicial approach to custody and parentage. The article argues that while surrogacy may offer the opportunity of life to children who would otherwise not exist, the regulatory framework must place the welfare of the child at its centre, ensuring that the child's rights to identity, bonding, safe home, and non-discrimination are fully protected.

This paper explores the intricate and often contentious relationship between biodiversity and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), two legal frameworks that operate on fundamentally different principles. While biodiversity law, primarily governed by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), emphasizes sovereign rights, collective heritage, and the equitable sharing of benefits, IPR systems focus on private ownership, individual innovation, and commercial exclusivity. The core of the conflict lies in the transition of biological resources—such as genes, microbes, and medicinal plants—from "common heritage" to "intellectual property." As biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in the Global North increasingly utilize the genetic resources and traditional knowledge (TK) found in the biodiversity-rich Global South, issues of "bio piracy" have emerged. This occurs when traditional medicinal practices or indigenous genetic materials are patented without the prior informed consent of the source communities or a mechanism for fair remuneration. The paper further examines how the criteria for patentability—novelty, inventiveness, and industrial application—frequently fail to recognize the collective, oral, and intergenerational nature of traditional knowledge. This creates a legal loophole where ancient communal wisdom is rebranded as modern innovation. Additionally, the tension extends to agriculture, where plant variety protection can clash with farmers' traditional rights to save and exchange seeds.

Section 9 of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 establishes a regime for the processing of children's personal data that is, at first glance, among the most protective in the world. Every individual under eighteen is treated as a "child"; verifiable parental consent is mandatory; tracking, behavioural monitoring, and targeted advertising directed at children are categorically prohibited. The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025—notified on 13 November 2025—operationalise this regime through Rule 10, which channels parental consent verification through DigiLocker and a virtual-token architecture anchored in government-issued identification. This article argues that the Indian regime, beneath its protective surface, is substantially paternalistic. By treating every adolescent as a child until the eve of her eighteenth birthday, by requiring verifiable parental consent uniformly across the entire under-eighteen population, and by routing verification through state-issued identification, the regime forecloses the participatory and autonomy-respecting dimensions of children's rights that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comment No. 25 (2021) on Children's Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment have placed at the centre of the international consensus. Drawing on the doctrine of evolving capacities, comparative regimes (COPPA, GDPR Article 8, the UK Age-Appropriate Design Code), and the constitutional framework of Articles 14 and 21 as elaborated in Puttaswamy, this article proposes a reconceptualisation of children's data rights in India: from a paternalistic regime of binary consent to a tiered, evolving-capacities-based architecture that recognises the participation, autonomy, and access rights of adolescents alongside the protection of younger children.

This research paper is an attempt to study the effect of judicial process on India's environmental jurisprudence, especially in the context of forest conservation. The purpose of this paper is to understand how Indian judiciary used to have an activist approach in the late 20th century, but in today's era, it has moved towards a balanced approach. This research paper presents the reality that the Indian judicial process often becomes limited, or constrained, due to the aggressive industrial development of the state. In the Raigad of Maharashtra, in the case of clearing the Mangrove Forest, an unexpected decision of the Supreme Court has come forward. The court has tried to create a balance between economic benefits and the protection of ecologically sensitive areas. Now, the big question arises: Can Forest destruction be compensated in any other way for economic benefits? This research paper will shed light on the judicial concepts and doctrines developed since independence, which guide the state to preserve wildlife and forests. Also, this paper will try to find out why the view of the court has shifted from an activist approach to an economic balancing approach. In the end, its aim is to find ways to reduce the loopholes from decision to implementation in the judicial process, so that forest conservation is effective in India.

This paper examines the critical role of the ballistic division in forensic laboratories in the investigation of firearm-related crimes. It defines forensic ballistics as the scientific analysis of evidence such as bullets, cartridge cases, and gunpowder residues left behind when a firearm is discharged. These elements, often described as “ballistic footprints,” enable experts to identify the weapon used and establish links between the firearm, the victim, and the crime scene. The study highlights how traditional methods of visual comparison have evolved with technological advancements, leading to greater accuracy and reliability in forensic analysis. It also emphasizes the prevalence of unlicensed firearms in serious crimes and homicides, underscoring the importance of ballistic evidence in criminal investigations. Further, the paper explains how ballistic experts determine key aspects such as the type of weapon, firing distance, and trajectory of the bullet. The uniqueness of markings on bullets and cartridge cases enhances the evidentiary value and admissibility of such findings in courts of law. Overall, the research analyses the scientific foundations of ballistics, rooted in the study of projectile motion, and underscores its indispensable role in crime scene reconstruction and the administration of justice.

The study investigates how reservation laws function as a legal mechanism which transforms Indian constitutional laws to rectify historical wrongs and solve systemic discrimination. The Constitution's authors intended reservation policies in educational and governmental and legislative fields to serve as routes which lead to both equality and justice restoration. The study establishes reservation as an essential constitutional instrument which enables society to reach its full potential by eliminating the gap between wealthy and poor groups. The document traces how reservation rights began in the Constitution through Articles 15 and 16 which were later developed through major court rulings that increased and reduced their legal boundaries. The study assesses how these policies affected the economic progress of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes while examining current discussions about the exclusion of 'creamy layer' members and economic criteria and the reservation requests from dominant community groups. The paper demonstrates that legal requirements become effective when implemented with political support and social attitude transformation while reservation programs support inclusive development. The study concludes by examining how reservation programs remain relevant today for India's mission to establish a fair and balanced society that includes all citizens. The upcoming challenge requires policy adjustments to maintain their ongoing ability to respond to current conditions while supporting the long-term goal of sustainable and inclusive development. The system of reservation maintains its constitutional function to create a more equal Indian society by providing opportunities that depend on individual potential rather than social class.

This article examines the continuing validity of the marital rape exception through constitutional, social, and feminist perspectives. It examines how Indian law treats consent differently within marriage and outside it, despite recognising the autonomy and agency of women in other aspects of life. The article begins by understanding the colonial patriarchal origins of the marital rape exception and goes on to argue how it is inconsistent with modern constitutional values of equality and dignity under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. The contradiction between the legal recognition of domestic violence and the refusal to criminalise non-consensual intercourse within marriage is studied intensively. By understanding social realities such as economic dependence, structural coercion, and gendered expectations, the article opines that silence within marriage cannot always be interpreted as consent. Through comparative legal developments and constitutional analysis, the article argues that recognising a married woman’s sexual autonomy would strengthen rather than weaken the institution of marriage.

In India, hydropower administration is subjected to a complex and fragmented legal framework, where laws pertaining to water, forests, electricity and the environment are sometimes inconsistent to each other and sometimes leave large gaps. A major part of the confusion comes from the Grundnorm (the Constitution of India): States control “water power,” but the Union has authority over “inter-state rivers.” This tension has already resulted in different decisions from the High Courts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on the same issue of “water cess”, causing significant financial uncertainty for the states. This paper highlights some of the gaps in this legal landscape. Discussing the current Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) system, it looks at each project separately and, in doing so, it fails to take into account the larger, combined impact on the river basin. Latest amendments to the Forest Act, carves out an exemption for certain “strategic” projects, further reduce environmental oversight. This paper also explores the practical problems related to public safety such as weak pollution control enforcement and dam safety rules that focus more on the structure that on the actual risk to people. The study concludes by suggesting reforms to improve hydropower governance. To ease federal tension, it suggests equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms in hydropower governance. It further advocates for the adoption of cumulative impact assessment, grounded in the Valued Environmental and Social Components framework. The paper also recommends the implementation of a holistic and continuously monitored environmental flow (e-flow) regime to ensure the sustainability of the river ecosystem. Finally, it emphasizes the need to modernize dam safety regulation by transitioning from a size-based to a risk based framework to enhance accountability.

Ecocide, which is defined as the widespread devastation of ecosystems or deliberate or negligent acts which lead to significant environmental harm, has become a major worldwide issue and is being discussed more and more as a possible fifth international crime under the International Criminal Court's (ICC) framework. This essay assesses whether India should make ecocide a separate crime and looks at the legal void in international criminal law pertaining to significant environmental harm and it advocates for liability under the international law to address the severe environmental or ecological and human rights consequences of ecocide. It examines the Rome Statute's shortcomings, especially its anthropocentric perspective and limited acknowledgement of environmental damage as a component of war crimes. The report also assesses India's current environmental system, including the proposed Ecocide (Prevention and Accountability) Bill, 2025, constitutional issues, and judicial developments. Despite India's robust environmental jurisprudence, accountability for extensive ecological harm is weakened by substantial enforcement gaps and a dependence on civil remedies. A comparison of countries like Belgium and France reveals new tendencies in the criminalization of ecocide around the world The article lists the main obstacles, such as tensions between development and environmental protection, definitional uncertainty, and evidential issues. The formal recognition of ecocide, the inclusion of corporate accountability, the creation of ecological baselines, and the bolstering of enforcement mechanisms are all recommended in its conclusion. In order to solve current environmental issues and bring legal systems into line with changing global ecological realities, the paper contends that criminalizing ecocide is crucial.

The Increasing number of suicides by men due to familiar disturbances especially by the spouse is the clear implication of harassment towards men in society. Men and their vulnerability are mostly under-explored in Indian culture for various reasons. Men are expected to embody emotional restraint, assertiveness, dominance, and physical toughness, with societal pressure emphasizing that they must never appear weak or vulnerable. However, The existing legal framework primarily focused on women's empowerment to uphold equality before the law and equal protection of the law. But there is a growing concern that in the name of protection, the increasing harassment and mental torture of men are being overshadowed. The instances of abuse of the law by women are raising questions about the fairness of the current Social Justice system. The Constitution of India upholds the principle of gender-based non-discrimination, ensuring equality for all. However, when it comes to issues like domestic violence, relationship blackmail, the threat of false FIR, and particularly the increasingly dangerous phenomenon of media and social media trail, the legal system reveals its inherent bias. This is a clear violation of Article 21 of Individuals. The paper seeks to identify the challenges for men in the legal system and the societal factor and find gaps in the legislative framework.

The increasing reliance on automated compliance mechanisms within securities regulation has significantly transformed the enforcement landscape of insider trading laws in India. In furtherance of this shift, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”), through its Circular dated April 21, 2025, extended automated trading window closure restrictions to the immediate relatives of designated persons under the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015. The framework mandates PAN-based freezing of trading access during trading window closure periods through coordinated action by listed companies, depositories, and stock exchanges. While the circular seeks to strengthen market integrity and prevent inadvertent violations of insider trading norms, it simultaneously raises important constitutional and jurisprudential concerns regarding proportionality, privacy, and presumptive liability. This article critically examines the legality and implications of extending automated restrictions to immediate relatives solely on the basis of familial association. It argues that the framework effectively introduces a form of “regulation by association,” wherein restrictions are imposed not on the basis of demonstrated misconduct or individualized suspicion, but upon relational proximity to designated persons. The article contends that familial association alone cannot justify presumptive restriction, particularly in the absence of evidence establishing access to unpublished price sensitive information (“UPSI”). Using the proportionality doctrine developed by the Supreme Court in Modern Dental College & Research Centre v. State of Madhya Pradesh and K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, the article evaluates whether the circular satisfies constitutional standards of necessity, minimal impairment, and balancing. It further argues that the framework may sacrifice individual autonomy and proportionality in pursuit of regulatory efficiency. While acknowledging the legitimacy of SEBI’s anti-insider trading objectives, the article concludes that preventive securities regulation must remain constitutionally sustainable, narrowly tailored, and balanced against the financial autonomy and informational privacy of affected individuals.

The "clean slate doctrine" is the principle that a successful resolution applicant under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, acquires the corporate debtor free of all claims and liabilities that are not provided for in the court-approved resolution plan. This paper traces the doctrine's conceptual and theoretical foundations, maps the statutory architecture from which courts have derived it, and analyses its progressive judicial elaboration through Essar Steel (2020), Ghanashyam Mishra (2021), Ebix Singapore (2022), and the Supreme Court's 2025 trilogy. The paper aims to unravel four critical knots in the doctrine. The unresolved conflict between Ghanashyam Mishra and Rainbow Papers on the treatment of government dues as "secured" claims; the effective silencing of operational creditors and small suppliers; the ambiguous interface with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002; and the deeper constitutional question of democratic accountability that arises when a general insolvency code deliberately extinguishes legislative first charges. The paper argues that the doctrine is analytically sound in its Ghanashyam Mishra formulation and that Rainbow Papers should be referred to a larger Bench for reconsideration. It concludes with a legislative proposal modelled on Section 1129(a)(9) of the United States Bankruptcy Code as the most principled path to resolving the government-dues impasse without surrendering the Code's structural uniformity.

Reservation has remained one of the most debated and sensitive socio-legal issues in India. While a significant section of society considers reservation an essential mechanism for ensuring social justice and equality, others argue that it adversely affects meritocracy and fair competition in educational institutions and public employment. The reservation system in India was introduced with the objective of uplifting historically disadvantaged and socially marginalized communities, particularly the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), who were subjected to centuries of discrimination and exclusion. Over time, the policy has expanded to include Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), thereby widening the scope of affirmative action within the constitutional framework of India. This research paper critically examines whether reservation continues to function as a necessary tool for social upliftment or whether it has become a hindrance to merit-based growth in contemporary India. The study analyses the historical development of reservation policies, constitutional provisions, landmark judicial decisions, and the socio-economic factors that influence the implementation of reservations in education, public employment, and political representation. It further evaluates the arguments both in favour of and against the reservation system, focusing on issues such as equality of opportunity, representation, social justice, efficiency, and meritocracy. The paper also explores the impact of reservation policies on merit lists, competitive examinations, government employment, and promotions in public services. In addition, a comparative analysis with affirmative action policies followed in countries such as the United States and Canada has been undertaken to understand how different nations address social inequalities while balancing merit-based selection. The research adopts a doctrinal and analytical method by relying on constitutional provisions, case laws, government reports, journal articles, and secondary sources. The study concludes that although reservation has played a crucial role in improving representation and reducing historical inequalities, reforms and periodic review mechanisms are necessary to ensure that the system remains fair, balanced, and consistent with the principles of equality and merit in a democratic society.

The clash of law or (private international law) plays a significant role to resolve the conflicts, which cover cross-border issues, as it provides the jurisdiction, law to applied, and recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. The need to have the harmonious and efficient standards of conflict of laws has never been as relevant and important nowadays as the world is becoming more and more global in terms of trade, migration and online transactions. The paper will endeavor to make a comparison and contrast on how India, United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States went about and resolved the conflict of laws issues. The analysis presupposes a comparative methodology to doctrines, i.e. it will examine both the statutory provision of the laws of both jurisdictions, and the judicial precedents and other legal principles established. The analysis describes what have been deemed to be significant differences in the nature of the legal system between the integrated, codified system of the European Union and the rule of thumb, flexibility of the rules by theory approach of the United States with the United Kingdom being a moderate variant and at India showing a still evolving system. It can be shown that the level of flexibility, predictability and recognition of party autonomy, and imposition of foreign judgments differ with results. The article contributes by highlighting the merits and demerits of each of these systems and proposing an alternative hybrid system which will fuse the components of clarity and flexibility and information on how each of their systems can be re-structured, particularly in developing jurisdictions like India.

This paper explores the manner in which DNA evidence has been and is admitted within criminal trial processes in India, in part by comparison with how it has been and is admitted in the USA and the UK. The paper’s first objective is to identify and explain the prevailing approach to the legal admissibility of DNA evidence in India. This paper contends that, despite the important and sometimes conclusive nature of DNA evidence in matters of proof, Indian law does not yet offer it any special admissibility standards. In contrast, the American Daubert model and the UK’s regulatory framework both demand a reliability inquiry into the evidence long before the courtroom. This article accordingly suggests a five-factor admissibility standard for India to utilize, with a specific focus on forensic laboratory access, methodological exposure, statistical binary, chain-of-custody standards, and a judicial limine pre-trial admissibility hearing. The author concludes that such accommodation under Article 21 is a necessary obligation for the state to foster the social alignment of DNA science with fairness, legalism, and existing forensics in the criminal adjudicatory context.

India is currently experiencing a demographic revolution due to an unprecedented rise in the absolute and relative size of its elderly population. The care and protection of the elderly population were deeply integrated into the moral values of the traditional joint family system, where the care of ageing members was considered a sacrosanct duty of the younger generation. However, in the advent of globalisation as initiated by economic reforms in 1991, India is going through a series of structural changes in its traditional values of caring for its ageing population. Urbanization and migration of the younger population alter traditional joint family structures into a nuclear family structure, resulting in a ‘crisis of caring’ for the elders. This study is aimed to analysis the evolution of elderly rights in India from informal values of caring for each other to a formal and legalistic approach of rights-based caring. This evolutionary change is predominant under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (MWPSC) Act of 2007 and other allied statutory provisions. Indian Judiciary also takes an unmistakable move toward prioritization of the dignity, autonomy, and security of the elderly in a globalized community. This study reveals that although the legislative achievements are considerable, the viability of these rights depend upon the closing of the implementation gap, digital inclusion, and the creation of a social spirit that views the elderly population as active participants rather than passive recipients.

The Indian used car market has grown significantly with the rise of online marketplaces such as Spinny, yet issues relating to trust, transparency, and authenticity of vehicle history continue to persist. Buyers often rely on information provided by sellers or intermediaries, which may be incomplete, manipulated, or misleading. Common problems include odometer tampering, concealment of accident history, fragmented service records, and the inherent conflict of interest in platform-controlled verification systems. This article examines how blockchain technology, particularly a shared permissioned blockchain ecosystem, can address these challenges by creating a secure, decentralized, and tamper-proof Digital Vehicle Passport linked to each vehicle’s identification number. The study proposes a consortium-based blockchain model involving government authorities, insurers, service centres, manufacturers, and used car marketplaces, where verified stakeholders collectively maintain immutable vehicle records. Through cryptographic authentication, time-stamped entries, and distributed verification, the system enhances transparency, traceability, and buyer confidence while reducing fraud. The paper further outlines a phased roadmap for implementation, including consortium governance, stakeholder onboarding, real-time data capture, and buyer verification interfaces. Additionally, the article critically evaluates practical and legal challenges such as stakeholder coordination, incomplete offline data capture, regulatory recognition under the Motor Vehicles Act, compliance concerns with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and high implementation costs. The paper concludes that a shared blockchain ecosystem has the potential to transform trust in the used car industry from a platform-dependent assurance into a verifiable cryptographic guarantee, thereby strengthening transparency and accountability in vehicle transactions.

Corporate Social Responsibility abbreviated as CSR, is the company’s way of giving back to the society. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is specified under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013. This framework was introduced so that companies also focus on societal welfare and sustainable development and do not function solely with profit making motive. India’s mandatory CSR framework was envisioned as a progressive mechanism to strengthen ethical corporate governance and public welfare. In the corporate arena, even though majority of businesses comply with CSR mandates, there are certain entities that indulge in unethical practices whereby they transcend the noble objectives that are outlined under the Seventh Schedule of the Companies Act, 2013. There are situations where obligation turns into pure compliance activity. This paper aims to critically examine the effectiveness of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as mandated under the Companies Act, 2013. Through a doctrinal analysis, it aims to analyse the effectiveness of the framework in achieving its intended objectives of social welfare and sustainable development. The paper also examines the possible loopholes that can be misused by companies through the means of CSR and the effects of the same in cases of tax evasion.

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) as a means of environmental protection in India, against the backdrop of perceived failures of the executive and legislative branches. Although the judiciary has expanded the scope of PILs from human rights to ecological preservation, enhancing transparency and accountability, the actual effect of these interventions is still under discussion. The research finds a continuing ‘implementation gap’ characterized by lack of public awareness and institutional resistance, building on an analysis of judicial trends and enforcement challenges. The findings reveal that while the Indian judiciary has successfully institutionalised doctrines like the "Precautionary Principle," the lack of a coordinated approach between grassroots movements and government authorities hinders long-term sustainability. The article concludes with a proposal for a dual-action framework for legal reform. Our findings indicate that while the Indian judiciary has been successful in institutionalising doctrines such as the “Precautionary Principle”, the absence of a synchronized approach between grassroots movements and government authorities leads to a lack of long-term sustainability. The paper concludes with a proposition of the dual action framework of legal reform and intensive public awareness campaigns to ensure that PILs are not just a reactive tool for environmental redressal.

The fast growth of the gig economy in the post-covid era has brought in a structural collision between the logic of operation of digital platforms and the principles of law of data protection. However, gig workers are left in a liminal situation: through every interaction with the digital platform, a gig worker generates a huge amount of data which is not safeguarded effectively by the current legal framework. This paper tries to compare the doctrines of two impactful data protection regimes in the context of gig workers: India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (hereinafter “DPDP Act”) and European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, hereinafter “GDPR”) read along with the Platform Work Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/2831, “PWD”). This analysis focuses on the concept of consent as the basis of data processing and whether the notion of consent, as conceived in both frameworks, is strong enough to safeguard the interests of the workers who are critically dependent on digital platforms for their livelihood. This paper argues that while the EU framework, especially after PWD, has decentralised the mandate of consent in the context of platform work and introduces categorical prohibitions and strong demands for algorithmic transparency in its place, the DPDP Act in India sticks to a formal model of consent which is inadequate in the power-asymmetrical relations of platform labour.

The reservation policy exists in the Indian Constitution post-independence, derived from colonial affirmative action policies for supporting backward areas and classes including SC, ST &OBC. Originally it was framed for uplifting social justice but over time especially with the introduction of creamy layer concept; the policy looks to remove the economically privileged persons coming under the OBC category. This work engages in a critical analysis of the constitutional, statutory and the common law processes governing policies touching on reservations and reviews performance and shortcomings of the creamy layer. While the creamy layer principle makes everyone who serves a reservation group to be equal, the basic idea of affirmative action is criticised for failing to address caste-based discriminations. In this paper, the author offers an extended strategy based on the economic and social parameters and aims at expanding the effectiveness of the principle for defining inclusive social justice. The study therefore encourages constant review of the reservation policies since the socio-political and economic status of backward classes in India require refinement.

Finfluencers, that is, financial influencers on YouTube, Telegram, Instagram and other social media platforms, have become a major source of investment information for the Indian retail investor. Many of them are not registered with SEBI as either investment advisers or research analysts. SEBI has, in the recent past, passed orders against several well-known finfluencers including Mohammad Nasiruddin Ansari (Baap of Chart), P.R. Sundar and Asmita Patel. The orders show that the harm caused is not small. Crores of rupees have been collected from unsuspecting investors. The existing legal framework consists primarily of the SEBI Act, 1992, the SEBI (Investment Advisers) Regulations, 2013, the SEBI (Research Analysts) Regulations, 2014 and the SEBI (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices relating to Securities Market) Regulations, 2003. None of these were drafted with social media in mind. SEBI has, by way of a Consultation Paper of August 2023, a Circular dated 13 May 2024 and amendments to the IA Regulations in 2024, taken some steps. But these steps are only the beginning. The paper examines four possible regulatory models for India: (i) a tiered registration framework based on the type of activity; (ii) co-regulation with social media platforms; (iii) recognition of a Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) for finfluencers; and (iv) a statutory private right of action with class-action features. The paper concludes that none of these alternatives is sufficient by itself, and that an effective Indian model will need to combine elements of all four. The methodology is doctrinal and comparative, with reference to the regulatory positions in the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union.

In the Artificial Intelligence era, the technology has changing rapidly that human-like work can be created, especially after the coming of Generative artificial intelligence, many companies are launching this technology. An Artificial Intelligence research and deployment company, OpenAI’s have launched several Large Language Models (ChatGPT) and different AI generators are also widely used by general public. The Artificial Intelligence with the help of Generative Artificial Intelligence have entered in the work earlier done by humans in such a way that there are many new unresolved fundamental challenges and also opportunities, in particular in knowledge-intensive domains. In the course of period, with the advancement in Artificial Intelligence technology, the intellectual property rights (IPR) will face tremendous impact. Among the several kinds of IPRs, Artificial Intelligence has an important part to play, especially in copyright. With the help of AI generators, it can write texts, articles, compose music, generate image, videos, paintings etc which was once solely dependent on human creativity and talent. It is quite common to see with the help Generative Artificial Intelligence, the creativity of the human kind is easily overshadowed and even the human privacy is easily jeopardised. This paper attempts to highlight the recent issue where Artificial Intelligence is depriving the human beings of their originality, creativity, authorship, ownership and data privacy of the human beings. There is a crucial need to balance the rights of creators and the development and use of generative AI tools by putting limitation and through legal interventions.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into modern warfare presents significant challenges for International Humanitarian Law (IHL). AI technologies, including autonomous weapons systems, surveillance tools, and decision-support algorithms, are increasingly used in military operations to enhance speed, accuracy, and strategic advantage. However, their deployment raises critical concerns regarding compliance with fundamental IHL principles such as distinction, proportionality, and precaution. A key issue is whether AI systems can accurately distinguish between combatants and civilians in complex and rapidly changing conflict environments. Errors, data bias, or system unpredictability may result in unlawful harm to civilians. Additionally, proportionality assessments require human judgment and contextual understanding, which AI may not fully replicate. The “black box” nature of many AI systems further complicates accountability and transparency in decision-making. The development of autonomous weapons systems has intensified international debate, particularly within the United Nations. Although existing legal frameworks, including the Geneva Conventions, apply to all methods of warfare, their adequacy in addressing AI-specific risks remains uncertain. This paper argues that maintaining meaningful human control, ensuring accountability, and strengthening legal review mechanisms are essential to align AI use with IHL and safeguard humanitarian principles.

Consumer justice in India stands at a critical intersection of market governance and constitutional governance. This article addresses the doctrinal question of its proper placement in the legal hierarchy: whether consumer justice should be viewed primarily as a statutory remedy or as an integral part of the broader constitutional framework encompassing equality, dignity, health, and the right to access justice. Adopting a doctrinal approach, the article examines the Constitution of India, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, landmark judicial decisions, the existing regulatory framework, and recent enforcement trends. It argues that Indian consumer law has undergone a significant normative shift. The statutory model has evolved from a post-transaction compensatory regime to a comprehensive preventive framework that includes scrutiny of unfair contract terms, public enforcement mechanisms, regulation of digital markets, and recognition of concurrent remedies. This evolution has been strengthened by liberal and welfare-oriented judicial interpretations, particularly in sectors such as public services, healthcare, housing, and arbitration. The article further highlights that many contemporary consumer injustices stem from digital architecture, especially persuasive design techniques and the exploitation of consumer data. Ultimately, it contends that consumer justice in India is best understood as a field where statutory remedies remain central, while being deeply informed by constitutional values. This perspective carries important implications for legislative design, regulatory enforcement, data governance, adjudicative processes, and future market reforms.

Crime scene investigation and forensic science play a vital role in the effective functioning of the criminal justice system by assisting investigating agencies in the scientific detection, collection, preservation, and analysis of evidence. With the advancement of technology and the increasing complexity of crimes, forensic science has emerged as an indispensable tool for ensuring accurate investigation and fair administration of justice. This article critically examines the challenges, legal framework, procedural principles, and recent advancements relating to crime scene investigation and forensic science in India. The study analyses the practical difficulties faced by the Indian forensic system, including backlog in forensic laboratories, shortage of trained experts, inadequate infrastructure, lack of technological resources, and issues concerning contamination and preservation of evidence. It further explores the principles governing crime scene management, documentation, evidence collection, emergency response procedures, and contamination control. Special emphasis is placed on the evidentiary value of forensic and medical evidence in criminal trials, particularly with reference to postmortem reports, medico-legal certificates, and judicial interpretation of expert evidence. The article also discusses modern forensic technologies such as DNA profiling, Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP), Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS), facial reconstruction, 3D scanning, digital surveillance, and laser-based analytical techniques. In addition, scientific interrogation methods including narco-analysis, polygraph tests, and brain mapping are critically examined in light of constitutional safeguards, evidentiary admissibility, and human rights concerns under Indian law. Through doctrinal and analytical research, the article highlights the growing significance of forensic science in strengthening criminal investigations while also identifying the legal and ethical challenges associated with emerging technologies. The study concludes that modernization of forensic infrastructure, specialized training, incorporation of forensic education in legal studies, and strict adherence to procedural safeguards are essential for improving the reliability and effectiveness of crime scene investigation in India. A balanced integration of science, law, and constitutional protections is necessary to ensure justice, transparency, and public confidence in the criminal justice system.

The Indian Constitution is not only a legal document but also a document of change, with the goal of a just society. The judiciary has no "purse and sword" like the executive and legislative, but the framers of the Constitution gave the Supreme Court “teeth” by changing draft Article 118 to Article 142. This is meant to give the apex court "plenary" powers to pass any decree or order it may deem "necessary for doing complete justice": a constitutional safety-valve that ensures that the freedom of equity is not allowed to be sacrificed at the altar of procedural rigidity. This research paper attempts to examine the change from the use of Article 142 as a procedural instrument to a "beacon of hope" for marginalised and vulnerable people. Moreover, the Court has applied this extraordinary power to combat overreach by the State, including giving guidance to the State to stop "bulldozer justice" and to ensure the rule of law is maintained. Article 142 has played a key role in combating institutional bias in the military in the context of Gender Justice. The Court's ruling on the categorization of a flawed assessment system that had been adopted for women officers, which resulted in the “systemic denial” of permanent commissions to female officers, went beyond the individual to the institutional level and prevented women from being marginalized by biological stereotyping. Social Justice is a goal, and Article 142 is a means to achieve it.

This research examines the evolutionary trajectory of gender justice in India through the lens of landmark judicial pronouncements on women protection laws. The study traces the transformation of judicial interpretation from a restrictive, positivist approach to a more progressive, rights-based framework that integrates international human rights standards. Through a qualitative analysis of seminal judgments across five decades (1970-2023), the research identifies distinct phases in the judiciary's engagement with gender justice: from formal equality to substantive equality, from protection to empowerment, and from gender-neutral to gender-responsive adjudication. The analysis reveals how the Supreme Court and High Courts have progressively expanded the scope of constitutional guarantees, reconceptualized gender-based violence as a human rights violation, developed specialized jurisprudence on workplace sexual harassment, strengthened implementation mechanisms for women protection laws, and challenged patriarchal norms embedded in legal discourse. The research demonstrates that despite significant jurisprudential advances, inconsistencies persist across jurisdictions and levels of judiciary, reflecting broader sociocultural resistance to gender equality. The study concludes that the Indian judiciary has evolved from being a passive interpreter to an active architect of gender justice, though the gap between progressive judicial pronouncements and their implementation remains a critical challenge in translating legal victories into lived realities for women across socioeconomic strata.

Minority shareholders occupy a unique position in corporate governance, helping uphold transparency and accountability and playing a significant role in corporate democracy. However, they cannot control corporate decisions and are vulnerable to exploitation by the majority. They may be adversely affected during corporate arrangements, mergers, and takeovers, where majority shareholders dominate decision-making and may abuse their authority at the expense of minority interests. Although the Companies Act, 2013 and SEBI Regulations provide adequate safeguards, their practical implementation remains questionable, particularly when the judicial approach prioritises procedural compliance, commercial wisdom and majority rule over substantive justice and fairness for minority shareholders. These factors call for a detailed study of the position of minority shareholders during corporate arrangements and mergers, and of how their concerns are addressed. In this paper, we shall undertake a doctrinal analysis of the protections available to minority shareholders in corporate arrangements, mergers, and squeeze-outs under the Companies Act, 2013 and the SEBI Regulations, and of landmark cases to understand the judiciary’s approach towards minority shareholders. Further, we shall analyse international jurisdictions, particularly the United States (Delaware General Corporation Law) and the European Union, to identify and explore best practices for the protection of minority interests. Finally, the paper shall conclude by identifying systematic gaps, particularly high procedural thresholds, inadequate appraisal mechanisms, information asymmetry, and excessive judicial deference to majority-approved transactions, and by recommending reforms such as the introduction of statutory appraisal rights, enhanced disclosure obligations, reduction of threshold barriers for minority actions, and greater judicial emphasis on substantive fairness. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the position of minority shareholders during corporate arrangements and mergers, address systematic gaps, and suggest reforms to strengthen shareholder democracy and align Indian corporate governance with international best practices.

The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has significantly influenced judicial systems across the world, including India. Courts are increasingly adopting AI-driven technologies for legal research, translation, case management, document analysis, and administrative efficiency. This article critically examines the growing role of AI in the judiciary while analysing whether constitutional principles and ethical values permit the replacement of judges by machines. It discusses the evolution of AI, the development of digital justice initiatives in India under the E-Courts Project, and the adoption of tools such as SUPACE, SUVAS, and AI-assisted legal analytics. The article further explores the use of AI in foreign judicial systems, including China, Brazil, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, where technology has been integrated to improve judicial efficiency and reduce delays. While acknowledging the advantages of AI in reducing case backlogs, improving accessibility, and supporting legal research, the study highlights the associated risks relating to algorithmic bias, transparency, accountability, and the “black box” nature of automated reasoning. Special emphasis is placed on the constitutional framework of India, particularly Articles 14 and 21, which require fairness, equality, and due process in adjudication. The article argues that judicial decision-making involves human reasoning, empathy, ethical responsibility, and constitutional morality, which cannot be replicated entirely through algorithms. It concludes that AI should function only as an assistive tool under strict human supervision and balanced regulatory safeguards. The future of AI in the Indian judiciary therefore lies not in replacing judges, but in strengthening judicial administration while preserving public confidence, judicial independence, and the human element of justice.

Digital forensics is a branch of forensic science that focuses on identifying, acquiring, processing, analyzing, and reporting on data stored electronically. The main goal of digital forensics is to extract data from the electronic evidence, process it into actionable intelligence and present the findings for prosecution. Digital forensics can be used for a variety of investigations such as cybercrimes, corporate frauds, intellectual property thefts, and so many others. Amongst all the above, what is significantly emerging as the most common financial frauds is the Digital Arrest. The phenomenon termed "Digital Arrest" represents an emerging cyber-scam wherein perpetrators manipulate online data and communication systems under the guise of law enforcement operations. Victims are coerced into remaining on video calls with the scammers, who impersonate officials, until their financial or other demands are fulfilled. This paper presents current trends of digital arrest. Implication of digital arrest on victim also discussed in this article along with precautions to be taken or how it can be minimized. Challenges faced in combating with digital arrest are also included in this article.

The study explores the theoretical and practical aspects of optimizing integrated marketing communications (IMC) in business organizations to enhance sales performance. The research emphasizes that in today’s competitive market environment, where product diversity and consumer choice are rapidly expanding, businesses must effectively integrate and coordinate their marketing communication tools to attract and retain customers. The main objective of this study is to identify methods for effectively combining the elements of the marketing communication mix to increase sales in Mongolian business organizations. To achieve this, the research examines: (1) the theoretical foundations of integrated marketing communications, (2) the structure and components of the IMC mix, (3) the current state of IMC practices in Mongolian enterprises, and (4) the possibilities for optimizing the integration of IMC elements. The study employs both quantitative and qualitative research methods, including factor analysis, correlation and regression analysis, and reliability testing using Cronbach’s alpha, with data processed through the SPSS-23 software. The research sample consists of 25 marketing managers selected through purposive sampling, as they play a key role in decision-making regarding IMC strategies. The findings reveal that while Mongolian businesses recognize the importance of IMC, the integration of the five main promotional tools—advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and personal selling—remains inconsistent. The study proposes a new conceptual model for IMC that enables businesses to align these elements more effectively, thereby improving marketing efficiency and sales outcomes. The practical significance of this research lies in providing methodological recommendations for small and medium-sized enterprises to measure and enhance the performance of their integrated marketing communications. Furthermore, the study contributes to the academic field of marketing management by offering insights into the current state and development prospects of IMC in Mongolia, serving as a valuable reference for future research and educational purposes.

Democratic engagement has entered a new phase with the advent of the internet. Citizens can now freely offer their opinions and critiques and advocate for political mobilization. Even governments have recognized the benefit of the internet for democracy. However, the internet can be used as a tool of surveillance & venue for censorship & prosecution of sedition. The offense of sedition, as a relic of colonial rule, persists in several democracies, in spite of the numerous critiques & growing discontent with the state of civil liberties and freedom of speech. The growing prominence of sedition laws in relation to the internet remains grave, considering most governments apply such laws to dissent, social media activism, and to target journalists and political opponents. In this context, this paper examines the interplay between sedition law and digital freedom in democracies, with a primary focus on India and comparative examples of other democracies. This research examines the evolution of the right to free speech and sedition jurisprudence as well as the impact of digital communication on how the state may regulate expression. The extent and reach of sedition laws can lead to a chilling effect and a rational fear of offending the law can result in the curtailing of free speech. This research also examines the role of the judiciary in achieving a fair equilibrium between the protection of the civil liberties of citizens in the digital realm & protection of the state.

The Indian Knowledge System (IKS) represents a vast intellectual tradition developed over thousands of years in fields such as philosophy, mathematics, science, medicine, governance, linguistics, arts, and environmental sustainability. With the emergence of globalization and rapid technological transformation, modern education has increasingly prioritized technical and market-oriented learning, often overlooking indigenous knowledge traditions. However, contemporary educational reforms are revisiting the relevance of IKS for building holistic, ethical, and sustainable education models. This research paper examines the significance of integrating Indian Knowledge Systems into modern education, identifies the benefits of such integration, and critically analyses the challenges involved in implementation. The paper adopts a doctrinal and analytical approach by reviewing literature, policy documents, and academic discourse. The study concludes that integrating IKS can promote holistic development, ethical awareness, cultural rootedness, interdisciplinary learning, and sustainable development. However, challenges such as lack of standardized curriculum, teacher training gaps, misconceptions about traditional knowledge, and institutional resistance need systematic policy and pedagogical reforms. The paper proposes strategic recommendations for effective integration in the Indian education system.

This paper examines the constitutional and legal debate surrounding same-sex marriage in India, with particular focus on the Supreme Court’s decision in Supriyo Chakraborty v. Union of India Judgment. It traces the historical treatment of homosexuality in India, beginning with references in ancient texts and cultural practices, followed by the criminalization introduced during British colonial rule through Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The paper further analyses major judicial developments, including Naz Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi and Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, which ultimately decriminalised consensual same-sex relations. The study critically evaluates the constitutional arguments raised in Supriyo, particularly arguments given by honourable judges concerning equality, dignity, privacy, and the right to form unions. It evaluates each judge's reasoning over the matter. The paper also highlights unresolved issues such as adoption rights, civil unions, inheritance, and legal recognition of queer relationships. It concludes that while same-sex marriage remains unrecognized in India, evolving constitutional values and changing public opinion continue to shape the discourse on LGBTQ+ rights and equality.

The present study is case study-based research, which is endeavor an attempt of the author to create mile stone story of a giant public sector under taking namely popularly known as Lal Imli established at Kanpur, (Earlier it was Cawnpore) Uttar Pradesh, India, a branch of British India Corporations. The study is an observation-based study by visiting the official campus of the company and the data is collected from primary and secondary sources by conducting the personal interviews of its retired employees and the company reports obtained from office and newspaper information. The paper focuses its key high lights as how it caters the 40 percent needs cotton and woolen cloth of Indian people through its products in its segment, its management features, policies, working culture. Further the paper also presents a SWOT analysis of the company, as how its reached to its dead end even after several attempts of revival and rehabilitations schemes by the government and finally it becomes a monument of the history in Kanpur.

Digital markets rely on the large-scale collection and processing of consumer data, with regulatory frameworks premised on the assumption that individual consent operates as a meaningful safeguard against misuse. At the same time, competition law continues to assess market power through traditional indicators of dominance, pricing, and market structure. This paper argues that the reliance on consent-based governance creates a regulatory blind spot in addressing the persistence of market power in data-driven markets. Consent, while formally satisfying data-protection requirements, frequently operates under conditions of informational asymmetry, limited alternatives, and behavioural influence; individual choice functions more as a legal formality than a genuine constraint on data accumulation. Through a comparative analysis of the European Union, the United States, Australia and India, the paper examines why consent fails as a mechanism of competitive discipline and proposes a recalibration of competition law that recognises the limits of consent and strengthens market-level safeguards.

The emergence of consumer and commercial neurotechnologies capable of extracting, processing, and inferring cognitive data from neural signals presents Indian constitutional privacy jurisprudence with a challenge that existing doctrine is structurally ill-equipped to address. While the nine-judge bench in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India established privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution, recognizing informational privacy, decisional autonomy, and dignity as its interlocking dimensions, the framework was elaborated against a background of conventional data collection. Neurotechnological systems, including electroencephalographic wearables, affective computing interfaces, cognitive analytics platforms, and neural biometric systems, operate at a constitutively different register: they access cognitive states before their expression, generate probabilistic inferences about mental processes from physiological signals, and collapse the conventional distinction between information a person possesses and information that is constructed from her neural activity. This paper argues that neurodata occupies a constitutionally distinct category from ordinary personal data because its extraction compromises not merely informational privacy but the pre-expressive substrate of decisional autonomy itself. Critically examining the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the paper identifies structural deficiencies in neurodata classification, inferred data governance, and consent architecture that render the statute inadequate as a governance framework. Drawing selectively on Chile’s 2021 constitutional neurorights amendment and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act’s restrictions on cognitively intrusive systems, the paper argues that the Puttaswamy framework, properly extended, can accommodate a doctrine of mental privacy within Article 21 without requiring entirely new constitutional language. A tripartite constitutional standard is proposed: cognitive integrity protection, a doctrine of inferential restraint, and heightened proportionality review for neurotechnological intrusions. This framework reflects the constitutional values of dignity, autonomy, and mental self-determination already embedded in India’s privacy jurisprudence, and is capable of governing the specific constitutional harm that neurodata extraction poses.

Within Delhi's medical industry, workplace harassment is a persistent and systemic problem that takes the form of sexual violence, psychological stress, and verbal abuse. The prevalence and effects of these behaviors are examined in this study, which finds that they are the result of strict institutional hierarchies, stressful work environments, and a widespread culture of silence. Although there is a theoretical foundation for protection provided by legal frameworks such as the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (POSH) Act, 2013, there are still large gaps in institutional implementation and the redress of non-sexual forms of harassment. The study investigates how administrative flaws and fear of reprisals contribute to systemic underreporting using a mixed-method approach and empirical survey data from 54 healthcare professionals. The results show that harassment increased medical errors, lowered staff morale, and jeopardized patient care. The study comes to the conclusion that institutional culture must fundamentally change in order to achieve true safety and professional integrity in healthcare, going beyond simple legal compliance.

Contrary to popular belief, coercion precedes firing a bullet. Coercion includes invoking the law to justify the use of force when resolving a dispute. This Article pertains to the problem of contemporary international law in the context of inter-State coercive dispute settlements. Once a situation of inter-State dispute arises which entails or may entail the use of force, the Article determines how contemporary international law provides interfaces for the protection of human rights. The study is mainly dependent on the law, which is the doctrinal method. The study focuses on the United Nations Charter, international law of human rights, international law of humanitarian, theory, practice, and judgments of the International Court of Justice, and that of the European Court of Human Rights. It focuses on the studies of occupation, cross-border military operations, forced migrations, and extraterritorial infringements of the right of detention. The result of the study is that the interstate law governs the use of law and the arguments of the human rights and international humanitarian law remain applicable to the armed law. The study of the courts indicated that the siege and the mass immigration in the framework of the control of law over the defence of humanitarian and human rights remain practically jus colour and politically insulated. The consequences remain doctrinal and ethically applicable. Under coercive, strategic narrative control and defence remain applicable and cannot be transformed human rights law. Under defence and coercion, the impediments of human injury remain scientifically and politically invisible.

This review paper is an exploration of the importance of digital inclusion and the need to reduce the digital divide to combat poverty and social exclusion. Here, the impact of digitalization on seniors, the need to increase digital skills, and the importance of equitable and affordable access to technologies are also addressed. Also this review discusses the importance of continuing education to enable individuals to adapt to the rapid and constant changes in the digital world. The digital divide corresponds to social inequalities in access to and use of digital technologies. Access to digital technologies covers access to technological equipment, software, and an internet connection. Access may be limited by the type of device accessible, the quality of the equipment and connection, and the autonomy of access (places where the equipment is used). The digital divide is a reality that affects many people in India, particularly people living in poverty. This divide is manifested by a lack of access to technologies, a lack of digital skills and a lack of confidence in the use of digital technologies. These obstacles create profound inequality in access to information, online services, professional opportunities and education. The digital divide also limits citizens' involvement in democratic life by creating a disparity in the ability to use online resources to participate in decision-making. The lack of digital skills can lead to significant financial and social costs for governments. The Indian government has been actively promoting digital technologies to combat poverty and social exclusion through various initiatives over the past decade. One significant step was the launch of the Digital India campaign in 2015. This initiative aims to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy by providing digital infrastructure, delivering services digitally, and increasing digital literacy. This review concludes that, the community and social economy organizations have a major role to play given the issues related to the digital divide and that they are able to contribute to creating a future where citizens meet their needs and desires by taking advantage of the benefits of technologies, including those resulting from artificial intelligence.

Despite decades of progressive legal reforms, women’s access to justice remains constrained by complex structural barriers and societal norms. This research advocates that empowerment requires more than the mere “access” to laws or the existence of institutions. From key legislations like POCSO, the Domestic Violence Act, and constitutional guarantees provided under Articles 14, 15, and 21 to data from the National Crime Record Bureau and findings of civil society organisations, the paper first highlights the gap between legal promises and lived realities. Landmark judgments, international obligations like CEDAW, ICCPR, and studies by UN Women are another significant aspect of this paper to provide an in-depth analysis of the ground realities lived by countless women around the globe. Along with the doctrinal methodology, there is a mixture of empirical trends to reveal persistently low conviction rates in gender-based violence cases and sheer urban-rural disparities in justice delivery. The study focuses on four main categories of barriers that eventually hinders the pathways of women to justice, i.e., socio-cultural norms that discourage women to report crime immediately and burden women with the perception of society, shame, and guilt-tripping, economic dependence that limits their legal action and denies them autonomy of their own lives, procedural and institutional biases within law enforcement and judiciary where women often face sexual harassment or unusual delay in justice delivery, and inter-sectional disadvantages that severely affects women from marginalized communities. At the same time, to show where progress is taking root, this study critically evaluates the introduction of many recent opportunities to favour women, i.e., fast-track courts, one-stop crisis centres, women’s help desks, and growing engagements of civil society. By bridging doctrinal analysis with empirical data, this research aims to reveal where reform is truly needed and how it can move beyond symbolic access towards equitable justice for all women.

On 11 April 2024, the European Union adopted a revised Environmental Crime Directive (ECD), marking a significant shift in the global approach to environmental criminal law. By recognising that environmental harm can be criminally prosecutable even when committed under the guise of regulatory compliance, the Directive introduces the concept of autonomous environmental crimes based on a ‘manifest breach of relevant substantive legal requirements. This development challenges the traditional doctrine wherein administrative permits often shield polluters from criminal liability. For a country like India, which continues to rely heavily on civil sanctions and weak criminal enforcement under environmental statutes such as the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and the Water and Air Acts, the ECD offers critical lessons. This paper analyses the transformative features of the revised ECD and explores their applicability within the Indian context. It argues that adopting similar mechanisms—such as recognising ecocide as a grave criminal offence, codifying substantive environmental duties, and removing immunity for actions conducted under valid permits—could significantly strengthen India's environmental jurisprudence. However, the challenge lies in ensuring such reforms align with fundamental criminal law principles like legality and legal certainty.

This study is based on the landslide-prone Champawat district of Kumaon division in Uttarakhand, India. This disaster refers to an unstable mountain prone to landslides. The site of the landslide is located on Champawat NH-09 in the Swala region, which passes through several villages. This place is known as the Tanakpur-Champawat-Pithoragarh highway. The study provides the persistent landslide vulnerability perspective of the Swala area. This study considers legal aspects and various case analysis articles. A detailed explanation of the environmental conditions and human challenges of Swala has been provided to understand the ground-level problems of the landslide. The analysis addresses environmental impacts, economic destruction, loss of biodiversity, and road and infrastructure damage. This research has examined many landslides year after year through newspaper reports and data so that landslide risks can be mitigated through early warning systems and better infrastructure.

Despite constitutional safeguards designed to protect the rights of the accused, India’s criminal justice system faces a systemic crisis of wrongful convictions. Recent high-profile exonerations—such as the acquittals of twelve accused in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts and seven in the 2008 Malegaon blast—have thrust these failures back into the public discourse. These cases expose critical procedural lapses, compromised investigative integrity, prosecutorial misconduct, and severe systemic delays that ultimately render justice elusive. This paper examines the multifaceted nature of wrongful convictions, analyzing miscarriages of justice under both general criminal statutes and stringent special legislation. It delves into the structural catalysts behind these failures, specifically evaluating how institutional pressures drive police misconduct and coerced confessions. Finally, the paper addresses the legislative vacuum regarding state accountability, focusing on the unimplemented compensation framework proposed by the Law Commission of India in its 2018 report. The paper concludes by advocating for targeted legislative and institutional reforms to restore due process at the foundational stage of criminal investigations.

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence has fundamentally disrupted the foundational assumptions underlying copyright law. Tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Google Gemini can now produce novels, musical compositions, legal documents, and artwork with minimal human input, raising a question that Indian law is presently ill-equipped to answer: who, if anyone, owns the copyright in an AI-generated work? This paper examines that question through the lens of the Copyright Act, 1957. It argues that the Act’s human-centric framework, anchored in the definition of “author” under Section 2(d) and reinforced by the supreme court’s landmark ruling in Eastern Book Company v. DB Modak, categorically excludes AI systems from authorship. The Modak standard, which requires the exercise of independent skill and judgment by a human mind, cannot be satisfied by a process that is fundamentally computational. Even Section 2(d)(vi), inserted by the 1994 amendment to address computer-generated works, offers no meaningful relief for outputs produced by fully autonomous generative systems. The paper further analyses two significant recent developments. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026 introduced India’s first statutory definition of Synthetically Generated Information, signalling legislative awareness of AI-generated content without resolving its copyright status. Separately, the supreme court’s observations in Gummadi Usha Rani v. Sure Mallikarjuna Rao and Heart and Soul Entertainment Ltd v. Deepak Bahry highlight the acute dangers of AI-generated fake legal citations which is a crisis that further complicates any case for extending copyright protection to ai outputs. Drawing on comparative analysis of the EU AI Act and existing Indian doctrine, the paper concludes with six targeted legislative proposals, including a sui generis protection regime, a text and data mining exception, and a graduated liability framework. These reforms are essential to bring Indian copyright law into the generative AI era.

It is becoming more and more crucial for companies to have a system in place to resolve business disputes in a timely, effective, and constructive manner due to the exponential growth of the global financial and business communities. When disagreements arise during business operations, the parties involved prefer to resolve their differences amicably and confidentially, allowing them to continue their usual business activities. The scope of implementing foreign arbitral awards in the Bangladeshi judicial system is examined in this paper, along with the role of arbitration in resolving cross-border trade disputes as compared to court proceedings.

Consent in Scheduled Areas is nowadays increasingly justified as a constitutional prerequisite of State intervention rather than a discretionary welfare measure. This paper suggests that the control framework of the Fifth Schedule and the inherent vulnerabilities of Adivasi landholding together make consent a constitutional rights-based bar rather than a mere procedural favor. The doctrinal problem, however, is that land acquisition in Scheduled Areas hardly ever follows a single piece of legislation. Rather, it is at the confluence of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 (PESA), the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (LARR), and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 (FRA). Each of these instruments endows the Gram Sabha with a legal persona but with different actions and consequences: consultation in PESA, prior consent and special safeguards in LARR, and rights confirmation and protection against displacement in FRA. The piece illustrates how these actions come into conflict in actual acquisition operations, more so in situations where "forest land" is at the same time a source of livelihood, a legal category, and an administrative entry point under forest clearance regimes. After analyzing Supreme Court and High Court decisions, the article points out how the courts have been in a dilemma that in some cases they have seen safeguards as mere policy directives and in others as binding constitutional promises. It further suggests a reconciliation method based on last resort necessity, FRA first sequencing, and a presumption that the consent of the Gram Sabha has to be free, informed, and through verifiable processes. The real world implications are demonstrated through official data sets concerning the demographic of Scheduled Tribes, the implementation of FRA, and the discrepancies in PESA rulemaking, which explain why the issue of the legality of acquisition can hardly be considered apart from the qualification of the institution for obtaining genuine consent. The consent-based principle, in other words, is picked up in the end as a necessary ground for constitutional equality in Fifth Schedule territories.

The development of Artificial Intelligence has brought about major transformations in the field of Technology, Healthcare, Education, finance and Governance. The recent trends suggest a massive shift in the use of AI from being a techno-centric, conventional mechanism to a contemporary solution to all modern-day needs. The growth of AI is prima facie based on the advancement of Human intelligence and its desire to turn every facet to transform challenges into major revolutions. There is no denying the fact that AI has been developing the potential of thinking and processing on its own without any human interference in the near future. However, the idea of bringing about an AI revolution has, in itself, brought forward many unforeseeable challenges to be addressed. Innovations in the field of Artificial Intelligence are rising on an alarming scale, and it is an undisputed fact that development should not compromise individual identity and autonomy, but the large-scale use and growing dependence on AI have led to the introduction of mechanisms like Algorithmic Governance and AI-driven surveillance systems. This paper examines such contemporary challenges posed by the rise of AI-driven surveillance against the digital liberty and fundamental right to Privacy of citizens at large as guaranteed by virtue of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The study adopts a Doctrinal methodology drawing emphasis upon the Constitutional Framework, Statutory analysis and Judicial Opinions, focusing on analysing the adequacy of the present laws in dealing with AI-based Surveillance.

The paper examines the adequacy of existing legal frameworks in governing AI-enabled surveillance technologies, like facial recognition and predictive crowd-management tools, in relation to the right to peaceful assembly. It analyses the implications of these technologies under Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, highlighting case studies from the UK, US, and China. The findings indicate that AI policing tools significantly chill assembly rights, which current proportionality and necessity doctrines fail to address. Although the EU AI Act will ban real-time biometric identification in public from February 2025, retrospective surveillance remains categorised as “high-risk,” delaying compliance obligations until December 2027. The UK lacks any statutory regulations. The paper advocates for targeted legislation, mandatory human rights impact assessments, and independent algorithmic audits as necessary regulatory measures.

In the case of Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) sexual harassment at workplace was declared as an infringement on a woman’s fundamental rights to dignity, equality and safety. Vishaka guidelines provided relief until the enactment of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.This doctrinal study scrutinizes the statute, which, despite its protective intent, suffers from many lacunas such as narrow definitions, non application of the law to non-cis women, outdated notion of workplace in the era of work from home, alongside various procedural limitations that make the present redressal system rather confounding instead of remedial. This study concludes with suggestions for legislative amendments that could assist to ensure a safe workplace.

The deviance of teachers within educational institutions is a matter of growing socio-legal import, one that strikes at the heart of the education system’s integrity and the very ethics of the profession while putting student safety at risk. We are seeing a range of deviant conduct from the teaching ranks: professional and cyber misconduct, corruption, negligence, abuse of power, discrimination, corporal and sexual harassment, and outright flouting of institutional rules. This kind of behaviour is an affront to the constitutional and human rights of students and serves to erode public confidence and discipline in schools. With more cases of teacher misconduct coming to light in universities, colleges and schools of late, there is a clear need for tighter legal oversight and for institutions to be held to account. With the Indian legal framework in mind, this article offers a critical look at the law as it pertains to teacher deviance. We put under the microscope the judicial response to such matters and the statutory and disciplinary provisions that govern them, not to mention the constitutional safeguards for students. The paper also considers how regulatory bodies and educational authorities are faring in their efforts to stem this tide of deviant behaviour, with particular attention to ethical lapses in academia, the misuse of digital media, discrimination and sexual offences against the young. In assessing whether current laws and enforcement are up to the task, we find shortcomings; procedural hold-ups, a dearth of accountability, institutional bias and the fact that many cases go unreported are among the obstacles. Adopting a socio-legal lens, the study puts forward some much needed reforms to better protect students and instil a sense of ethical professionalism. Our contention is that you cannot preserve the standing of an educational institution without a sound mix of preventive regulation, vigilance on the part of the institution, and a firm hand in both legal accountability and ethical training.

Artificial intelligence has become increasingly popular for creating literature, artwork, and computer programming in today's digital world. The prompt, or the directions given by humans to the machine, is what lead every piece of AI-generated content. So as prompts become more creative, inventively advanced, and detailed, this creates a lot of questions on whether prompts can be considered original and intellectual works under copyright law. This paper explores whether or not AI-generated prompts may meet the criteria for copyright protection in India as laid out by the Indian Copyright Act of 1957. Through an examination of Indian copyright laws, including the rule of originality based on the "modicum of creativity" doctrine (which is defined as having at least some degree of creativity or skill, versus just effort or labour), this study will show how drafting and formulating a prompt with sufficient skill, creativity, and thought into it may meet the originality requirement and therefore qualify for copyright protection. This paper also will explore the idea-expression dichotomy, which determines the difference between ideas which cannot be copyrighted from the way in which they are expressed (which is copyrightable). This paper argues that using generic prompts made up of simple instructions will probably not qualify for copyright, but on the other hand, those prompts with significant creativity (e.g., prompts having complex structure, layered instructions, or unique formulation) may qualify as copyrightable works. Additionally, the paper discusses an increasing need for an established legal and regulatory framework for prompt engineering in India. By recognizing prompts as a separate category of intellectual property, prompt engineering can inspire further creative works, help establish greater certainty around ownership rights and contribute to the ongoing discussion surrounding creativity in the age of artificial intelligence.

The rapid expansion of digital communication and information technology has transformed governance, public administration, economic transactions, and interpersonal interaction. Alongside these developments, electronic communication surveillance has emerged as one of the most significant instruments employed by modern states for maintaining national security, preventing crime, regulating cyberspace, and preserving public order. However, surveillance activities involving interception, monitoring, storage, analysis, and collection of personal information raise serious constitutional and human rights concerns, particularly concerning the right to privacy. In India, the growing deployment of surveillance mechanisms through technological systems such as interception frameworks, data monitoring tools, centralized databases, and digital identification systems has generated substantial debate regarding legality, proportionality, transparency, and accountability. This research examines the legal and constitutional framework governing electronic communication surveillance and collection of personal data in India. The study evaluates the relationship between state surveillance and individual privacy by analysing statutory provisions under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, the Information Technology Act, 2000, and associated rules regulating interception and monitoring powers. It further studies the evolution of privacy jurisprudence in India through landmark judicial decisions and evaluates whether existing safeguards adequately protect constitutional freedoms. The research also undertakes a comparative examination of surveillance regimes in selected jurisdictions including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Through comparative analysis, the study identifies gaps within the Indian legal framework and examines the need for stronger institutional oversight and legislative reform. Special emphasis has been placed upon judicial developments recognizing privacy as a constitutionally protected right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The research evaluates contemporary challenges including mass surveillance, technological advancement, inadequate regulation of intelligence agencies, data retention practices, lack of independent authorization mechanisms, and deficiencies in transparency. The study concludes that while surveillance remains necessary for legitimate governmental purposes, unrestricted surveillance threatens democratic governance and constitutional liberties. It recommends comprehensive privacy legislation, judicial oversight mechanisms, enhanced accountability structures, transparent interception procedures, and balanced regulatory measures to ensure harmonization between national security interests and protection of fundamental rights.

This paper examines at how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used in the Indian judiciary, showing how it has developed from old ways of keeping records during the colonial period to today’s “Digital Courts” project. While AI provides a groundbreaking solution to help clear India’s huge pile of unresolved cases, it has also created a risky problem called AI hallucination. Wherein AI systems generate fabricated legal references with apparent confidence. This study looks at how India handle things compared to the United Kingdom and the United States, and finds that there’s a worldwide challenge in keeping up with new ideas while making sure they are fair and responsible. In India, there have been recent cases where lawyers accidently gave false court decisions, showing a bigger problem with honesty and unethical behaviour in the legal profession. These mistakes are not just technical problems; they can damage people’s faith in the legal system. Using a doctrinal and comparative methodology, this paper analyses the legal and ethical challenges posed by AI hallucinations in the Indian judiciary. The paper says that AI can’t be safely used in the Indian legal system unless there is a strong set of rules and regulations in place. To ensure fair justice, India should require transparency by making it mandatory to reveal when content is created by AI, it should focus on educating judges and lawyers about how AI works. This study argues that although AI can help in the legal field, it should never take the place of the real facts that are proven in court.

The advent of internet has led to an expansion in the ambit of ‘crimes’ and ‘offenders’. The perpetrators are now become capable of unethical conduct via non-physical mediums i.e. the internet space. Although a necessity, the cyber space has also become a breeding ground for online offenders and like-minded persons. Internet intermediaries like the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), network operators, social networking sites, etc. serve as a medium for the growing cyber offences. This paper explores the fine line between an intermediary acting as a neutral conduit and an accomplice in criminal activity. It revolves around the analysis of cyber-crimes, the liabilities of intermediaries and the provisions for safe harbour for such intermediaries under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules . As platforms have evolved from passive hosts to algorithmic curators, the traditional "safe harbour" protection available to them has been under close scrutiny of the Judiciary. The landmark Avnish Baja and Shreya Singhal cases are just a couple of the many examples where the Courts have undertaken to illustrate the role and liability of these platforms. The real issue is: do we hold these platforms responsible for what their users do, or would it discourage the intermediaries thereby end up killing creativity and silencing their right to speak freely? This paper further examines the technical and ethical challenges of cyber-crime mitigation. Ultimately, the research argues for a balanced regulatory approach. We can’t expect the internet intermediaries to be mere bystanders nor can we expect them to always keep a check over the endless cyber space.

The rapid growth of digital commerce has made domain names more valuable as important business identifiers. However, this also makes cybersquatting and trade name abuse more likely in online ads. This article compares the laws in the US, India, and the EU that protect trade names and stop cybersquatting. It looks at how cybersquatters use domain names and advertising methods, like misleading URLs and search engine marketing, to steal customers, hurt brand value, and make money illegally. This study analyzes significant legal frameworks, including the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) in the United States, the trademark and unfair competition laws of the European Union, and the Trademark Act and Information Technology Act of India. The essay shows how the legal systems in different places are similar and different by looking at how courts have ruled in the past and how laws are enforced. It also looks at how well the current solutions deal with the new problems that online advertising causes. The article's conclusion proposes harmonized and technologically astute legislative measures to enhance trade name protection and effectively combat cybersquatting in the global digital economy.

Tanzania’s Constitution of 1977, Article 41(7), absolutely prohibits any judicial inquiry into the election of the President once the National Electoral Commission has declared a winner. This total ouster clause stands in stark contrast to Kenya’s rights compliant framework under Article 140 of the 2010 Constitution, which guarantees any person the right to petition the Supreme Court challenging a presidential election. This article undertakes a comparative doctrinal analysis to assess the impact of these divergent legal regimes on democratic consolidation and the protection of fundamental rights, specifically the right to a fair hearing and the right to an effective remedy under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Drawing on administrative law principles governing ouster clauses and the theoretical framework of democratic consolidation, the article finds that Tanzania’s prohibition constitutes a fundamental rights violation, directly conflicting with its binding treaty obligations. The absence of judicial review insulates presidential elections from legal accountability, weakens public confidence in electoral integrity, and undermines democratic consolidation. By contrast, Kenya’s model demonstrated most powerfully in the 2017 Raila Odinga nullification shows that judicial review strengthens electoral accountability and deepens democratic norms without destabilising the political order. The article concludes that Tanzania’s ouster clause is incompatible with the rule of law and regional commitments under the East African Community Treaty. It recommends constitutional reform to permit judicial review of presidential elections, regional harmonisation of electoral justice standards, and, as an interim measure, judicial interpretive techniques to circumscribe the ouster clause where fundamental rights are at stake.

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 was enacted to deal with a rising issue of economic fugitives absconding from India to elude prosecution in criminal courts and potential liability. The act authorizes the government to confiscate property of those declared as fugitive economic offenders and limits their entitlement to civil remedies. As stated above, while the act provides the opportunity to enhance economic governance and accountability, it has presented substantial Due Process and basic rights Concerns within the context of the Indian Constitution. This paper will examine the constitutional legitimacy of the act, especially given the constraints set forth in Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The paper will consider if the provisions concerning seizure and confiscation of property, prohibition from seeking or defending civil actions and the expansive discretion provided to enforcement agencies meet the criteria of fairness, reasonableness and non-arbitrary behavior established through Judicial precedent. Further, this paper will assess how the act affects the principle of equality before law, the freedom to engage in a profession, presumption of innocence and access to justice. Ultimately, the paper posits that although fighting against economic offenses is a legitimate governmental goal, the provisions of the Constitution cannot be sacrificed to achieve that goal. Therefore, a balanced approach that includes both procedural safeguards and proportionality is needed so as to maintain the rule of law and constitutional morality.

Based on the 2019 constitutional amendments, Mongolia articulated the concept of judicial reform and enacted the revised Law on the Judiciary in 2021. Within the framework of this reform, fundamental changes were introduced to the system for ensuring uniform application of law. As a result, although Mongolia is a civil law jurisdiction adhering to the doctrine of jurisprudence constante, certain decisions of the Supreme Court have acquired normative force. However, these structural and procedural legislative changes remain insufficient to fully achieve the objective of ensuring uniform application of law. It is necessary to adopt measures that highlight decisions of significant importance to the attention of judges and legal practitioners, and to strengthen the persuasive authority of decisions of civil law system in Mongolia. This paper analyzes the current system of ensuring uniform application of law in Mongolia, reviews relevant statistical data, and concludes that the main area for improvement lies in the development of “soft mechanisms.”

Digital taxation is an issue in international economic law today. This is because big companies do business online without having offices in the countries where they operate. India has made some laws and rules to deal with the problems that come with taxation. These include the Equalisation Levy, Significant Economic Presence rules and taxes on services. This article looks at taxation from Indias point of view. It talks about what digital taxation's how it has changed and the laws that govern it. The article also discusses how courts have handled taxation cases and the problems that people face when dealing with it. It looks at what's happening internationally especially with the OECD and G20 and how this affects Indias digital taxation rules. Digital taxation is an issue and India is working to find ways to tax digital businesses. The article examines the framework of digital taxation and the challenges that come with it. Digital taxation is an issue, for India and the world and this article tries to understand it better.

The Indian criminal justice system is constitutionally founded upon the principles of dignity, liberty, fairness, and procedural justice. Despite the existence of an extensive legal framework governing arrest, detention, and incarceration, the operational realities within custodial institutions often reveal a stark deviation from constitutional ideals. This paper critically analyses the widening gap between the normative structure of Indian criminal jurisprudence and the lived realities experienced by individuals subjected to custodial processes. By examining arrest procedures, police powers, prison administration, bail jurisprudence, socio-economic inequalities, and psychological dimensions of incarceration, the paper argues that the criminal justice system frequently transforms from an institution of lawful regulation into a mechanism of structural marginalisation and psychological deterioration. The study adopts a doctrinal and analytical methodology supported by constitutional provisions, landmark judicial precedents, Law Commission reports, prison reform committee recommendations, and experiential observations reflecting ground-level realities. Particular emphasis has been placed upon the contradiction between “law in books” and “law in action,” especially in relation to custodial violence, delays in bail hearings, prison overcrowding, inadequate legal awareness, and systemic inequality in access to justice. The paper further examines how prolonged incarceration and procedural uncertainty contribute not merely to physical confinement but to psychological destabilisation and social alienation. It argues that the existing system inadequately addresses the reformative philosophy theoretically embedded within Indian penology and instead often perpetuates cycles of fear, stigma, institutional distrust, and criminal socialisation. Through a constitutional and human-rights-oriented lens, the paper concludes that meaningful prison reform requires more than statutory amendments. It necessitates structural accountability, legal literacy, judicial efficiency, transparent custodial oversight, and a shift from punitive administration towards rights-based correctional governance.

The Indian justice system faces significant challenges in addressing minor offences, including the case backlogs, limited access to legal aid, and inadequate victim participation, making restorative justice a promising alternative to retributive punishment. While the mechanisms such as Lok Adalats and mediation already exist, their integration with modern technology remains underdeveloped, creating a gap in scholarship on how artificial intelligence (AI) can operationalize restorative justice. This paper examines the effectiveness of AI-driven restorative justice for minor offences in India by analysing the role of predictive analytics in case diversion and digital victim support platforms in enhancing participation, alongside the potential of AI-powered legal aid to democratize access to justice for the marginalized communities. This paper uses a doctrinal approach that combines doctrinal analysis of Indian legal frameworks, case studies, comparative insights from international jurisdictions, the research finds that predictive analytics can identify cases suitable for restorative justice and reduce judicial backlog, while digital victim support platforms improve victim empowerment and satisfaction, particularly when integrated with multilingual AI interfaces. AI-powered legal aid tools further enhance accessibility for rural populations, though concerns around bias, privacy, and digital exclusion persist. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for a policy framework that integrates AI-driven legal aid, predictive analytics, and victim support into restorative justice mechanisms, thereby transforming India’s justice delivery into a more inclusive, efficient, and victim-centred system while ensuring ethical safeguards and human oversight.

This article critically examines honour-based violence (HBV) in India through the analytical lens of reproductive autonomy, situating it within broader socio-legal structures of caste, kinship, and gender regulation. It argues that while Indian constitutional jurisprudence has progressively recognised elements of reproductive and decisional autonomy under Articles 14, 19, and 21, the legal framework remains constrained in addressing HBV as a systemic violation of bodily integrity. It draws upon doctrinal analysis of key Supreme Court decisions, including Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, the study highlights the gap between formal rights recognition and their substantive enforcement in socially coercive contexts. The article further explores how extra-legal actors, including caste councils and familial institutions, mediate reproductive choices, thereby limiting the effectiveness of state protection mechanisms and producing persistent vulnerabilities in inter-caste and inter-community relationships.

The integration of modern technology in cooperative banking marks a significant shift in how these community-based financial institutions operate and serve their members. Traditionally known for their localized, member-centric approach, cooperative banks are now embracing digital innovations to enhance efficiency, transparency and inclusivity. The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act No. 16 of 2025) seeks to strengthen governance, capitalization and oversight of cooperative banks in India to prevent a bigger crisis, non-performing assets and risks that could affect the whole system, improve depositor protection and enhance supervisory oversight of cooperative banks in India. However, the act overlooks the significant technology infrastructure deficits affecting these institutions such as outdated core banking systems, inadequate cybersecurity frameworks and limited digital adoption - which continue to hinder regulatory compliance and operational resilience. Findings reveal a policy gap: while the Act introduces managerial reforms, it fails to address technology deficits that amplify operational vulnerabilities, potentially undermine financial inclusion goals. By identifying this as a structural flaw, the study proposes amendments including mandatory IT infrastructure and RBI-led digital transformation. With the right blend of policy support and these recommendations cooperative banks can evolve into technology-capable institutions that remain their member-centric character while meeting contemporary compliance and security channels while ensuring cooperative banks sustainability.

The slow process of judicial service is often referred by a term, “justice delayed is justice denied”. And when the same process takes speedy delivery of justice then it is termed as, “justice hurried is justice buried”. A common man’s expectation to get timely relief from the court is a dream cum lifelong project which takes undue, unnecessary and frivolous time of the disputants and in many cases, the relief can be seen hardly getting any motivated outcomes. This is one amongst the series of problems revolving around the Judicial structure of the country. In India, Judiciary plays a crucial role when it exercises its power of checks and balances upon other two major bodies of the government, i.e., Legislative and Executive. Supreme Court being the guardian of the Constitution has taken several steps to make the judicial system of India more robust with the help of several technological advancement in the Supreme court as well as in the High court but the lower judiciary which is considered to be the backbone of the entire judicial system is quite far from its service. As of today, there are almost 4.90 crore cases pending in India out which more than 3.78 crore are criminal and 1.11 crore are civil cases in the district and taluka levels. According to the NJDG data , the reason for such delays are mainly due to securing presence and unattended court proceedings by the parties. This raises serious concern not only on the part of judiciary but also on the part of other stakeholders involved in making laws and executing the same.

The digital revolution has expanded the frontiers of terrorism beyond physical violence into cyberspace. Cyber-terrorism—manifested through large-scale cyber-attacks, online radicalization, and digital sabotage—poses unique challenges to the existing definition of terrorism under international law. Despite several UN Security Council resolutions and sectoral conventions, international law still lacks a uniform and comprehensive definition that accommodates these emerging threats. This paper critically examines the inadequacy of traditional legal definitions of terrorism in addressing cyber operations by non-state actors. It explores whether existing frameworks, such as the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, effectively encompass the complex dimensions of cyber-terrorism. Focusing on India’s role, the paper analyses how domestic laws the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and the Information Technology Act, 2000 can be harmonized with evolving international norms. It further evaluates India’s participation in global counter-terrorism initiatives and its potential leadership in advancing a more inclusive international definition of terrorism that recognizes cyber dimensions. Adopting a doctrinal and comparative methodology, the study highlights the need for India to strengthen its legal preparedness while engaging proactively in international law-making processes. It concludes that India can play a pivotal role in shaping a balanced and forward-looking global framework against cyber-terrorism within the contemporary international legal order.

This article examines the legal framework which are introduced in India for prevention of corruption in the nation. It examines what were the ancient scholar like Kautilya views on corruption, what type of corruption occurred in ancient India. This article also examines the corruption in medieval India and what were the anti- corruption measures which were taken in colonial and pre-independence period whether it is introduction of relevant provision of IPC which dealt with corruption which prevail among public servant, or the introduction of criminal law amendment ordinance 1944 or PC Act which was the law which directly dealt with corruption. It also states about the major amendment related to corruption like Criminal law Amendment Act 1952, Anti-Corruption laws(amendment) Act, 1964 or the introduction of Key report on corruption which is K Sanathanam Report on corruption. This article also states about key provision of PC Act, 1988 and Key provision of PMLA Act, 2002 which acts as gatekeeper for preventing the corruption in India. This article also states about the provisions related to Enforcement Directorate and Special Courts.

In international commercial arbitration, multi-tier arbitration clauses—also known as escalation or filter clauses—are a sophisticated mechanism that requires parties to complete specified pre-arbitral dispute-resolution procedures, usually negotiation or mediation, before moving on to formal arbitration. Drawing on international instruments such as the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation (2002), the ICC ADR Rules (2001), and India’s Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, this article critically examines the enforceability and mandatory nature of such clauses across various jurisdictions. Through important rulings such as Cable and Wireless, Walford v. Miles, Emirates Trading Agency LLC v. Prime Mineral Exports Pvt. Ltd., and Sulamerica, the paper examines how courts handle unclear and imprecise multi-tier provisions, as well as the legal ramifications of non-compliance. It also questions whether the national court or the arbitral tribunal should resolve disputes arising from these clauses. With countries differing significantly on questions of enforceability, the research reveals a recurring tension between party autonomy and the public-policy goal of amicable resolution. The study concludes that, although certainty of wording is the crucial criterion, courts and tribunals should try to give escalation provisions purposive effect, combining commercial efficiency with the fundamentally consensual nature of arbitration.

Despite of taking actions and making laws against the offence of acid attack, India is one of the countries in the world that witnesses the highest case of acid attacks. It is not gender based, but now a days It becomes the gender-based crime. We call acid attack as heinous crime which is usually committed against the women with the intention to take revenge, kill her or any other reason could be. According to a study, it states that 78% of the acid attacks in which FIR (complaints) has been filed is due to the refusal of marriage or a rejection of romance. Most of the common acid which has been using by the accused is Sulphuric acid, nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. There are many everlasting sequels of acid throwing which consists of permanent scaring of face or body, blindness as well as socio-economic and psychological intricacy. Now there has been Amendment in criminal laws and supreme court of India has also passed guidelines for making the criminal laws stricter. In 2013, criminal law (Amendment) Act has been passed. But the survey says that the cases has been increasing day by day. This article deals with the terrible effects that acid attacks have on the victims in all the spheres as well as examines the contemporary laws governing acid attacks.

Technology has become an integral part of the legal profession and has significantly transformed the manner in which legal services are delivered. From legal research and legal education to dispute resolution and client communication, technological advancements are reshaping the legal industry and making the justice delivery system more efficient, accessible, and cost-effective. Innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain technology, and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) have simplified several legal processes. AI enables faster legal research and drafting, blockchain ensures the secure and tamper-resistant execution of smart contracts, and ODR provides an affordable alternative to traditional court proceedings. The growing use of digital platforms, virtual hearings, and online legal services has also enhanced access to justice, particularly for individuals residing in remote areas. However, despite these advantages, the increasing dependence on technology in the legal profession has also raised several concerns. Improperly designed or unregulated AI systems may lead to bias, discrimination, misleading content, and inaccuracies, which can adversely affect the legal system. Concerns relating to data privacy, cybersecurity, and the protection of confidential client information have also become significant issues requiring proper legal regulation and ethical oversight. Although some believe that AI may replace lawyers in the future, the legal profession continues to require human reasoning, ethical judgment, practical experience, and emotional understanding, which cannot be fully replicated by technology. AI can assist legal professionals and reduce their workload, but it cannot replace the essential human elements involved in legal practice. Therefore, there is a need to equip legal professionals with technological skills while simultaneously ensuring proper regulation, ethical standards, and data-protection mechanisms to maintain fairness and justice in the evolving legal landscape.

Reasoned awards constitute the cornerstone of transparency, accountability, and fairness in arbitral adjudication. In contemporary arbitration jurisprudence, the obligation to provide reasons in an arbitral award has evolved from a procedural formality into a substantive requirement that strengthens the legitimacy and enforceability of arbitral decisions. This paper critically examines the concept of reasoned awards within the framework of Indian arbitration law, with particular emphasis on the statutory mandate under Section 31(3) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The study analyses the legislative intent behind requiring reasons in arbitral awards and explores the circumstances under which parties may dispense with such reasoning. The study begins by analysing the evolution and concept of arbitral awards under the Arbitration Act, 1940, the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, and the Arbitration Act 1996, tracing the transition from limited statutory guidance to a structured obligation requiring tribunals to provide intelligible reasons. The paper further examines the statutory framework governing reasoned awards under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 and evaluates the legislative intent behind mandating reasons in arbitral decisions, except where parties have expressly agreed otherwise. The paper also analyses the relationship between reasoned awards and the doctrines of natural justice, procedural fairness, and party autonomy. It argues that reasoned awards enhance confidence in arbitration by ensuring that parties understand the basis of the tribunal’s conclusions, thereby reducing allegations of arbitrariness and bias. Simultaneously, excessive judicial scrutiny of reasoning may risk transforming courts into appellate forums, contrary to the pro-arbitration objectives of the legislation. Further, the study examines the legal implications of defective reasoning, including challenges to enforcement, setting aside of awards, and the impact on arbitration as an effective alternative dispute resolution mechanism. The article concludes that a balanced approach is necessary—one that preserves arbitral autonomy while ensuring that arbitral tribunals provide intelligible and legally sustainable reasons capable of withstanding judicial review.

Three legal problems have converged, each difficult on its own. Digital platforms hosting child sexual abuse material resist accountability behind safe harbour law. End-to-end encryption creates a detection void that regulators are filling with mandates that are technically impossible to fulfil. And generative AI has broken the one assumption holding the entire global detection infrastructure together: that illegal content, once identified, can be fingerprinted and found again. This paper examines all three through Indian law, with international frameworks used not as models to copy but as pressure tests. The central argument is that India’s intermediary liability regime, as operationalised by the IT Rules, 2021, contains a structural impossibility. Its proactive detection obligations apply to end-to-end encrypted platforms without specifying how detection is supposed to happen on a medium that is, by mathematical design, unreadable by the platform itself. Fulfilling those obligations requires breaking encryption, and breaking encryption would violate the constitutional right to privacy that the Supreme Court recognised in K.S. Puttaswamy. The paper analyses Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish (2024 INSC 716) with doctrinal precision, examines the EU Chat Control debate and the May 2026 AI Act amendment as comparative evidence, identifies the legal vacuum around AI-generated CSAM in Indian law, and proposes a three-part reformulation grounded in what the Constitution permits, what technology can actually do, and what enforcement requires. Child protection does not require giving up on encryption. It requires being honest about what each technical tool can and cannot accomplish.

India occupies a deeply paradoxical position in the global refugee protection matrix: it hosts one of the largest populations of displaced persons in South Asia yet remains outside the principal international legal instruments governing their protection. Absent a domestic refugee law and without accession to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, India’s management of approximately 250,000 registered refugees, alongside several million undocumented cross-border migrants, is characterised by administrative discretion, legislative silence, and institutional incoherence. This paper examines the multi-layered marginalisation suffered by refugees and cross-border immigrants in India, operating simultaneously at the levels of law, policy, socio-economics, and political identity. Drawing upon international refugee law, constitutional jurisprudence, comparative frameworks, and an analysis of landmark judicial decisions, the paper argues that India’s existing legal apparatus, anchored in archaic colonial legislation, fails to adequately protect the fundamental human rights of these vulnerable populations. The paper further interrogates the securitisation of migration as an ideological construct that criminalises forced displacement and renders invisible its humanitarian dimensions. It concludes with a normative framework for a rights-based National Refugee Law that harmonises national security imperatives with India’s international human rights obligations, and charts a path toward the ‘desecuritisation’ of migration in South Asia.

Earlier agricultural strategies emphasised state intervention, subsidies, and land reforms to promote equity and support small farmers. However, post-1991 reforms marked a shift toward market-driven policies, reduced public investment, and increased exposure to global price volatility. Studies consistently show that, while liberalisation created new growth opportunities, it disproportionately burdened small and marginal farmers through rising input costs, weakened safety nets, and deepening rural distress. Contemporary analyses of subsidies and contract farming laws underscore the continued tension between efficiency-oriented reforms and the need to protect vulnerable farmers. Broader examinations of neoliberal governance and long-term reform outcomes reveal persistent inequalities and uneven benefits. Collectively, the literature indicates that liberalisation, though growth-enhancing, has fallen short of Rawlsian distributive justice by failing to adequately improve the conditions of the least advantaged in rural India, underscoring the need for more equitable, farmer-focused policy interventions.

Women in the unorganised sector are generally unskilled and undereducated labourers who face many serious work-related problems at their workplaces. Despite these challenges, poverty, limited education, lack of skills, and family circumstances often leave them with little alternative to such employment. Their skills are rarely advanced, as they are typically restricted to certain types of work and generally assist male workers. India represents one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, with a large number of women employed across its many unorganised sectors, including agriculture, construction, and small-scale industries. The agricultural industry is the largest employer of unskilled labour in the Indian economy, followed by the construction industry. Although a large number of women work in the unorganised sector, the question of whether they are satisfied and feel engaged in their work deserves critical attention. This paper identifies the factors responsible for low work engagement among women workers and, drawing on existing literature on work engagement and women in the unorganised sector, relates the challenges they face to low work engagement in the form of low vigour, dedication, and absorption.

The systematic integration of forensic science into contemporary legal education has become essential to enhance the quality of criminal adjudication and align curricula with the interdisciplinary demands of the modern legal profession. Globalization, technological change, and the expanding reach of law across various domains have made specialized, cross-disciplinary training essential for lawyers, judges, and prosecutors. National Education Policy 2020 reinforces this shift by calling for globally competitive legal education that adopts best practices and remains grounded in constitutional values and socio-cultural contexts. Forensic science occupies a pivotal position at the intersection of law and medicine: forensic reports and expert evidence increasingly shape criminal investigations and trial outcomes. Judicial standards for assessing scientific reliability—exemplified by landmark rulings such as Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals—require legal actors to critically evaluate the validity and admissibility of scientific evidence. Yet current legal curricula often lack structured exposure to scientific methods, evidentiary interpretation, and the limitations of forensic techniques. This paper examines key forensic disciplines, principles of evidence evaluation, and procedural responsibilities of legal professionals in screening expert testimony. It identifies pedagogical gaps and proposes curricular reforms—including course modules, clinical training, and collaborative programs with forensic scientists—to foster evidentiary literacy and interdisciplinary competence. By equipping law students with a working knowledge of forensic methodologies, error sources, and standards of reliability, legal education can improve fact-finding, reduce wrongful convictions, and strengthen public confidence in the justice system. Integrating forensic science thus advances both effective adjudication and the broader objectives of legal education: promoting rule of law, human rights, and socially responsive, evidence-based legal practice.

The advent of generative artificial intelligence has posed significant challenges to the basic concepts that lie at the heart of copyright law, such as originality, authorship, and creativity. Current AI technologies can independently create literary, artistic, musical, software and audiovisual works without significant human input. This technological progress poses new questions on whether it is possible and permissible for the current copyright regime to protect works which have been produced independently or substantially using generative AI technology. Traditionally, copyright jurisprudence has always taken a stance that creativity comes from human intellect and personality alone. This paper tries to look into the concept of ‘human creativity threshold’ within the context of copyright law and analyses whether the works produced through AI meet contemporary requirements of originality and authorship. The paper analyses the Indian legal scenario in comparison with the laws in other major economies such as the USA, UK, and EU. The paper contends that AI-generated work, which is completely autonomous from any human contribution, should not be awarded copyright. Nevertheless, work generated by an AI system that involves substantial input from a human creator through prompting or selection can meet the required standard of originality. The paper concludes that there is a need for a more nuanced approach to addressing such problems, known as the human contribution test.

The rapid growth of digital technology and blockchain innovation has transformed the nature of commercial transactions across the globe. Smart contracts, self-executing digital agreements that operate through blockchain technology, have emerged as an important tool in modern international commerce due to their efficiency, transparency, automation, and reduced dependency on intermediaries. However, the increasing use of smart contracts raises significant legal concerns regarding their recognition, validity, enforceability, jurisdiction, and dispute resolution under existing legal frameworks. This paper analyses the legal recognition and enforceability of smart contracts under Indian contract law and international commercial practice. It examines the applicability of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 and the Information Technology Act, 2000 in determining the validity of electronically executed agreements. This research further evaluates whether traditional contractual principles such as free consent, lawful consideration, offer and acceptance, and intention to create legal relations can effectively apply to automated blockchain-based contracts. It explores the international legal developments, including the role of UNCITRAL Model Laws and global commercial practices in facilitating cross-border digital transactions. The paper also identifies major challenges associated with smart contracts, including coding errors, cybersecurity risks, lack of regulatory clarity, jurisdictional conflicts, and limitations in dispute resolution mechanisms. The study concludes that although existing laws in India indirectly support the validity of electronic contracts, there remains a significant need for a specialised regulatory framework to address the unique legal and technological issues surrounding smart contracts. The paper suggests legal reforms and policy recommendations to ensure greater certainty, security, and enforceability in international digital commerce.

The right to health, protected by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, also applies to people in prison. Even when someone is incarcerated, they still hold fundamental rights. Since the State has full control over prisoners, it is responsible for their physical and mental health. This paper examines how the right to health is upheld for prisoners in India, particularly regarding mental healthcare under the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. The paper explores how the Constitution, the courts, and statutory law make healthcare a basic right for prisoners. It also describes the difficult conditions in Indian prisons, such as overcrowding, poor medical facilities, an insufficient number of mental health professionals, and the persistent stigma surrounding mental illness. These problems create a significant gap between what the law promises and what actually happens. By reviewing national reports and international standards, the paper identifies major problems in prison healthcare, including poor service delivery and the limited use of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, often because of structural and administrative issues. The findings show that broad reforms are needed, such as building stronger institutions, ensuring accountability, expanding mental health services, and raising awareness among prison staff and inmates. The study concludes that prison healthcare should reflect the constitutional values of dignity, equality, and humane treatment.

The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, remains a vital legislative vehicle for enforcing the constitutional mandate of Article 17, which abolishes "untouchability" in all forms. However, securing convictions under the Act historically suffered from insurmountable evidentiary hurdles, primarily due to the stringent judicial requirement that the prosecution prove the accused's subjective mens rea—specifically, their conscious awareness of the victim's caste identity. To alleviate this diagnostic paralysis, Parliament enacted the 2015 Amendment Act, introducing Section 8(c), which establishes a mandatory, rebuttable presumption of knowledge if the accused possessed personal acquaintance with the victim or their family. This paper examines the socio-legal transition of the Act from motive-driven liability to a relationship-centered evidentiary framework. Analyzing the strategic interaction of Section 8(c) with substantive offenses under Section 3(1)(w) and Section 3(2)(v), the paper explores how the presumption balances the traditional demands of criminal jurisprudence with the structural realities of localized, caste-stratified environments. The study concludes that Section 8(c) serves as an essential corrective measure, bridging the historical chasm between high rates of reported atrocities and low rates of conviction, thereby materializing the statutory promises of social dignity and equal protection.

Corporate liability refers to the legal responsibility of corporations and other business entities for wrongful acts committed by their directors, officers, employees, or agents in the course of business operations. With the increasing complexity of corporate structures and global commercial activities, determining accountability has become a significant legal challenge. Traditionally, corporations were considered incapable of committing crimes due to the absence of a physical mind or body; however, modern legal systems have developed doctrines such as vicarious liability, the identification theory, and strict liability to attribute criminal and civil responsibility to corporate entities. Corporate liability plays a crucial role in ensuring corporate governance, protecting stakeholders, and promoting ethical business conduct. It encompasses civil, criminal, regulatory, and environmental liabilities arising from fraud, negligence, statutory violations, and corporate misconduct. The evolution of corporate liability reflects a shift from individual culpability to collective accountability, emphasising the need for compliance mechanisms and corporate ethics programmes. This study critically examines the concept, legal framework, and contemporary challenges associated with corporate liability, highlighting its significance in fostering transparency, accountability, and sustainable corporate practices in the modern commercial world.

The enactment of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 marks a profound paradigm shift in India’s human rights jurisprudence, transitioning from a progressive ‘self-identification’ standard to a rigid, state-enforced medicalised verification model. By explicitly deleting the statutory guarantee to a self-perceived gender identity and making legal recognition contingent upon the mandatory recommendation of a Chief Medical Officer-led District Medical Board, the 2026 Amendment creates a direct structural confrontation with the foundational constitutional tenets established in National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) v. Union of India (2014). This article provides a granular, section-by-section statutory critique of the 2026 framework, evaluating its constitutional validity under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India. It exposes the ‘statutory erasure’ of non-binary, transmasculine, and genderqueer individuals through the shrunken definitions of Section 2, and tracks an alarming institutional regression within the newly added penal provisions of Section 18. By criminalising community induction under the vague language of ‘coerced identity’ and ‘allurement’, the state effectively resurrects the surveillance mechanics of the colonial Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, targeting traditional guru-chela kinship systems under the pretext of preventing welfare fraud. Analysing the Supreme Court’s May 2026 reference of these challenges to a Three-Judge Bench, this article proposes a dual-track administrative template that harmonises state record-keeping with the fundamental rights to bodily autonomy, privacy, and personal dignity.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in Himachal Pradesh represent a compelling yet underexplored interface between legal frameworks, indigenous knowledge systems, and inclusive economic growth. Nestled in the Western Himalayas, the state possesses abundant natural resources, rich biodiversity, traditional handicrafts, and unique agricultural produce that hold immense potential for value creation through patents, geographical indications (GIs), copyrights, and traditional knowledge protections. This research paper critically examines the scope of existing IPR regimes in Himachal Pradesh and their untapped potential to catalyse sustainable economic development, particularly in rural and hilly terrains where agriculture, horticulture, tourism, and artisanal industries sustain local livelihoods. It contends that the strategic deployment of IPR tools can transform place-specific assets into drivers of revenue generation, employment creation, and regional competitiveness, yet systemic barriers, such as low awareness among stakeholders, weak enforcement mechanisms, and fragmented institutional coordination, continue to constrain their developmental impact. The study analyses how IPRs contribute to economic upliftment by safeguarding innovations in herbal pharmaceuticals and biotechnology derived from Himalayan flora, protecting GIs such as Kangra Tea and Chamba Rumal, and preserving copyrights over folk arts and handicrafts. It further explores direct and indirect employment effects through enhanced market access, premium pricing, tourism linkages, and supply-chain integration. Adopting a doctrinal and comparative legal methodology, the research evaluates India’s national IPR statutes (the Patents Act, 1970, the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, and the Copyright Act, 1957) against their application in Himachal’s unique socio-ecological context. Qualitative case studies of selected local assets, combined with stakeholder interviews, government reports, and secondary economic data, illuminate both modest successes and persistent challenges, including benefit-sharing inequities under the Biological Diversity Act, high compliance costs for small producers, and limited international recognition. The research paper demonstrates that IPRs, when harmonised with state-specific policies on rural development and biodiversity conservation, can function as proactive instruments of equitable growth rather than mere defensive legal tools. It identifies critical gaps in legal design and implementation while proposing targeted reforms, such as simplified registration processes, strengthened collective management organisations, capacity-building initiatives for local communities, and the integration of IPR strategies into Himachal’s tourism and horticulture policies. By offering a nuanced law-and-development perspective tailored to a Himalayan state, this research provides actionable insights for policymakers, legislators, and practitioners aiming to harness intellectual property law for resilient and inclusive economic progress in ecologically sensitive regions.

Marital rape remains a controversial issue in Indian criminal law, where the exception to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (now Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita) exempts husbands from liability for non-consensual sexual acts with their wives. This study examines the concept, historical evolution, and socio-cultural factors influencing this exception. It evaluates the exception’s constitutional validity under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India, focusing on equality, dignity, and personal liberty. The research also analyses judicial trends through cases such as Independent Thought v. Union of India and RIT Foundation v. Union of India. A comparative study with international legal frameworks highlights the gap in Indian law. The study concludes that the marital rape exception is inconsistent with constitutional principles and recommends legal reform and greater awareness.

This research paper examines the escalating crisis of undertrial incarceration in India, where detainees awaiting trial now constitute approximately 75.5% of the total prison population. Despite the constitutional guarantee of personal liberty under Article 21, the Indian criminal justice system frequently subjects individuals to prolonged detention that often exceeds the maximum potential sentences for their alleged offences. Through a comparative and doctrinal analysis, this study evaluates the structural judicial deficiencies and procedural challenges within the current framework, particularly the implications of the newly enacted Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. The analysis contrasts India’s discretionary bail practices with the rights-based models of the United Kingdom and the presumption of release established in Canadian jurisprudence. Findings indicate that inconsistent judicial discretion and restrictive provisions in special statutes, such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, have effectively inverted the presumption of innocence, transforming pre-trial detention into a form of “punishment before judgment”. To mitigate these systemic inequities, the paper proposes a transition toward reformative justice models, advocating the institutionalisation of objective risk-assessment protocols such as the “tripod test” and the expansion of non-custodial alternatives such as community-based supervision and restorative justice. Ultimately, the study calls for a comprehensive legislative recalibration grounded in constitutional morality to ensure that incarceration serves the purpose of rehabilitation rather than institutional neglect. By integrating these structural reforms, the legal system can shift from a punitive-centric paradigm toward the established mandate that “bail is the rule and jail is the exception”.

Surrogacy in India has undergone enormous change, from the unregulated commercial surrogacy era of the 2000s to the heavily regulated regime introduced by the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 and its subsequent amendments. Once labelled the “surrogacy capital of the world,” India experienced commercialisation to a degree that posed a serious risk of exploitation of poor women. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 therefore prohibits any form of commercial surrogacy while permitting altruistic surrogacy among close relatives alone. This paper examines the central human rights conflict surrounding the regulation of surrogacy. The first interest is the right to reproduction and to the creation of a family, which falls under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and other international instruments; the second is the need to protect women from exploitation and commodification. Although the altruistic model seeks to avoid placing financial pressure on women, it has been criticised as paternalistic and unrealistic. This paper argues that a complete prohibition on any form of payment for surrogacy fails to strike a proper balance between reproductive freedom and dignity, and that a more realistic, rights-based solution is required. Such an approach would situate altruistic surrogacy within a well-regulated framework incorporating fair compensation, independent legal advice, health-insurance coverage, post-delivery medical assistance, and judicial scrutiny. The paper concludes that a rights-based approach recognising both procreative liberty and gender equality is necessary to reconcile these competing interests within India’s diverse society.

This comprehensive study undertakes a detailed examination of the concept of good governance as embedded within the Vedic legal and philosophical tradition. In an era where modern states grapple with challenges of corruption, administrative inefficiency, social inequality, and environmental degradation, this paper argues that the ancient Vedic corpus offers a profound and holistic framework for governance that remains remarkably relevant. By analyzing original Sanskrit ślokas from the Vedas, Brahmanas, Upaniṣads, and allied texts such as the Arthasastra and the Mahabharata’s Shanti Parva, this paper explores the foundational principles of Vedic governance. The study examines key concepts including Ṛta (cosmic order) as the ultimate standard for just rule, Rāja-dharma (the king’s duty), the Saptanga (seven limbs of the state), and the role of popular assemblies (Sabha and Samiti) in ensuring participatory governance. It further analyzes Vedic perspectives on administrative ethics, transparency, accountability, welfare, environmental stewardship, and conflict resolution. The analysis reveals that the Vedic model of governance was not merely concerned with maintaining order but with creating conditions for the holistic flourishing (abhyudaya) of all beings. The principles of consultation (mantra), consensus (sammati), and the subordination of royal power to Dharma anticipate modern ideals of constitutionalism, the rule of law, and participatory democracy. This paper concludes that a thoughtful engagement with Vedic governance principles can enrich contemporary administrative practice and offer a culturally resonant path towards more ethical, sustainable, and people-centric governance. This paper explores the profound connections between ancient Vedic principles of statecraft and contemporary concepts of good governance.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology influencing governance, law enforcement, and the administration of criminal justice across the world. In India, the integration of AI into policing has introduced new methods for crime detection, investigation, prediction, and prevention. AI-driven technologies such as predictive policing, facial recognition systems, surveillance analytics, data mining, automated crime mapping, and intelligent decision-support systems are increasingly being explored to improve policing efficiency and public safety. These technologies assist law enforcement agencies in identifying crime patterns, forecasting high-risk areas, accelerating investigations, and enhancing resource allocation. This study examines the application of artificial intelligence in policing within the Indian criminal justice framework and critically evaluates its methods and emerging concerns. The research explores how AI tools contribute to proactive and evidence-based policing while analysing their role in crime detection and prevention. It further investigates Indian initiatives toward smart policing and digital transformation in law enforcement. Despite its advantages, the adoption of AI in policing raises significant legal, ethical, and constitutional concerns. Issues relating to privacy, algorithmic bias, transparency, accountability, data protection, surveillance overreach, and procedural fairness present serious challenges to the legitimacy of AI-assisted policing. In the Indian context, concerns become more complex due to the absence of a comprehensive regulatory framework specifically governing AI in criminal justice processes. Excessive reliance on automated systems may also affect fundamental rights and principles of natural justice. The paper adopts a doctrinal and analytical approach to examine existing legal frameworks, judicial developments, policy initiatives, and international practices relevant to AI-enabled policing. It argues that while artificial intelligence offers substantial opportunities for improving crime control and preventive policing, its deployment must be accompanied by robust legal safeguards, ethical standards, human oversight, and accountability mechanisms. The study concludes that responsible and rights-oriented integration of AI can strengthen the Indian criminal justice system while maintaining the balance between technological advancement and constitutional protections.

The increasing use of criminal law in matrimonial disputes has become one of the most debated developments in contemporary Indian criminal jurisprudence. Matrimonial conflicts, which were traditionally treated as private or civil disputes, are now frequently addressed through criminal law provisions relating to cruelty, domestic violence, dowry harassment, and breach of trust. While these provisions were enacted to provide urgent protection to women facing abuse and violence within marriage, concerns have simultaneously emerged regarding procedural over-expansion and the large-scale attrition of cases during the criminal process. This paper examines the phenomenon of criminalization of matrimonial conflict through the lens of procedural attrition. Rather than approaching the issue through the binary debate of “genuine cases” versus “false cases,” the paper analyses how matrimonial disputes enter the criminal justice system and why a significant number of cases fail to survive through the stages of investigation and prosecution. The study adopts a socio-legal and empirical perspective and focuses on the gap between FIR registration and charge-sheet filing. This paper argues that the problem is not merely one of misuse or abuse of law, but of systemic processing, investigative filtering, evidentiary weakness, social compromise, and the expanding reliance on criminal law to resolve family conflict. The paper further suggests that procedural attrition in matrimonial offence cases reflects a broader tension between gender justice, criminalization, and the practical limitations of the criminal justice system.

Mental health has emerged as one of the most significant yet overlooked concerns in contemporary society. In India, the psychological struggles faced by men often remain unrecognised due to deeply rooted social expectations surrounding masculinity. Men are traditionally expected to be emotionally strong, financially stable, and capable of enduring personal difficulties without expressing vulnerability. This societal conditioning discourages emotional openness and forces many men to suppress stress, anxiety, loneliness, and depression, ultimately affecting their mental well-being. Despite increasing awareness regarding mental health, discussions surrounding men’s emotional struggles continue to receive limited social and legal attention. This paper examines the silent mental health crisis among Indian men through a socio-legal and humanitarian perspective. It explores how traditional gender expectations, workplace pressure, family responsibilities, financial burdens, relationship trauma, and social media culture contribute to the declining mental health of men in modern society. It further analyses the impact of emotional suppression, societal stigma, and selective empathy that often prevent men from seeking professional psychological support. The paper also evaluates statistical data relating to depression, suicide, and substance abuse among men in India, highlighting the seriousness of the issue. In addition, this paper analyses the legal and policy framework relating to mental healthcare in India, including constitutional protections and the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. The role of media, digital culture, and modern masculinity in shaping male emotional behaviour is also critically examined. Through a balanced and analytical approach, this paper emphasises the urgent need for awareness, gender-inclusive mental-health policies, emotional education, and accessible counselling systems. It ultimately argues that mental health should be viewed as a humanitarian concern beyond stereotypes, where emotional expression among men is understood with empathy, dignity, and social support.

The goal of Indian patent law is to maintain a just balance between protecting patent rights and advancing the general welfare. In this context, compulsory licensing is essential, since it permits the limited use of patented technologies without the patent holder’s consent in circumstances involving public-health needs, non-availability, or prohibitively high prices. This paper critically examines the relationship between patent rights and the public interest under Indian patent law, with particular emphasis on the mechanism of compulsory licensing in the context of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The study explores how India has attempted to balance the protection of the exclusive rights of patent holders against the need to ensure access to essential goods, particularly medicines, for the wider public. Patents are granted to encourage innovation and technological advancement by conferring on inventors exclusive rights over their inventions for a limited period. Excessive protection of patent rights, however, may lead to monopolistic practices, high prices, and restricted access to life-saving drugs and technologies, thereby affecting public welfare. The research analyses the evolution of India’s patent regime from a process-patent system under the Patents Act, 1970 to a product-patent regime following India’s obligations under TRIPS. It further examines the legal framework governing compulsory licensing under Sections 84, 92, and 100 of the Patents Act, 1970, and evaluates the extent to which these provisions comply with TRIPS flexibilities and the Doha Declaration on Public Health. The paper highlights the landmark compulsory-licensing case involving Bayer AG and Natco Pharma concerning the anti-cancer drug Nexavar, which became a significant precedent in balancing patent protection with public-health concerns in India. The paper further discusses the arguments advanced by multinational pharmaceutical companies regarding innovation incentives and compares them with the concerns of developing countries relating to the affordability and accessibility of medicines. It also evaluates judicial interpretations, policy debates, and the socio-economic implications of compulsory licensing in India. The study argues that compulsory licensing serves as an important safeguard against the abuse of patent monopolies and as a vital tool for promoting public health and social justice in developing nations. The paper concludes that, while India remains committed to its international intellectual property obligations under TRIPS, its patent system continues to prioritise the constitutional values of public welfare and access to healthcare. Compulsory licensing thus emerges as a legally justified and socially necessary mechanism for balancing private patent rights against broader public-interest objectives, and the paper emphasises how India has used international flexibilities to address domestic socio-economic concerns while maintaining adherence to its international commitments.

This paper analyses the role of shareholder activism as a driving force for reform in India’s Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) framework under the Companies Act, 2013. The IEPF was established to protect investor interests by managing unclaimed dividends, shares, and other financial assets transferred after prolonged inactivity. Despite its investor-protection objective, the framework has been criticised for procedural delays, complex documentation requirements, lack of awareness among investors, and practical difficulties in reclaiming transferred shares and dividends. The study examines the growing significance of shareholder activism in India and its influence on corporate governance and regulatory accountability. With the rise of institutional investors, proxy advisory firms, and minority shareholder participation, investor activism has emerged as an important mechanism for demanding transparency, efficiency, and investor-friendly reforms. The paper evaluates whether shareholder activism can contribute to improving the accessibility and effectiveness of the IEPF mechanism. It further analyses the legal and regulatory structure governing the IEPF and identifies key challenges affecting investor confidence. The study concludes that active shareholder participation can play a significant role in promoting reforms such as simplified claim procedures, enhanced digital governance, greater transparency, and stronger protection of minority shareholder rights within India’s evolving corporate governance framework.

This paper investigates the evolution of feminist jurisprudence as a subversive framework that reimagines justice through the principles of gender equality and empowerment. Historically, justice reflected male notions that often neglected women’s experiences, yet for a long time it was believed to be impartial. This imbalance sparked the idea of feminist jurisprudence, which emerged to challenge the illusion of neutrality within law and to uncover its deep-rooted patriarchal foundations. Feminist ideology traces its development from the suffragette campaign and was later shaped by liberal, radical, and socialist movements seeking transformative gender justice. It has reshaped family law, workplace equality, and global norms through conventions such as CEDAW, emphasizing that true justice demands reconstructing law to dismantle systemic inequalities and to achieve intersectional, global equality. This paper outlines the historical evolution of feminist legal theory and analyzes the doctrinal and structural biases built into national and international legal systems that perpetuate gender injustice. It explores the role of international instruments, namely CEDAW and United Nations Security Council resolutions, in developing frameworks of feminist jurisprudence. In sum, these aims show how feminist jurisprudence is pivotal in challenging the patriarchal system and in supporting the implementation of a justice framework that is more inclusive and equitable. This paper also seeks to articulate answers to several questions about the effects of gender injustice in legal systems. In particular, it addresses the extent to which national and international legal systems, specifically that of India, continue to reproduce patriarchal bias despite constitutional and human-rights protections; whether a global framework such as CEDAW and the UN resolutions can harmonize international norms of gender justice with national realities; and, finally, the theoretical and practical opportunities for institutionalizing intersectional feminist analysis in future legal and policy developments in India.

The freedom of expression is a fundamental human right recognised both in international conventions and in the Constitution of India. Although the right is not absolute and is subject to limitations, it at times finds itself at a crossroads with expression as protected by copyright law. A recent controversy in New York exemplified the contention between the right of a creator to display his work and the use of that work by another to express an opinion on an issue of societal relevance. This paper illustrates this contention, arguing that a limitation must be imposed on the exercise of both rights for their harmonious coexistence. This paper also refers to the Indian provisions to consider how the controversy would have been resolved had the dispute over the Charging Bull and the Fearless Girl arisen in India.

The vulnerability of Indians most affected by climate change cultivates a harsh reality for victims of climate-related human rights violations. It compels a focused criticism of corporate responsibility for climate change, especially given that globally, companies account for a large portion of gross emissions that escalate the climate crisis and intensify climate-based migration The inhabitants of coastal, agricultural, and indigenous communities face the brunt of climate-related migration. They suffer the most from the newly created environmental threats, the loss of resources, increased inequality, and human rights violations, including the denial of the right to adequate housing, food, water, health, and a decent means of livelihood. There is a lack of capacity to respond legally and adequately, and these communities are placed in a position of even greater vulnerability to the climate crisis. Therefore, to understand the impacts of climate change-induced migration on the particularly vulnerable, it has become crucial to understand the corporate responsibility of businesses. This study seeks to explain the role of corporations in the changing patterns of climate-related migration and the impact on human rights, especially in the context of the need for businesses to fulfil their human rights obligations. This study offers insight into the plight of the most afflicted by the effects of climate change in India. It investigates the intersection of the right to be protected from climate-induced displacement and the adequacy of corporate responsibility through compliance with climate change legislation. It examines corporate responsibility through case studies and a legislative analysis with the goal of reinforcing accountability frameworks for the protection of the most vulnerable climate-impacted communities in India.

This paper analyses the legal protection and social inclusion of the 2SLGBTQI+ community in Europe and India on the basis of the principle of equality. The study focuses on the different legal frameworks, constitutional provisions, and international norms developed by organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union, and the European Convention on Human Rights to protect the rights of the 2SLGBTQI+ community. Using comparative analysis and secondary research sources, the paper examines key issues of equality, rights, relationships, and social recognition. The findings reveal that Europe has comparatively more developed legal protections and anti-discrimination frameworks, although the lack of standardised laws among member states continues to create differences in implementation. In India, major progress has been achieved through the NALSA judgment and the reading down of Section 377, but limitations persist regarding same-sex marriage, adoption rights, and comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. The study concludes that both Europe and India require further legal and social reforms to ensure equal rights, proper legal protection, and greater social inclusion of the 2SLGBTQI+ community.

The international legal order has long struggled to hold individuals, and particularly corporations, accountable for large-scale environmental destruction that falls short of the wartime conduct addressed in Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute. This paper examines the proposed crime of ecocide, currently under consideration as a fifth international crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, and locates its central legal vulnerability in the definition of mens rea, specifically in the contested interpretation of the word “wanton” as deployed in the 2021 Independent Expert Panel definition. The paper proceeds in five parts. It begins by tracing the conceptual origins of ecocide from Arthur Galston’s 1970 coinage in response to Agent Orange defoliation in Vietnam to Polly Higgins’ 2010 proposal to the International Law Commission, situating the crime within the broader movement toward recognising the ecosystem itself as a legitimate subject of legal protection rather than merely a proxy for human welfare. The paper then argues that the fragmented domestic criminalisation of ecocide, while symbolically significant, is structurally incapable of addressing the inherently transboundary character of ecological destruction. It proceeds to demonstrate that the current Rome Statute framework, principally Article 8(2)(b)(iv), imposes an unworkably high standard of intent that has produced zero prosecutions for environmental destruction in over two decades of ICC operation. The paper then offers a qualified endorsement of the IEP definition: it rightly lowers the mens rea threshold to encompass reckless environmental harm, but introduces a dangerous cost-benefit proportionality test through the “wanton” qualifier, one that lacks any identifiable benchmark and that, in the era of the climate crisis, risks providing a legally sanctioned defence to the very industries most responsible for ecological catastrophe. The paper concludes by surveying complementary international legal pathways, including the landmark ICJ and ITLOS Advisory Opinions of 2024 to 2025 and the proposed International Court for the Environment, that may collectively operationalise ecocide accountability while the ICC amendment process unfolds.

Military and dual-use activities that generate orbital debris expose a vulnerability in space law. Most existing international space-law instruments establish international responsibility, a patchy and fault-based liability regime, debris-registration duties, and a growing set of mitigation duties. These instruments remain near-impossible to apply to debris that is rapidly generated, fragmentary, and strategically classified. Using doctrinal legal research in the Indian context, this paper examines the effectiveness of the principal international instruments, including the Outer Space Treaty, the Liability Convention, the Registration Convention, and various non-binding instruments, alongside Indian policy and the use of international and Indian legal frameworks by constructive analogy. This paper argues that (1) the accountability failure in space law arises not from the absence of normative frameworks but from gaps in their implementation, and (2) the debris-liability and mitigation duties contained in the treaties are insufficient. It concludes that Indian space policy, read together with the emergent law of liability and mitigation, calls for the Indian Government to adopt clear debris-liability and mitigation duties and to develop a strategy that separates space sustainability from the military control of space.

The Women's Bill was proposed thirteen times but was not approved in the Parliament of India. The role of women in decision-making plays an important role in the progress of women. Uttar Pradesh is the most populous provincial state of India, and without the progress of marginalised and women, the state's overall progress is not possible. Uttar Pradesh can be placed as the third-most populous country in Asia and the fifth most populous country in the world in terms of population by 2026 (200 million) and third largest economy in terms of State Nominal GDP in India. World Bank, Asian Development Bank, SAARC and development planners are keeping an eye on the largest population of India residing in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh is a major economic driver contributing maximum GST (13%), paying maximum corporation tax (17%), income tax (17%), Union Excise Duty and Other Taxes and customs duty. Nevertheless, Uttar Pradesh is among the top five most powerful states in India, but the per capita income is low, and public liabilities are actually high. The population of Dalit women in the state was more than 9 crores in 2011, which is greater than the population of many developed countries such as UK, France, Germany and South Korea. The labour-intensive economy of India is largely dependent on the population of powerful states, and the largest population of marginalized people also resides in these states. Additionally, the textiles, leather, and agricultural sectors in the state are the powerhouse of the economy and trade (Dutt, 1902). Therefore, sufficient funds and sound financial planning are required to support the development of human capital in this zone (the largest population of the country). India’s Women’s participation rate in the workforce is the lowest in the world (World Bank Development Indicators). Moreover, most women are self-employed in the agricultural sector, and currently, women's enrolment in higher education is not impressive in Uttar Pradesh. The socio-economic condition of women in different states is not remarkable, and their work on household chores remains unpaid and is not included in the GDP. The state's education data show a significant gender gap and high dropouts at the secondary and higher secondary levels over the last four years. Despite so many efforts, the state reports the highest inter-state migration in India. The crime against women has also increased in Uttar Pradesh in recent years. Complaints related to workplace discrimination are rising in urban areas. Hence, it is essential to observe the progress and trends of women's employment and higher education in the most populous state of India and its impact on the SAARC nations. On the one hand, formal jobs can provide financial stability, sufficient leave, allowances, gratuity, maternity, childcare and other benefits. Subsidies, financial aid and tax exemptions can encourage women entrepreneurs. Even in agriculture, the land allotment scheme, community engagement in agriculture and big land holdings for women and marginalized could trigger the socio–economic development of our country. On the other side, poor working conditions, inadequate education, and the expansion of Gig economy in SAARC nations are making women more dependent and vulnerable to crimes, poor health and life-threatening diseases.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act) provides a comprehensive legal framework for addressing child sexual abuse in India. In POCSO cases, medical examination plays a significant role in the collection and evaluation of evidence, particularly where direct evidence is unavailable. However, the evidentiary value of medical findings often raises legal and forensic concerns, especially where physical injuries are absent. This paper examines the role of medical examination in POCSO prosecutions and analyses its importance in corroborating the testimony of child victims. It further explores the contribution of expert witnesses and the judicial approach toward medical evidence. The study concludes that medical evidence is an important corroborative tool but should not be regarded as the sole basis for determining guilt or innocence.

The dynamics of human interaction has undergone a significant transformation with the acceleration in development of digital technologies. As social media platforms become ubiquitous, instances of sexual exploitation and abuse seems to pervade the online sphere. The existing Indian statutory framework, while adept in tackling traditional sexual violence, faces substantial obstacles in prosecuting violations in online spaces where there is lack of monitoring of sexual violence cases of cyberstalking, image-based sexual exploitation (deepfakes) and non-consensual sharing of private images as a way of extortion (sextortion). India’s current legal framework, including Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2024 and Information Technology Act (IT Act), 2008, offer abysmal protection as the provisions are not equipped to focus on complexities in defining sexual violence in the virtual realm and enumerating the standards of consent. In traditional sexual violence, consent is the verbal or non-verbal unequivocal, voluntary communication between parties before engaging in sexual acts which can also be withdrawn at any time; however, in the digital sphere, there is no specific provision governing the various nuances of consent in relation to its communication, revocation and evidentiary verification. The evolving technological advancement without corresponding reform in the legislative sphere highlights the urgent need for the Indian criminal law to provide recognition to online sexual violence as a distinct form of violence while re-evaluating the standards of consent in the digital sphere. Hence, this paper is an attempt to understand and measure consent within the context of sexual violence in the digital sphere.

The proliferation of the metaverse as a persistent, immersive, and shared virtual ecosystem has fundamentally destabilised the ontological boundaries between physical and digital spaces, precipitating a paradigm shift in the conceptualisation of digital identity. As these virtual environments scale in complexity, establishing an effective regulatory architecture for identity governance introduces profound legal and technical friction. This paper provides a rigorous analysis of the evolving governance paradigms and regulatory lacunae surrounding digital identity within the Indian legal landscape, centring on the imperatives of user-conduct regulation, algorithmic content moderation, and systemic legal enforcement in Web3 spaces. This paper posits that data privacy and protection mechanisms are foundational to secure identity management. Because the metaverse relies on the continuous harvesting and cloud-based storage of high-fidelity user data, including spatial analytics, behavioural profiling, and biometric inputs, digital identities remain uniquely vulnerable to unauthorised extraction, data asymmetry, and commercial exploitation. A failure to institute robust data-protection frameworks not only undermines fundamental privacy rights but amplifies the risk of identity-related cybercrimes, including synthetic identity fraud and virtual harassment. This study further addresses the challenges of cross-border jurisdictional enforcement inherent in decentralised virtual environments. Ultimately, it evaluates the efficacy of India’s current statutory framework, specifically the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act and the Information Technology Rules, to offer a comprehensive, forward-looking assessment of the legal implications shaping virtual-identity jurisprudence.

In recent times, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force across multiple sectors, including the legal domain. This paper examines the evolving intersection between AI and law, providing a detailed analysis of the ways in which AI technologies are being incorporated into legal systems globally. It highlights the use of AI-driven tools in supporting legal professionals with functions such as contract drafting, due diligence, and the assessment of potential legal outcomes. A substantial part of the study focuses on the integration of AI within the Indian legal system. It evaluates the present level of adoption, identifies key technologies currently in use, and discusses the challenges hindering broader implementation. Recognising the importance of ethical and responsible deployment, the paper also offers recommendations aimed at maintaining a balance between technological innovation and necessary legal and institutional safeguards. Overall, the research presents a comprehensive assessment of AI’s role in India’s legal landscape, outlining both its potential benefits and inherent limitations. By connecting theoretical perspectives with practical applications, the paper seeks to inform policy and practice and to contribute meaningfully to the development of an AI-enabled future for the Indian legal system.

The rapid development and testing of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are transforming the transportation landscape worldwide, promising enhanced safety, efficiency, and mobility. India’s existing Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, however, was enacted in a pre-AV era and poses significant legal and regulatory hurdles to the deployment of AVs on Indian roads. This paper critically examines the compatibility of AVs with the current regulatory framework, highlighting the key challenges and potential solutions. The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 defines a “driver” as a person who drives a vehicle, implying a human operator. AVs, by contrast, operate autonomously, rendering this definition inadequate. Similarly, the Act’s liability provisions, which hold the driver or owner responsible for accidents, are unclear in the context of AVs, and the absence of specific safety standards and testing protocols for AVs further complicates their deployment. This study analyses the Act’s provisions and identifies areas that require amendment or new regulation to accommodate AVs. It explores international best practices, including the regulatory frameworks of the United States, the European Union, and Japan, to inform India’s AV policy. The paper proposes a framework for AV regulation that includes: defining AVs and their levels of autonomy; establishing liability frameworks for AV-related accidents; developing safety standards and testing protocols; and creating a regulatory authority for AV oversight. The study seeks a safe and conducive environment for AV innovation while prioritising public safety and accountability.

The idea of dominance in Indian competition law has usually concerned what a single company does and the impact it creates in the market. The law does not work well when many companies act together to control the market, or collectively abuse their market power, without any formal agreement between them. This paper examines whether the Competition Act, 2002 is sufficient to deal with companies whose conduct, taken together, dominates the market. It examines competition law, particularly Sections 3 and 4, to see how they address the issue of collective dominance. The current law focuses mainly on preventing companies from making agreements that are not fair and on stopping a single company from abusing its dominant position. It does not really address the problem of many companies controlling the market through tacit coordination. The paper also examines the approach of the courts and regulatory bodies to these situations. To understand the problem better, it compares the competition laws of jurisdictions such as the European Union and the United States, which have mechanisms for dealing with several companies acting together to dominate a market. It argues that Indian law needs to be revised to reflect the reality of the market, and suggests amendments that would help Indian competition law work better and regulate such conduct more effectively.

As sustainability imperatives intensify, the shift from a linear to a circular economy, designed to maximise the utility of products, materials, and resources while curbing emissions, has emerged as a defining priority in global development agendas. Despite increasing international momentum in designing and implementing policies that foster the circular economy (CE), the role of digital government in this transition remains fragmented and underdeveloped, with no comprehensive framework capturing its interconnection with the CE concept. This paper seeks to address this gap by posing a central research question: how does digital government facilitate the advancement of the circular economy through policy instruments, monitoring mechanisms, and green finance? To investigate this question, the paper reviews and synthesises empirical studies, identifies prevailing research themes, and highlights existing knowledge gaps regarding the digital public sector’s capacity to enable CE transformations. Drawing on these insights, it proposes an analytical framework, grounded in the NATO concept, that conceptualises how digital government can support circular transitions through regulatory and policy design, digitally enabled oversight, and financial instruments that incentivise green investment. The paper concludes by outlining a future research agenda that leverages this framework to advance both theoretical development and empirical inquiry into the role of digital governance in enabling the circular economy.

The incorporation of algorithms and artificial intelligence into business operations has transformed market practices, increasing efficiencies and enabling dynamic pricing while presenting new dilemmas for competition law. Algorithmic collusion has emerged as a significant threat to market competition, because pricing and recommendation systems can communicate, learn from one another, and coordinate their conduct without any human-made plan. Such collusion may harm consumers, since it undermines competitive prices and narrows choice, while at the same time being harder to detect by the usual mechanisms because there is no proof of direct communication. Under sections 3 and 4 of the Competition Act, 2002, all agreements causing an appreciable adverse effect on competition are prohibited, and such agreements fall within the purview of the Competition Commission of India. These rules and doctrines, however, were designed for traditional cartels, in which clear evidence of an agreement or concerted practice was necessary before prosecution could take place.

Witness evidence is one of the most crucial types of evidence in criminal proceedings. Witnesses are crucial for the court because their statements help judges understand what actually occurred and determine the guilt of the accused. A serious problem arises, however, when a witness changes what they stated before the trial and refuses to assist the prosecution. Such witnesses are commonly described as hostile witnesses. The phenomenon of hostile witnesses has increasingly affected the administration of criminal justice in India. The problem often arises because of threats, bribes, social pressure, or delays in the trial proceedings. Indian courts have therefore developed judicial criteria to evaluate the evidentiary worth of hostile-witness testimony. This paper examines how Indian evidence law handles hostile witnesses and how courts apply judicial norms to determine the treatment of such witnesses. It also examines recent legal changes, particularly following the enactment of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, and notable Supreme Court rulings. The paper argues that, while hostility may affect credibility, courts must carefully evaluate the testimony rather than rejecting it outright.

Abortion rights in South Asia reflect a complex interplay of legal frameworks, cultural norms, religious beliefs, and public health priorities. Within the SAARC region, abortion laws range from highly liberal models, such as those in Nepal and India, to some of the most restrictive regimes, in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and the Maldives. This divergence creates significant disparities in women’s access to safe reproductive healthcare, contributing to unsafe abortions, maternal mortality, and cross-border abortion-seeking. This paper critically examines the legal, socio-cultural, and health dimensions of abortion policies across SAARC countries, analysing how these frameworks align or conflict with regional commitments to gender equality, human rights, and sustainable development. Through comparative legal analysis and a review of public health data, the study finds that restrictive laws not only undermine women’s bodily autonomy but also impede SAARC’s broader principles of social justice, cooperation, and human development. The paper argues that harmonising reproductive rights standards and adopting a rights-based regional approach are essential for strengthening women’s health, advancing gender justice, and promoting equitable development within the SAARC region. By situating abortion rights within the broader framework of SAARC’s commitments to gender equality, social justice, and regional development, the research highlights the extent to which inconsistent and restrictive policies undermine collective progress. The findings demonstrate that the denial of reproductive choice not only violates fundamental rights but also hinders the region’s ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in the areas of health, gender equity, and human development. The paper concludes by arguing for a coordinated regional approach that harmonises minimum reproductive rights standards, strengthens public health systems, reduces stigma, and aligns national laws with international human rights norms to promote a more equitable and progressive South Asian region.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a dominant role in the economies of both Vietnam and China, contributing significantly to employment, economic growth, and innovation. However, their importance also raises a fundamental challenge: how to balance economic objectives with social responsibility toward employees, consumers, communities, and the environment. Although Vietnamese law provides extensive support for SME development, stakeholder protection remains fragmented across labour, environmental, and consumer-protection legislation, while the Law on Enterprises lacks an explicit stakeholder-oriented corporate-purpose provision. By contrast, China has introduced stakeholder considerations into company law through Article 20 of the 2023 Company Law, yet concerns remain regarding its enforceability and practical effectiveness. Against this backdrop, this paper employs stakeholder theory and a comparative legal approach to examine the regulatory frameworks of Vietnam and China, identify their similarities and differences, and propose legal reforms for Vietnam aimed at strengthening stakeholder-oriented governance while preserving the competitiveness and sustainability of SMEs.

Bloom’s Taxonomy, originally formulated by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues in 1956 and revised by Anderson and Krathwohl in 2001, remains one of the most influential frameworks in educational theory and curriculum design worldwide. This paper examines the extent to which Bloom’s Taxonomy has penetrated and shaped the educational sector of Bangladesh, a country navigating rapid socioeconomic change, significant demographic growth, and persistent structural challenges in its public education system. Drawing on documentary analysis, curriculum review, and secondary empirical sources, the study traces the taxonomy’s integration into national curricula from primary to tertiary levels, evaluates assessment reform initiatives, and investigates the barriers that impede its effective application. The findings reveal that, while Bloom’s lower-order cognitive levels, particularly Remember and Understand, remain predominant in classroom practice and public examinations, recent policy documents, notably the National Curriculum and Textbook Board’s (NCTB) 2021-2025 reform agenda, signal a deliberate shift toward higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). The paper argues that realizing this shift requires sustained investment in teacher professional development, examination reform, and inclusive pedagogical infrastructure.

Artificial intelligence is now entering online dispute resolution not as a decorative layer of legal technology, but as a functional element in triage, filing, negotiation, evidence management, settlement design and decision support. This paper compares China and Singapore because both jurisdictions have moved decisively towards digital justice, yet their institutional logics differ sharply. China has embedded ODR within a state-led smart-court programme, using internet courts, online mediation, data platforms and AI-assisted judicial management as part of a broader project of procedural standardisation and governance capacity. Singapore has taken a more modular route: online tribunal filing, eNegotiation, eMediation and legally supervised digital court processes are combined with a sophisticated but largely soft-law AI governance environment. The central argument is that AI-enabled ODR should be assessed through a procedural legitimacy test rather than a mere efficiency test. Speed, scale and settlement rates are not enough. A legally defensible system must disclose the role of automation, preserve human accountability, protect personal and dispute data, avoid coercive settlement design, and maintain meaningful routes for review. The comparison shows that China offers scale, integration and procedural routinisation, while Singapore offers clearer data governance, stronger user-facing safeguards and a more cautious posture towards generative AI in court-facing legal work. The paper concludes with a five-part safeguard model for Asian ODR systems: differentiated human oversight, auditable algorithmic assistance, consent-sensitive data processing, procedural explainability and cross-border interoperability.

Military cyber operations have emerged as a defining feature of contemporary conflict, transforming cyberspace into an operational domain where states can pursue strategic objectives without resorting to conventional armed force. The increasing reliance of governments, military institutions, and critical infrastructure on interconnected digital systems has expanded both the utility and the risks of cyber capabilities in matters of national security. While cyber operations offer significant strategic advantages, they have also exposed fundamental weaknesses in the existing legal framework governing armed conflict. International Humanitarian Law, developed primarily in the context of kinetic warfare, continues to provide important normative principles for regulating hostilities; however, its application to cyberspace remains uncertain in several respects. Questions relating to attribution, state responsibility, civilian protection, proportionality, and the involvement of non-state actors have generated a persistent crisis of legal accountability within the digital battlespace. This paper examines the extent to which existing international legal principles are capable of addressing the unique challenges posed by military cyber operations and evaluates the limitations of contemporary accountability mechanisms. It analyses the relevance of International Humanitarian Law, emerging international norms, and state practice in regulating cyber conflict while highlighting the practical difficulties associated with enforcing legal responsibility in an environment characterised by anonymity, technological complexity, and transnational effects. The paper argues that the central challenge in cyber warfare is not the complete absence of legal rules but the inadequacy of existing mechanisms for attributing responsibility and ensuring compliance. It concludes that strengthening accountability through clearer legal standards, enhanced international cooperation, and a human-centred approach to cyber governance is essential for preserving the legitimacy of international law and protecting humanitarian interests in an increasingly digitalised battlespace.

This paper examines the enforceability of smart contracts in India, arguing that the Indian Contract Act, 1872, the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 are incompatible with their code-based, self-executing architecture. Because smart contracts rely on blockchain immutability, automatic execution, and cryptographic authentication, it is unclear what Indian law requires in terms of consent, whether records may be used in court, and what should be done after a breach. The paper employs a comparative doctrinal methodology to juxtapose India’s legislative inaction with the United Kingdom’s common law adaptability, specific U.S. state legislation, and Singapore’s technology-agnostic framework. It demonstrates that these jurisdictions facilitate smart contracts without compromising legal certainty, whereas India lacks a corresponding statutory framework. The paper suggests three changes: a legal “wrapper” to tie smart contracts to ordinary contract law; a mutability-based regime for high-risk contracts to keep the courts involved in cases of fraud, mistake, or coercion; and fiduciary responsibility for oracle providers to ensure that execution triggers work. These steps are anticipated to make blockchain automation and enforceable legal protection function together in India.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST), enacted under the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, is the biggest indirect tax reform in India since independence. It replaced various central and state-level levies with a single tax structure, but this reform gave rise to grave constitutional issues. The primary debate is whether GST strengthens or weakens the federal structure of India. India operates a form of cooperative federalism in which powers are shared between the Union and the States. Under Article 246 and the Seventh Schedule, the Constitution allocates taxation authority between the Union and the States with great care, and the introduction of GST has significantly affected this distinction. The newly inserted Article 246A now provides concurrent power for both the Union and the States to levy GST. While this appears to be a move towards cooperative federalism through the GST Council under Article 279A, it raises severe issues regarding the budgetary autonomy of the States. This paper investigates the impact of the constitutional architecture of the Goods and Services Tax on fiscal federalism in India. It examines the relevant constitutional provisions, the role of the GST Council, the loss of State autonomy over indirect taxation, the compensation mechanism, the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Union of India v. Mohit Minerals Pvt. Ltd. (2022), and whether the current framework truly respects the spirit of Indian federalism. This paper argues that, while GST is an economic achievement in creating a single national market, it inherently sacrifices State fiscal authority and necessitates a more balanced constitutional framework.

Traditional Knowledge (TK) represents the cultural, agricultural, and artisanal practices that have been developed and preserved by communities over generations. In recent years, the increasing commercialization and misappropriation of traditional products have intensified the need for effective legal mechanisms to safeguard such knowledge. This article examines the role of Geographical Indications (GIs) as a significant intellectual property tool for protecting traditional knowledge within the framework of international and Indian law. It analyses how GIs establish a connection between a product’s geographical origin, reputation, and traditional methods of production, thereby preserving authenticity and promoting economic interests of local communities. The paper explores the conceptual relationship between TK and GIs by referring to international instruments such as the TRIPS Agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the initiatives of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Further, the article evaluates judicial and practical instances including Darjeeling Tea, Basmati Rice, Kashmir Pashmina, and Assam’s Muga Silk to demonstrate the effectiveness of GI protection in preventing misappropriation and preserving cultural heritage. At the same time, the study critically highlights the limitations of geographical indications in protecting all forms of traditional knowledge, particularly intangible and geographically dispersed knowledge systems. The article concludes that although GIs cannot function as a complete mechanism for protecting traditional knowledge, they serve as an important complementary legal instrument for preserving traditional products, cultural identity, and community-based economic development in the contemporary global market.

Electronic waste (e-waste) has emerged as one of the fastest-growing waste streams globally, owing to rapid technological advancement, increased consumption of electronic devices, and shorter product life cycles. India, as one of the world’s largest consumers of electrical and electronic equipment, faces significant challenges in managing the growing volume of e-waste. In response, the Government of India introduced the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, replacing the earlier E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016. The 2022 Rules seek to strengthen the regulatory framework through an improved Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regime, mandatory registration of stakeholders, digital monitoring systems, and enhanced recycling targets. This paper examines the evolution of the e-waste management system in India and critically analyses the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022 in the context of sustainable development.

Juvenile delinquency remains one of the most significant challenges confronting contemporary criminal justice administration, particularly in relation to orphaned, abandoned, and neglected children who are exposed to conditions of poverty, exploitation, homelessness, social exclusion, and inadequate institutional care. Such children often grow up without proper parental guidance, emotional support, education, or protection, thereby increasing their vulnerability to deviant behaviour and conflict with the law. The issue of juvenile delinquency must therefore be examined not merely as a legal problem, but also as a social, psychological, and structural concern requiring a rehabilitative and child-centric approach. This study critically examines the relationship between neglect, abandonment, and juvenile delinquency within the framework of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the broader constitutional principles of child welfare and protection in India. The research adopts a doctrinal and analytical methodology, analysing statutory provisions, judicial decisions, constitutional safeguards, international instruments, and relevant academic literature relating to juvenile justice administration. The paper further evaluates the social and economic circumstances that contribute to delinquent behaviour among vulnerable children and analyses the role of the State, institutions, and society in addressing such issues. The study concludes that juvenile delinquency among orphaned and neglected children is frequently a consequence of social deprivation, institutional failure, lack of education, emotional neglect, and exploitative environments rather than inherent criminal tendency. The paper emphasises that an effective juvenile justice system should prioritise rehabilitation, counselling, education, protection, and social reintegration instead of punitive approaches. Strengthening child protection mechanisms and ensuring a rights-based approach towards vulnerable children are therefore essential for achieving meaningful juvenile justice administration in India.

An increasing number of inmates in India face mental health that are often worsened by the conditions within prisons, including social isolation, overcrowding, uncertainty surrounding their legal status, and a lack of professional healthcare access. Although there is growing awareness of prisoner welfare as a human rights issue, mental health care in correctional facilities is still a poorly researched and implemented area. This study investigates the mental health conditions of inmates in India and evaluates how psychoanalysts and social workers can help address these issues through therapeutic, rehabilitative, and reintegrative approaches. The prevalent mental health issues faced by inmates often include depression, anxiety disorders, and tendencies toward suicide, with many cases remaining undiagnosed or neglected due to deficiencies within the system. Gaining insight into these conditions is crucial for creating effective mental health care systems in prisons and implementing necessary reforms in corrections. The main research focus of this research is to explore if psychological interventions and correctional social work can transform Indian prisons from punitive institutions into rehabilitative spaces that promote offender reform and facilitate successful reintegration into society. This study employs a doctrinal and analytical method, drawing on secondary sources including government documents, prison data, judicial rulings, criminological studies, and academic literature related to correcti0onal psychology and prison management in India. The study’s findings indicate that social workers have an important role in psychological assessment, therapy, crisis intervention, behavioural analysis, and risk evaluation, while psychoanalysts make a substantial contribution through counselling, family involvement, career training, planning for recovery, and post-release assistance. However, the study also emphasizes how congestion and a lack of combined psychological expertise among qualified experts hinder the efficacy of these approaches. The central thesis of the paper is that social rehabilitation and mental health treatments ought to be considered essential components of prison administration rather than merely optional charity programs by combining psychological and socio-legal perspective to evaluate the joint impact of social workers and psychoanalysts in Indian prisons, this study contributes to the body of existing literature. To create a more compassionate and rehabilitative custodial environment, it also highlights the urgent need for institutional reforms, improvements to mental health resources hiring skilled personnel, and the efficient implementation of policies. Improving psychological and social work programs in prisons can improve the mental health of inmates, reduce recidivism rates, promote long-term public safety, and facilitate successful social reintegration.

This paper examines the growing impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on intellectual property (IP) law, and in particular on the trademark regulatory framework, where its role is strengthening by the day. The proliferation of AI-generated brand names, logos, slogans, and marketing strategies has produced marks that are increasingly difficult to distinguish from human creations and that raise novel questions of ownership and liability. Existing trademark systems in the major jurisdictions rest on long-standing, human-centric concepts and remain unclear on how trademarks created with artificial intelligence are to be treated. This paper compares and contrasts the approaches taken in the United States, the European Union (EU), and India at the convergence of AI and trademark law. While AI offers significant potential for innovation and efficiency in branding and trademark administration, it also exposes key doctrinal and regulatory gaps in existing legal frameworks. The EU has adopted a more proactive and regulatory approach to emerging technologies, while the United States has been more flexible and case-based; India, by contrast, is at a relatively early stage in evolving its trademark system to meet the commercial realities of AI. This paper concludes by arguing that today’s trademark regimes require significant modernisation to respond to the legal and commercial challenges of AI-generated trademarking and enforcement. It also emphasises the importance of international cooperation and convergence in a more automated world, in order to create a level playing field that allows for legal certainty, accountability, and consistency.

The emergence of social media has fundamentally altered the administration of criminal justice by creating a decentralized ‘court of public opinion’ that operates parallel to formal judicial institutions. This paper examines the phenomenon of ‘social media trials’ through the constitutional lens of fair-trial rights guaranteed under Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Using India as the primary jurisdictional case study, with comparative references to the United Kingdom and the United States, this paper argues that algorithmic amplification of prejudicial content violates the presumption of innocence and renders the sub-judice doctrine ineffective. Through analysis of the Sushant Singh Rajput case (2020), the Rhea Chakraborty investigation, and the Depp v. Heard defamation trial (2022), this study demonstrates how traditional contempt-of-court frameworks, designed for print and broadcast media, fail to regulate decentralized digital discourse. This paper concludes by proposing a three-tiered regulatory model: legislative reform of contempt law to address digital publication, judicial expansion of postponement orders to include social media takedowns, and recognition of platform accountability under international human-rights norms.

The legitimacy of all digital evidence used in criminal proceedings is under an unprecedented threat due to the rise of deepfakes. Video and audio files that cannot be verified by current evidentiary standards now appear in courts all over the world. The majority of current AI detection techniques offer a workable substitute; however, pre-AI statutes dictate the legal standing of these AI-based detection systems with respect to their constraints, resilience against adversaries, and stability. This paper compares the regulatory environment for detection systems in four major jurisdictions, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and India, with the objective of identifying important gaps between the different types of regulation. The specific gaps identified include the judiciary’s inconsistent gatekeeping requirements for AI-derived forensic evidence, the lack of a mandatory requirement for forensic certification of AI detection systems, the lack of public disclosure of the accuracy or error rates of AI forensic detection, and the limited cooperation between jurisdictions on detection-tool certification. A new international framework is recommended in order to preserve jurisdictional integrity, safeguard an individual’s right to a fair trial, and rebuild trust in digital evidence. This paper suggests that, as part of this new framework, AI detection tools should, at the very least, obtain international certification; the admissibility of AI forensic evidence should require a modified gatekeeping analysis; the parties should give advance proof of the accuracy and error rate of an AI detection system; and the new framework should include certification of detection tools in compliance with the Budapest Convention.

The doctrine of public policy has long occupied a controversial position in arbitration law, often serving as a gateway for judicial intervention in arbitral awards. Borrowing from the celebrated description of public policy as an “unruly horse,” Indian courts have grappled with the challenge of balancing the finality of arbitral awards against the need to preserve fundamental legal values. This paper examines the evolution of the public policy ground for setting aside arbitral awards under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, with particular emphasis on contemporary judicial trends. The study traces the jurisprudential journey from the narrow interpretation adopted in Renusagar Power Co. Ltd. v. General Electric Co. to the expansive approach in ONGC v. Saw Pipes Ltd. and ONGC v. Western Geco International Ltd., where courts broadened the scope of review by incorporating concepts such as patent illegality and the fundamental policy of Indian law. While these decisions enhanced judicial oversight, they also attracted criticism for undermining arbitral autonomy and encouraging excessive court interference. The paper further analyses the legislative response through the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015, which sought to confine the public policy exception to clearly defined categories and expressly prohibited review on the merits of the dispute. Subsequent decisions, including Ssangyong Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd. v. NHAI, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. v. State of Goa, Consolidated Construction Consortium Ltd. v. Software Technology Parks of India, Gayatri Balasamy v. ISG Novasoft Technologies Ltd., and V.K. John v. S. Mukanchand Bothra, demonstrate a discernible judicial commitment to respecting arbitral finality and limiting intervention to exceptional circumstances. The paper argues that although the contours of public policy have become more predictable and restrained, the doctrine continues to retain a degree of flexibility necessary to safeguard justice and legality. It concludes that the “unruly horse” has not been completely tamed, but contemporary judicial and legislative developments have substantially reduced its capacity to disrupt the arbitral process.

The judiciary constitutes one of the fundamental pillars of a democratic system, entrusted with upholding the supremacy of the Constitution, ensuring the rule of law, and safeguarding the fundamental rights of citizens. To preserve the dignity, authority, and effective functioning of the judicial institution, the law relating to contempt of court has been established. However, in the context of evolving democratic ideals, greater demands for transparency, and the expanding scope of freedom of expression, an important question arises: does contempt law genuinely protect judicial independence, or does it shield the judiciary from legitimate criticism and thereby weaken mechanisms of accountability? This paper examines the constitutional, statutory, and judicial dimensions of contempt of court in India and explores the need to maintain an appropriate balance between judicial independence and institutional accountability.

Witnesses play a crucial role in the criminal justice system, and their statements and testimony are central to deciding whether a defendant is guilty or innocent. Witness intimidation, threats, harassment, social pressure, and violence, however, are common in India, whether from the accused or from influential groups. Owing to such fear, witnesses may turn hostile, refuse to cooperate, or withdraw their statements during trial. This undermines the administration of justice and leads to acquittals, even in serious criminal offences. Recognising the need for witness safety, the Supreme Court approved the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, which was made operational nationwide. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 later placed witness protection on a statutory footing under Section 398. The new criminal laws aim to modernise the Indian criminal justice system and to strengthen the rights of victims and witnesses. Several problems nonetheless remain, including weak implementation, limited financial resources, lack of awareness, delays in trials, technical and technological limitations, and the absence of specialised protection agencies. This paper discusses the concept of witness protection in India, examines its significance, studies the Witness Protection Scheme and the reforms introduced by the new criminal laws, and critically addresses the major hurdles that hinder effective implementation of the scheme. It also recommends the reforms required to strengthen India’s weak and inefficient witness protection mechanism.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are neurotechnological systems that decode neural signals to enable direct communication between the human brain and external devices. As BCIs are deployed in medical, commercial, and assistive contexts in India, they raise a fundamental question under Indian private law: can “free consent,” as codified under Sections 13 to 22 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872, be meaningfully constituted when the medium of contractual expression is a neural decoder susceptible to classification error? Drawing on the empirical decoder-error literature, the technical BCI literature, and a doctrinal analysis of Indian contract law, this paper argues that BCI decoding errors constitute a novel, technologically induced vitiating factor that the existing categories of coercion, undue influence, fraud, misrepresentation, and mistake do not adequately address. The paper further examines intersecting obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the constitutional framework established in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), concluding with concrete legislative and judicial recommendations to reform Indian law to accommodate BCI-mediated contractual expression.

The global governance of intellectual property (IP) has undergone significant institutional fragmentation since the conclusion of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 1994. The coexistence of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as dual pillars of international IP governance has generated overlapping mandates, divergent normative frameworks, and strategic forum shopping by state and non-state actors. This paper argues that the existing ad hoc cooperation mechanisms, particularly the 1995 WIPO-WTO Cooperation Agreement, are structurally insufficient to address the systemic challenges posed by institutional fragmentation. Drawing on regime complex theory, the law of international organizations, and an empirical analysis of TRIPS dispute settlement jurisprudence, this paper makes the case for a formal, treaty-based WIPO-WTO cooperation framework that institutionalizes coordination across norm-setting, technical assistance, and dispute settlement functions. Such a framework would enhance regulatory coherence, reduce forum shopping incentives, and strengthen the legitimacy of the global IP governance architecture in an era of accelerating technological change and geopolitical contestation.

India has long recognised the contribution of its armed forces through a comprehensive system of pension, disability, and welfare benefits designed to ensure post-service financial security and social protection. These benefits are grounded in the constitutional values of dignity and socio-economic justice and have been reinforced by judicial interpretation as a legal right rather than a discretionary benefit, with the State developing multiple regulatory instruments, including pension regulations, executive policies, and institutional mechanisms such as the Armed Forces Tribunal, to administer veterans’ benefits over time. Despite this framework, significant legal problems persist due to regulatory fragmentation, policy inconsistency, and a heavy reliance on litigation to enforce rights. The absence of a unified statutory code governing veterans’ benefits often leads to interpretational conflict between regulations, government circulars, and judicial decisions. This results in delays in the disbursal of benefits, unequal treatment of veterans in similar situations, and an increasing burden on judicial institutions. This paper critically examines the constitutional provisions, statutory regulations, judicial precedents, and administrative practices, through doctrinal research analysis and policy evaluation, to assess the effectiveness of India’s existing legal framework for veterans’ rights. It argues that, although India has a broad and wide-ranging welfare system for veterans supported by a large set of welfare laws and policies, those benefits are not maximised because they are inconsistently enforced. The paper recommends that the welfare system for veterans be revamped by consolidating veterans’ pension and disability provisions into a single statute, with new mechanisms for governance and grievance redressal.

Corporate crime refers to unlawful acts committed by corporations, or by individuals acting on behalf of corporations, in order to benefit the organisation. Unlike traditional crimes committed by individuals for personal gain, corporate crimes are usually committed within the structure of a company and often aim at maximising profits, avoiding regulation, or gaining unfair competitive advantages. These crimes may involve complex financial transactions, the manipulation of markets, the falsification of accounts, or violations of regulatory frameworks. Corporate crime is often considered a form of white-collar crime, in which individuals in positions of power and authority within corporate organisations engage in illegal activities that may cause significant economic and social harm. In many cases the victims are not easily identifiable individuals but large groups such as investors, consumers, governments, or society at large. Because corporations operate through complex organisational structures and multiple layers of management, determining responsibility and accountability becomes challenging, particularly when the crime involves multiple jurisdictions.

The swift emergence of crypto-assets and blockchain technology has revealed substantial deficiencies in conventional financial regulatory frameworks, necessitating an urgent equilibrium between innovation and robust risk management. This paper investigates the potential of a harmonised global regulatory framework to attain that equilibrium while addressing issues such as investor protection, market integrity, and systemic risk. It contends that while total regulatory uniformity across jurisdictions is impractical, a principles-based approach rooted in international coordination can facilitate functional harmonisation. The important components of such a framework include classifying crypto-assets by risk, maintaining technological neutrality, and ensuring interoperability between different regulatory regimes. The paper further examines India's evolving regulatory approach to assess whether it reflects cautious innovation or regulatory uncertainty. India's current position, which includes taxing crypto-assets without official legal recognition and relying on temporary policy measures, indicates a risk-averse approach that aims to keep crypto-assets separate from the formal financial system rather than to integrate them. This approach protects against possible financial instability, but it also reduces legal clarity and could slow innovation. The study finds that clear domestic rules and coordinated global standards are both necessary for the crypto ecosystem to grow in a manner that is sound for risk management and regulatory certainty.

The rapid expansion of digital technologies and data-driven economies has intensified concerns regarding privacy, surveillance, and the misuse of personal information. In response, nations across the globe have enacted comprehensive data protection laws to regulate the collection, processing, storage, and transfer of personal data. India introduced the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) as its first comprehensive legislation dedicated exclusively to personal data protection, while the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), implemented in 2018, is regarded as one of the world's most stringent and influential privacy frameworks. This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the DPDP Act, 2023 and the GDPR by examining their objectives, scope, principles, the rights of individuals, the obligations of data fiduciaries and controllers, cross-border data-transfer mechanisms, enforcement structures, and penalties. The paper further evaluates the extent to which the Indian legislation aligns with international privacy standards and identifies significant divergences between the two frameworks. While the GDPR adopts a rights-centric and stringent regulatory model emphasising accountability and individual autonomy, the DPDP Act reflects a comparatively flexible and State-oriented approach that balances privacy with governance and economic considerations. The analysis highlights the strengths and limitations of both frameworks and discusses the implications for multinational corporations, digital governance, and the future of privacy protection in India. This paper concludes that, although the DPDP Act marks a significant milestone in India's digital regulatory landscape, further reforms and institutional safeguards may be necessary to achieve parity with the global standards established by the GDPR.

In the contemporary financial environment, taxation has become an unavoidable aspect of everyday life. Whether an individual earns a salary, operates a business, purchases goods, or invests in financial instruments, taxation directly or indirectly influences economic activity. Despite its widespread impact, a significant number of citizens lack basic tax knowledge and remain unaware of their rights and obligations under taxation laws. The absence of tax literacy often creates serious economic and legal consequences, including delayed tax filing, tax evasion, financial mismanagement, penalties, and vulnerability to fraudulent financial schemes. By contrast, individuals possessing basic tax knowledge are better equipped to make informed financial decisions, comply with legal requirements, use lawful tax-saving opportunities, and contribute to national economic development. Tax literacy also promotes transparency, accountability, and civic responsibility by helping citizens understand the relationship between taxation and public welfare. In an era characterised by digital transactions, online businesses, freelancing, and electronic tax administration, tax literacy has emerged as an essential life skill across all professional and social backgrounds. This paper examines the concept and significance of tax literacy in modern society and analyses its role in promoting financial awareness, responsible citizenship, economic participation, and legal compliance. It also discusses the major challenges associated with inadequate tax awareness and suggests measures for improving tax education through governmental initiatives and educational reforms.

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reordering the landscape of healthcare diagnostics. AI-driven systems now perform radiological image analysis, pathological screening, genomic interpretation, predictive risk stratification, and clinical decision support at a scale and speed that surpasses conventional clinical capacity. Yet every AI diagnostic system is, at its foundation, a data system: its performance depends upon access to vast repositories of historical patient data, namely records, images, biomarkers, and treatment outcomes, collected for clinical care but deployed for computational learning. This paper examines the legal challenges arising from the secondary use of patient data for AI diagnostic development and deployment, with particular focus on India’s evolving regulatory architecture. Anchored in the constitutional right to privacy as confirmed in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, the analysis traverses the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025, the sector-specific health data governance framework, and the comparative regimes of the European Union (including the EU AI Act, 2024, the GDPR, and the European Health Data Space Regulation, 2025) and the United States under HIPAA. Drawing upon the latest case law, including the landmark Lokken v. UnitedHealth Group litigation advancing in the District of Minnesota, the record 2025 HIPAA enforcement actions of the Office for Civil Rights, and emerging constitutional challenges before the Supreme Court of India, the paper argues that India’s current legal framework is structurally inadequate to govern the secondary use of patient data for AI, and proposes a comprehensive rights-based regulatory architecture.

This research paper examines the evolving role of forensic science in the investigation of road traffic accidents within the legal framework of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. With the increasing incidence of road accidents in India, the need for accurate, objective, and scientific methods of investigation has become imperative. Traditionally, accident cases relied heavily on eyewitness testimony and police reports, which are often inconsistent and unreliable. In this context, forensic science has emerged as a crucial tool in reconstructing accident scenarios, determining causation, and establishing liability. The study adopts a doctrinal and analytical approach to examine the integration of forensic techniques such as accident reconstruction, forensic medical analysis, and technological tools including CCTV footage and event data recorders. It further evaluates the evidentiary value of expert opinions under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, highlighting the growing judicial reliance on scientific evidence in Motor Accident Claims Tribunal proceedings. The paper also critically analyses the impact of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, particularly the shift towards a streamlined compensation mechanism under Section 164, and its implications for the role of forensic evidence in determining negligence. Despite its significance, the study identifies key challenges such as inadequate forensic infrastructure, lack of trained personnel, procedural delays, and inconsistent investigative practices that hinder effective implementation. The research concludes by proposing reforms aimed at strengthening forensic capabilities, improving investigative standards, and enhancing legal frameworks to ensure a more scientific, efficient, and just system of accident adjudication in India.

Drug laws form an essential component of criminal justice systems and public health governance across the world. These laws regulate the production, manufacture, possession, transportation, sale, and consumption of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. In India, the legal framework governing drug control is primarily based on the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act), which was enacted to fulfil India’s obligations under international drug control conventions. The framework aims to prevent drug trafficking, protect public health, and curb organised crime associated with narcotics. However, the implementation of stringent drug laws has also generated debates concerning human rights, proportional punishment, rehabilitation, and decriminalisation. International conventions such as the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, and the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988, significantly influence domestic legislation. This paper examines the legal structure, enforcement mechanisms, judicial interpretations, and contemporary challenges in drug law regulation.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), which came into force on 1 July 2024, represents the most comprehensive overhaul of India's substantive criminal law since the Indian Penal Code of 1860 was enacted under colonial auspices. While considerable scholarly attention has been directed toward the BNS provisions on organised crime, terrorism, and gender-based offences, the treatment of inchoate offences, namely attempt, criminal conspiracy, and abetment, has received comparatively limited critical scrutiny. This paper undertakes a rigorous doctrinal and comparative examination of the inchoate offence framework under the BNS, interrogating whether the legislative changes represent a meaningful jurisprudential advance or merely a relabelling exercise. Drawing upon established criminal law theory, judicial precedents of the Supreme Court of India and the High Courts, and comparative perspectives from English and American criminal jurisprudence, the paper analyses the extent to which the BNS addresses the persistent doctrinal tensions that plagued the IPC's inchoate regime: the indeterminate proximity test for attempt, the expansively drawn and constitutionally suspect scope of criminal conspiracy, and the tripartite complexity of abetment without explicit mens rea codification. The paper finds that while the BNS introduces certain structural reorganisation in the codification of these offences, it largely perpetuates the definitional ambiguities of its predecessor, foregoing an opportunity to adopt a principled liability threshold, a clearer mens rea standard, or a rationalised sentencing framework consonant with the degree of harm actually caused or risked. The paper concludes with specific doctrinal and policy recommendations calibrated toward bringing India's inchoate offence jurisprudence into alignment with contemporary criminal justice standards.

The unprecedented growth of digital technology has fundamentally reshaped the dynamics of narcotics trafficking, enabling organised criminal networks to use darknet marketplaces, encrypted communication platforms, social-media applications, and cryptocurrency-based transactions to facilitate the illicit drug trade with enhanced anonymity and operational sophistication. In India, the proliferation of cyber-enabled narcotics networks has posed significant challenges to law-enforcement agencies, particularly the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), in the prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act). The borderless and anonymous nature of digital platforms has substantially undermined traditional investigative mechanisms and exposed critical limitations within the existing legal and regulatory framework. This paper critically analyses the emerging phenomenon of digital drug trafficking in India and examines the enforcement challenges encountered by the Narcotics Control Bureau under the NDPS Act. It explores the increasing reliance on darknet marketplaces, encrypted messaging services, anonymous digital payment systems, and cryptocurrency transactions in facilitating transnational narcotics operations, and evaluates the legal and evidentiary issues arising from electronic-evidence collection, cyber-surveillance, jurisdictional complexity, digital anonymity, and cryptocurrency tracing in contemporary narcotics investigations. Assessing the effectiveness of the NDPS Act in addressing cyber-enabled narcotics offences, it highlights the need for advanced cyber-forensics, modern investigative mechanisms, and international cooperation, and concludes that legal reform, technological modernisation, and coordinated enforcement strategies are essential to combat online narcotics trafficking and to strengthen India’s narcotics-control framework in the digital era.

This paper studies the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. This Act was brought in as a special law dealing with the issue of child sexual abuse, a crime that was earlier addressed by the general provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The law defines offences with the child as the central point, treats both boys and girls as potentially vulnerable, and provides for Special Courts so that trials can be conducted with the needs of child witnesses in mind. Since then, the legislation has been interpreted by courts across the country, and a number of landmark decisions have determined its ambit. This paper offers an overview of the features of the Act, an analysis of the relevant decisions that have defined the scope of the legislation, and an examination of two main problems encountered during its implementation: the difficulty with the age-of-consent provision, which does not differentiate between a predatory adult preying on a child and two adolescents of roughly equal age who are willingly in a relationship; and the implementation problems, where the procedural safeguards promised in the Act, such as exclusive Special Courts, specialised staff, and time-bound trials, have not been effectively provided for. Some reforms to address these problems while maintaining the essence of the protection offered to the child are suggested at the end.

The Specific Relief (Amendment) Act, 2018 reformed the law governing contractual enforcement in India by transforming specific performance from a discretionary, equitable remedy into a statutory entitlement, introducing substituted performance, restricting injunctions that obstruct infrastructure projects, and emphasising the expeditious disposal of contractual disputes. This paper examines the amendment and the litigation in Katta Sujatha Reddy v. Siddamsetty Infra Projects Pvt. Ltd., in which the Supreme Court, in 2022, held that the substituted provisions are prospective and do not apply to transactions predating their commencement on 1 October 2018. The paper traces the subsequent course of that litigation: on 8 November 2024 the Supreme Court reviewed and recalled the 2022 judgment for errors going to the root of its reasoning on limitation and specific performance, and restored the High Court’s decree of specific performance in favour of the purchaser. Because the review did not expressly revisit the question whether the amendment operates prospectively or retrospectively, the proposition for which the 2022 judgment is best known now occupies an uncertain position, even as later benches have continued to rely on it. This paper argues that the amendment is a progressive step towards contractual certainty, but that the Katta Sujatha Reddy litigation illustrates both the doctrinal difficulty of the substantive-versus-procedural characterisation and the practical importance of disciplined appellate reasoning, and that the gains of the amendment ultimately depend on effective procedural implementation.

This paper explores how parliamentary democracies convert political responsibility into legally enforceable access to governmental information through transparency law. Using a doctrinal approach that analyses statutory texts, constitutional provisions, case law, and institutional systems, this paper juxtaposes the Right to Information Act, 2005 of India and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 of the United Kingdom. It examines the open-government principles underlying both statutes, but concentrates on the practical and legal implementation of transparency in relation to the administration of exemptions, appeals, and privacy. The analysis suggests that India possesses the more powerful regime, grounded as it is in the constitutional right to free speech and supported by Information Commissions empowered to penalise the wrongful withholding of information, alongside broader rights of access. India nonetheless suffers serious delays in its appellate process and a lack of institutional capacity. The United Kingdom’s system is more developed in legal and procedural terms, but it is more sheltered by privacy balancing, more reliant on administrative timetables, and rests on a more ambiguous constitutional foundation. In recent years both jurisdictions have moved toward a more privacy-centred approach to disclosure, although the Indian regime remains the more democratically anchored of the two.

Real estate disputes constitute one of the most significant areas of civil litigation in both India and Australia, yet the constitutional and regulatory frameworks governing such disputes reflect markedly different approaches to property rights, market regulation, and consumer protection. This paper undertakes a comparative constitutional analysis of real estate dispute resolution in India and Australia, examining recent legislative developments, contemporary judicial approaches, and institutional mechanisms for dispute adjudication. In India, the implementation of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 established a centralised regulatory framework with mandatory project registration, escrow requirements, and a three-tier dispute resolution mechanism, with over 148,576 complaints reported nationwide as of March 2024. The constitutional status of property rights in India, transformed from a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(f) to a constitutional right under Article 300A by the Forty-fourth Amendment, continues to shape judicial interpretation. In Australia, Section 51(xxxi) of the Commonwealth Constitution provides a structural guarantee of acquisition on just terms, while property law remains substantially a State subject administered through Torrens title systems and State tribunals. The paper finds that India’s centralised regulatory model prioritises consumer protection and disclosure obligations, while Australia’s decentralised tribunal framework emphasises procedural accessibility and specialist adjudication. The study concludes with recommendations for cross-jurisdictional learning.

The protection and safety of refugees is an important concern in international human rights. It becomes a matter of concern owing to the forced displacement of people from their countries and territories, which places them in a vulnerable situation through a lack of proper legal protection and legal mechanisms. As far as India is concerned, it has a long history of providing asylum and shelter to refugees from various parts of the globe. However, India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. In the absence of domestic law on refugees, they are regulated under general domestic laws such as the Foreigners Act, 1946, the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, and the Passport Act, 1967, along with constitutional provisions and executive policies. This often creates an uncertain and inconsistent legal position for refugees. This paper examines the extent to which the Indian Constitution provides protection and safeguards to refugees, focusing in particular on Articles 14 and 21, which guarantee equality before the law, the equal protection of the laws, and the right to life and dignity to every person, not only to citizens but also to non-citizens. The study analyses how the Indian courts, through their interpretations, have extended the protection of these articles to refugees. Through various judgments, the Indian courts have upheld the human rights and protection of refugees against arbitrary and unlawful actions. At the same time, the paper highlights the real and practical challenges faced by refugees in India. These include the non-recognition of their legal status, limited social and legal rights, the absence of a domestic law on refugees, the fear of detention and deportation, and violence based on ethnicity, language, and nationality. The same can be witnessed in the case of Rohingya refugees, which shows that protection is based on government discretion rather than on any proper legal framework. The paper also briefly considers the impact of the recent Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which raised concerns about the selective approach of the government towards the protection of refugees. Using the doctrinal method of research, the study relies on constitutional provisions, judicial pronouncements, and relevant literature to examine the gap between legal guarantees and actual practice. It argues that the Indian Constitution provides a strong foundation for the protection of refugees, but the complete benefits are not realised owing to the absence of a comprehensive and uniform refugee law. The paper concludes that there is a need for a clear and comprehensive legal framework for the rights and protection of refugees in India. Moreover, such a framework must comply with the spirit of the Indian Constitution, international human rights standards, and international law and conventions on refugees, ensuring that refugees are treated with dignity and are no longer left in a state of legal uncertainty.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (hereinafter ‘POCSO Act’ or ‘the Act’) is one of the most impactful legislations in Indian jurisprudence in the realm of child rights and sexual offence law in the post-independence era. It was enacted to meet India’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, and provided an independent criminal procedural framework for child victims. The Act makes a large number of acts in relation to persons under the age of 18 years an offence, provides for sentences, shifts the burden of proof in certain cases, and establishes special courts for fast-track trials. Despite its noble intention of safeguarding children, the POCSO Act has been subject to persistent scholarly and judicial scrutiny on account of its procedural rigidity, its potential for misuse, the possibility of innocent people being imprisoned, and its chilling effect on consensual adolescent intimacy. This paper critically examines the basic structure of the Act, the evidentiary presumptions under Sections 29 and 30, the mandatory reporting requirement under Section 19, the trial process under Sections 31 to 38, and the special court mechanism under Section 28, and offers a comparative analysis. The paper examines the statute’s intent and its constitutional and international foundations through the prism of key judicial rulings, legislative history, and comparative models from the United Kingdom and the United States, and concludes that the statute is constitutionally sound and internationally grounded, but that its procedures are too rigid and require calibrated legislative change. Recommendations are provided regarding the development of a graduated age-of-consent scheme, judicial control of mandatory reporting requirements, and the implementation of a statutory defence to reduce false prosecution.

International Commercial Arbitration (ICA) has become the most important way to settle disputes between countries in the 21st century. It used to be a possible alternative to going to court, but now it is the main way to settle business disputes around the world. The 1958 New York Convention is what makes the system so effective. It guarantees that arbitral awards can be enforced almost everywhere, which is a big advantage over national court judgments. Also, the world of arbitration is becoming less centralized, as major arbitral centres are growing in Asia and the Middle East, which is challenging the historical dominance of Western institutions. At the same time, ICA is growing into new areas of business and adapting to deal with new types of disputes that come up in the digital economy, like those involving smart contracts and cryptocurrency, as well as the growing field of obligations related to climate change and sustainability. This paper concludes that the ongoing importance of ICA to global trade depends on its ability to address these challenges, reconciling its fundamental principles with the requirements for legitimacy, transparency, and innovation in a world that is becoming more complex and interconnected.

Corruption is a pervasive malaise that corrodes the fabric of democratic governance and retards socio-economic development. India's primary legislative instrument to combat public-sector corruption is the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Despite more than three decades of operation, the effectiveness of this statute remains deeply contested. This paper undertakes a critical examination of the PCA 1988, its legislative framework, substantive provisions, judicial interpretation, and procedural limitations, with special reference to the State of Bihar, which has historically recorded alarmingly high levels of corruption in public administration. This paper argues that while the PCA 1988 provides a robust normative foundation, structural deficiencies, including the sanction-for-prosecution regime, investigative bottlenecks, judicial delays, and political interference, significantly undermine enforcement, particularly in Bihar. It concludes with reform recommendations drawing on comparative jurisprudence and international anti-corruption standards.

Labour law is a powerful instrument for promoting justice, dignity, and the decent treatment of workers around the world, and particularly in rapidly industrialising countries like India. The evolution of labour law in India is a long history of workers struggling to secure necessities such as reasonable wages, healthier working environments, and security against exploitation. Despite a sophisticated legal order framed through the Constitution and other laws, recurrent issues such as pay disparities, the vulnerabilities of the informal sector, and enforcement deficits persist. This paper examines the multifaceted role of labour law in protecting workers' rights and ensuring equal remuneration, in the context of statutory provisions, judicial activity, and international norms adopted by India. Through case law, enforcement issues, and socio-economic impact, this paper identifies imbalances between law and practice and recommends focused reforms centred on transparency, inclusivity, and more efficient enforcement mechanisms. It concludes that effective labour law matters not only to the welfare of workers but also to long-term social order and economic prosperity.

In a recent landmark judgment, the Delhi High Court held that the “Right to be Forgotten” (RTBF) is a constitutionally protected facet of informational privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The judgment laid down the framework governing the de-indexing and masking of personal information from judicial records available online, and balanced the constitutional friction between an individual's fundamental right to informational privacy under Article 21 and the public's right to information under Article 19(1)(a).

The concept of justice did not mean to everyone in the same way over time or from person to person. Every model comes with a different claim and includes various claims. In the meantime the facts which now serve to determine guilt or innocence in court, are often provided by forensic science. Forensic justice lies between these two, the scientific method and the legal principle. It offers great accuracy but also the possibility of bias, access inequity and overreach. The purpose of this article is to study the differences between classical and modern theories of justice and its impact on forensic justice; to determine how well scientific evidence fits legal procedure in practice.

Wildlife crimes have emerged as a serious threat to biodiversity and environmental governance in India. Despite the existence of a comprehensive legal framework under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, the effective investigation and prosecution of wildlife offences continue to face significant practical and procedural challenges. Unlike conventional crime cases, wildlife offences often begin with seizure or apprehension before the formal registration of the offence, creating procedural ambiguities in investigation. This paper examines the key challenges encountered in wildlife crime investigation, including difficulties in search and seizure, the detection of crime, the preparation of the offence report, forensic examination, and the maintenance of the chain of custody. The study adopts an empirical and doctrinal approach, drawing upon field-based observation from practical engagement with forest field officials and wildlife crime investigation. This paper argues that strengthening wildlife law enforcement requires not only strong statutory provisions but also institutional reform and greater judicial and administrative sensitisation to the unique nature of wildlife offences.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) was established as a landmark step in the mechanism of environmental governance in India, intended to secure the swift resolution of ecological disputes. Since it became operational in 2010, the NGT has been commended for its initiative on pollution, forest protection, and sustainable development. Over time, however, a gap has become apparent between what the Tribunal rules and what is achieved in practice. This paper examines the way in which the NGT alternates between activism and ineffectiveness. It argues that, even as the Tribunal expands environmental law through progressive interpretations of the precautionary and polluter-pays principles, its work is undermined by weak enforcement, administrative backlog, and the absence of any concrete compliance mechanism. The paper contends that this produces a form of judicial greenwashing: the law appears green, but the ecological effects are largely absent in practice. Through an overview of leading cases and areas of practice, the paper emphasizes the need for reforms that would allow the NGT to move beyond symbolic rulings and to advance environmental justice in reality.

This paper examines plea bargaining as a critical mechanism in criminal justice systems worldwide, allowing cases to be resolved efficiently through negotiated settlements between the prosecution and the accused. In the United States, plea bargaining is a well-entrenched practice developed through judicial interpretation and prosecutorial discretion, forming the backbone of a criminal justice system in which a significant majority of cases are resolved through negotiated agreements. The American model emphasizes flexibility, case efficiency, and prosecutorial authority, with judges primarily ensuring the voluntariness of agreements. India formally introduced plea bargaining through the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005, which inserted Chapter XXIA (Sections 265A–265L) into the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, following recommendations of the 142nd and 154th Reports of the Law Commission of India and the Malimath Committee (2003). The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) re-enacts and refines this statutory framework, defining eligibility criteria, procedural timelines, and safeguards for accused persons and victims, and mandating judicial supervision to ensure that agreements are voluntary and fair. This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the plea-bargaining mechanisms of the United States and India, emphasizing differences in legal foundations, scope, judicial involvement, and victim protection, and highlights how statutory regulation under the BNSS contrasts with the discretionary, case-law-driven American framework. It further examines the implications of the BNSS for justice delivery, procedural efficiency, and fairness, proposing a balanced framework that upholds both efficiency and the protection of rights.

Although the relationship between organizational justice and turnover intention has been extensively examined, evidence from the public sector remains relatively limited. This paper synthesizes empirical evidence on the relationship between these two variables using a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach. A literature search was conducted in the Scopus database covering studies published between 2016 and 2026. Of the 239 articles initially identified, only 14 met the inclusion criteria and were selected for further analysis. The findings indicate that studies in the public sector tend to develop models incorporating mediating and moderating variables rather than directly examining the relationship between organizational justice and turnover intention. Furthermore, the diverse conceptualisation of organizational justice dimensions makes direct comparison across studies challenging. Nevertheless, all reviewed articles consistently reported a negative relationship between organizational justice and turnover intention. These findings highlight the importance of fostering fairness within public sector organizations and underscore the need for further research across a wider range of public sector contexts.

This paper critically examines the need for stringent regulation governing DNA technology in India by analysing the legal vacuum created by the provisions of the DNA Technology Bill, 2019, the reasons behind its non-implementation, and the current fragmented legal framework governing reliance on DNA technology in criminal cases. The study adopts a doctrinal research methodology based on secondary sources such as legislative provisions, commentaries, parliamentary debates, law commission reports, and expert opinions. The paper evaluates the effectiveness of the proposed Bill in regulating DNA collection, storage, and use while protecting the fundamental rights under Articles 14, 20(3), and 21 of the Constitution. Through a socio-legal analysis grounded in the principles laid down in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, the study shows that the proposed framework does not meet the constitutional criteria of legality, necessity, and proportionality. It further examines the consequences of the withdrawal of the Bill in 2023 and the dependence on scattered provisions under the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, judicial interpretations, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam framework. By comparing the mechanisms of other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, best-practice regulation of DNA storage and use is recommended for India to adopt similar systems as suited to Indian conditions. It concludes that a comprehensive and constitutionally compliant DNA governance structure, which balances privacy and liberty, must be adopted and is an inevitable need for the current regulatory system.

The dichotomy of constitutional morality versus popular morality marks an important fault line in Indian constitutional law. Constitutional morality, as articulated by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, entails adherence to the values and ethos of the Constitution, including liberty, equality, justice, fraternity, secularism, and the rule of law. Popular morality, by contrast, rests on dominant social norms, majoritarian attitudes, religious customs, and prevailing practices that may resist progressive change. This doctrinal tension is most visible in matters of personal autonomy, religious practice, gender rights, and the rights of sexual minorities. Indian courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, have increasingly adopted the doctrine of constitutional morality to defend fundamental rights against public opinion, as illustrated by Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, which decriminalised consensual same-sex relations, Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, the Sabarimala case, and Joseph Shine v. Union of India, which struck down the offence of adultery. These developments have provoked debate over the legitimacy of the judiciary as a moral agent, with one line of critique urging that the judiciary respect democratically endorsed values and avoid overreach, and another insisting that the courts must act as sentinels of transformative constitutionalism. This paper examines the philosophical foundations, judicial interpretations, and democratic implications of invoking constitutional morality in the face of popular resistance. It evaluates whether constitutional morality operates as a necessary counter-majoritarian force or risks becoming an elitist imposition, and considers the balance it strikes between democratic legitimacy and constitutional supremacy in India.

Forest land rights are of immense importance to the socio-economic, cultural and traditional life of the Scheduled Tribes (STs) of Tripura. Forests have been an integral part of the life of the Tripuri people in the State, providing income, culture, shelter, food, spiritual comfort and identity. Colonial forest policies, post-independence land policies, deforestation and developmental activities, however, have adversely affected the forest rights of the Tripuri people. To secure and assert the rights of forest-dwelling STs and other traditional forest dwellers, the Parliament of India enacted the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, a landmark legislation. This paper critically reviews the forest laws in Tripura in relation to the forest rights of the STs. It examines the constitutional safeguards under Articles 14, 15, 21, 46 and 244 and the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution, the statutory protections under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, and the relevant environmental and land laws. It also evaluates the effectiveness of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) in protecting tribal land and forest rights. The paper further outlines important obstacles to the implementation of forest rights, including land alienation, displacement, administrative delay, lack of awareness, environmental limitations and tensions between conservation policies and the livelihood rights of tribes. Government responses and measures concerning tribal welfare and forest governance are also highlighted. This study finds that, although there are legislative provisions safeguarding tribal forest rights, the implementation of these provisions remains lacking in effectiveness. Greater institutional accountability, awareness creation, community engagement and policy reform are needed to ensure social justice, ecological sustainability and the realisation of the constitutional rights of the STs in Tripura.

The semiconductor sector plays an integral role in the development of pioneering digital technology and industrial innovation. The sector’s competitive advantage is rooted in the secrecy of its fabrication processes and process combinations, which are protected as trade secrets. However, the growing digitalisation of the manufacturing workplace, the use of cloud-based design collaboration and cross-border data transfers have posed critical legal and regulatory challenges to the protection of these trade secrets. The current national and international framework for trade-secret protection is fragmented and inadequate, and existing data-protection laws do not adequately protect non-personal industrial data, deepening the legal lacuna. This paper analyses the existing trade-secret protection regime for semiconductor fabrication, reviewing the legal and enforcement mechanisms across jurisdictions, and examines the regulatory gap under data-protection laws. It discusses the overlap of trade-secret law, digital data regulation and international compliance with reference to semiconductor fabrication and masking data. The paper concludes by suggesting a holistic approach that balances the protection of trade secrets with the principles of digital governance in semiconductor manufacturing, so as to protect innovation and unify global compliance norms. This research adds to the existing debate on securing industrial data in the era of digitalisation.

The witness stand and the autopsy table together pose a particularly complex challenge in the adjudication of murder in India. This paper addresses the dilemma created when post-mortem findings and eyewitness accounts compete for the court's reliance in determining guilt in murder cases. It argues that neither form of evidence, as currently conceived, is independently conclusive, and that judicial precision is possible only when both are situated within a coherent and reliable evidence-centred framework. Although eyewitness accounts are often thought to carry greater value, as the only first-hand evidence of the incident, it is medical evidence that becomes effectively irrefutable where it renders the prosecution's narrative impossible, highly improbable, or materially inconsistent. Adopting a doctrinal method, the study delineates the framework of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, together with the leading Supreme Court authorities on ocular and medical evidence. It finds that the Indian legal system embraces a cumulative, rather than a binary, logic of proof. Courts assess the credibility of witnesses, distinguish minor discrepancies from material contradictions between testimony and the post-mortem report, evaluate the evidential value of each, and ask whether the prosecution case survives the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The paper contends that trial courts would benefit from a clearer structure, one that examines witness presence, the mechanics of the assault, medical correlation, and reasonable doubt in sequence, so that convictions and acquittals alike are reasoned, fair, and just.

This critical research article examines the tension between the principle of exclusive airspace sovereignty under Article 1 of the Chicago Convention and the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. In the context of cross-border drone operations against non-state actors, this article interrogates whether such operations constitute independent violations of sovereignty or amount to unlawful uses of force. The analysis entails the distinction between breaches of territorial sovereignty and armed attacks while critically evaluating the legal status of the ‘unwilling or unable’ doctrine. The two competing hypotheses examined are: H₀ — whether cross-border drone strikes violate airspace sovereignty; and H₁ — whether such actions may be reconciled with international law under limited conditions.

This article examines the economic implications of data localisation for India through the lens of law and economics. It pursues three objectives: to reframe the localisation debate as a question of efficiency rather than of sovereignty, to determine the conditions under which a restriction on cross-border data flows is economically justified, and to propose a governance framework calibrated to those conditions. In method it is doctrinal and analytical, combining a positive analysis of the welfare effects of data governance with a normative assessment against the criterion of efficiency, and proceeding by a comparative institutional analysis of the principal cost studies and of the statutory, regulatory and treaty instruments of Indian data governance. On this approach, cross-border flows are a source of efficiency and positive externalities, so that a restriction imposes a deadweight loss justified only where it corrects a market failure, whether an externality or a concentration of market power, at a cost smaller than the harm it would otherwise produce. India is at once the leading exporter of data-intensive services and a major source of consumer data whose value is captured largely abroad, a tension the article calls the IT-BPM Paradox. Drawing on a sectoral analysis, the distributional critique of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the disciplines of international trade law, it argues that neither comprehensive localisation nor unconditional liberalisation is efficient, and proposes a framework that selects, for each category of data, the least-cost instrument that addresses the market failure at stake.

The issue of social inequality faced by transgender persons in India represents a critical challenge to the constitutional promise of equality, dignity, and non-discrimination. Historically marginalised and excluded from mainstream socio-economic structures, transgender individuals have been subjected to systemic discrimination in areas such as education, employment, healthcare, and public participation. This paper examines the constitutional responses to such inequalities, focusing on the evolving jurisprudence and legislative frameworks in India. This paper critically analyses the transformative role of the Supreme Court in recognising transgender rights, particularly through the landmark judgment in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, which affirmed the right to self-identification of gender and extended constitutional protections under Articles 14, 15, 16, 19, and 21 of the Constitution. It further evaluates the effectiveness of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 in addressing structural inequalities and ensuring substantive equality. While constitutional and legal developments mark significant progress, this paper argues that gaps persist in implementation, awareness, and institutional accountability. Issues such as bureaucratic barriers in gender recognition, the absence of inclusive policies, and societal stigma continue to hinder the realisation of constitutional rights. Adopting a doctrinal and analytical approach, the study highlights the tension between formal equality and substantive justice in the context of transgender rights. The paper concludes by advocating a more inclusive, rights-based approach grounded in constitutional morality, emphasising the need for stronger enforcement mechanisms, policy reforms, and sensitisation measures. It underscores that true inclusion requires not only legal recognition but also societal transformation to uphold the constitutional vision of equality and justice for all.

The enactment of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, alongside the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, represents a deliberate legislative effort to transform the Indian criminal justice system from a confession-oriented model into an evidence-oriented, and increasingly scientific, one. Section 176(3) of the BNSS requires the presence of a forensic expert at the scene of crime, together with videography of the collection of evidence, in every offence punishable with imprisonment of seven years or more. This paper examines the present state of India's forensic science system through a multi-disciplinary lens, drawing on quantitative data concerning laboratory capacity, personnel, accreditation standards and case pendency across the central and state forensic systems. It finds that forensic laboratories carry backlogs ranging from roughly 18,000 to 62,000 cases, operate at approximately forty per cent below their sanctioned manpower, and record a National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation rate of only six to eight per cent. This structural deficit undermines the work of crime-scene investigators, prosecutors and judges, and prevents the forensic system from realising its potential within the justice-delivery process. The paper argues that the enabling conditions for forensic evidence under the new criminal codes must be created concurrently, by upgrading, equipping and standardising laboratories and their associated services. The argument carries far-reaching implications for the constitutional guarantee of life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, the credibility of the evidence placed before the trial courts, and the legitimacy of a criminal justice system that is itself in the course of reform.

This paper examines the standards governing the admissibility and evidentiary value of scientific evidence in Indian jurisprudence, with particular attention to the transition from the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 to the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. It analyses the statutory framework for expert opinion under Sections 39, 40 and 44 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam and the special treatment of electronic evidence, observing that the statute, like its predecessor, is silent on the reliability of the underlying scientific technique. Surveying judicial pronouncements concerning DNA profiling, fingerprinting, ballistics, and contested techniques such as narco-analysis, polygraphy and brain-mapping, the paper traces the emergence of a sui generis judicial standard resting on relevancy, reliability and corroboration. Through a comparative assessment of the Frye and Daubert standards in the United States, it identifies persistent lacunae, including the risk of admitting unreliable science, the absence of structured judicial training, and the uneven quality of forensic infrastructure. The paper concludes by advocating the codification of a flexible reliability standard, systematic capacity-building for the judiciary and the Bar, and the strengthening of forensic institutions.

This paper critically examines whether India's merger control framework is conceptually and institutionally equipped to address market concentration emerging within its startup and innovation ecosystem, particularly through the acquisition of nascent or potential rivals. It argues that the traditional asset and turnover based thresholds under the Competition Act, 2002 were poorly suited to digital markets, where a target's strategic value may lie less in present revenue and more in data, innovation capacity, user base, and future competitive potential. The paper analyses the significance of the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023 and its deal value threshold, while also evaluating the Digital Competition Bill, 2024 as an ex-ante response to entrenched digital power. Although these developments mark an important regulatory shift, they do not fully resolve the problems of killer acquisitions, innovation harms, and concentration driven by ecosystem expansion rather than price-based exclusion alone. The paper contends that India's current trajectory remains reactive, fragmented, and insufficiently attentive to dynamic competition, and it proposes a more integrated framework that combines merger review, innovation-sensitive analysis, data concentration assessment, and stronger institutional capacity within the Competition Commission of India. In doing so, the study contributes to the emerging scholarship on digital competition law in India by situating merger regulation within the broader question of sustaining innovation, market contestability, and fairness in an increasingly platformised economy.

This paper examines the transformation of Article 142(1) of the Constitution of India from a narrow, procedural safety valve into an expansive and largely unconstrained source of remedial authority. Tracing the provision's genealogy from Section 210 of the Government of India Act, 1935, through four Constitution Bench landmarks, and drawing on the most comprehensive empirical study of Article 142 usage between 1950 and 2023, the paper argues that the Supreme Court's reflexive self-description of the power as an exercise of classical equity is analytically inadequate for its structural governance applications. It contends that the Court's contemporary practice is better conceptualised not as remedial constitutionalism but as plenary instrumentalism, a results-oriented paradigm in which Article 142 is treated as an all-purpose tool of problem-solving and institutional substitution. Through a domain-by-domain analysis of fiscal, criminal, family-law, and federal interventions, and by situating these pathologies within a broader institutional malaise spanning bail jurisprudence, recusal practice, and collegium opacity, the paper proposes a five-stage proportionality test and an integrated structural reform agenda to tether the power within the separation of powers architecture.

This paper examines the Basic Structure Doctrine in Indian constitutional law through an analysis of the seminal decision in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973). It traces the constitutional contest between Parliament and the Judiciary over the scope of the amending power under Article 368, surveying the earlier line of authority in Shankari Prasad, Sajjan Singh and Golak Nath that preceded the doctrine. The paper sets out the background and key judicial features of the Kesavananda Bharati case, including its thirteen-judge Bench and 7:6 majority, and explains the decision and the constitutional provisions it engaged. It concludes that the doctrine, by permitting amendment of the Constitution while protecting its essential features, secures a durable equilibrium between parliamentary authority and constitutional supremacy.

This paper examines the legal and regulatory frameworks governing data privacy and protection in the digital age, undertaking a comparative study of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. As personal data has emerged as a valuable economic and social resource, questions concerning privacy, accountability, security, and regulatory oversight have gained substantial importance in contemporary legal discourse. The paper evaluates the principal features of both regimes, including consent-based processing, the rights granted to individuals, the obligations imposed upon data fiduciaries and controllers, and the mechanisms designed to ensure compliance. While both regimes demonstrate a shared commitment to protecting informational privacy and enhancing user control over personal data, important differences persist regarding territorial applicability, enforcement structures, institutional independence, regulatory penalties, and cross-border data transfer mechanisms. Through comparative legal analysis, the paper argues that although the Indian framework represents a significant development in establishing a structured data protection regime, certain areas require further refinement to achieve greater effectiveness and international compatibility, particularly the strengthening of regulatory institutions, the improvement of enforcement mechanisms, and the establishment of clearer standards governing international data flows. The paper ultimately advocates a multi-layered privacy governance model grounded in transparency, accountability, and greater harmonisation with evolving global data protection standards.

This paper examines due process as a fundamental pillar of the Indian criminal justice system, which requires the State to exercise its coercive powers in a manner consistent with fairness, legality and respect for individual rights. The Constitution of India provides procedural safeguards against the arbitrary deprivation of life and liberty through Articles 14, 20, 21 and 22. Repeated instances of police atrocities, including custodial violence, torture, illegal detention, forced confessions and extrajudicial killings, have nevertheless raised serious concerns about the erosion of due process in practice. This paper critically analyses the extent to which police misconduct erodes constitutional protections and undermines public confidence in the administration of justice. It examines the historical foundations of policing in India and the structural factors that contribute to the abuse of power, including inadequate accountability mechanisms, political interference, institutional inefficiencies and a culture of impunity. It considers the role of the judiciary in protecting fundamental rights through landmark judgments and procedural guidelines designed to curb police excesses, and it assesses India's commitments under international human rights norms while highlighting the disconnect between legal guarantees and their implementation. Particular emphasis is placed on the disproportionate impact of police atrocities on marginalised and economically vulnerable sections of society. This paper argues that the failure of due process reflects not merely individual misconduct but wider systemic failures, and that strengthening accountability, ensuring independent investigations and promoting rights-based policing are essential to preserving constitutional values, protecting human dignity and reinforcing the rule of law in India.

This paper examines the legal challenges posed by deepfake crimes in India. Artificial intelligence has transformed digital communication and content creation, and one of its most controversial applications is deepfake technology, which enables the creation of highly realistic but fabricated audio, video, and image content. While deepfakes have legitimate uses in entertainment, education, and research, they have increasingly become instruments of cybercrime, identity theft, online fraud, non-consensual intimate imagery, political misinformation, and reputational harm. India presently lacks dedicated legislation governing deepfake crimes, compelling law enforcement agencies and courts to rely on the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 for prosecution and evidentiary assessment. This paper critically examines the nature of deepfake crimes, the criminal liability of accused persons, the admissibility of artificial-intelligence-generated evidence, the constitutional implications, and the challenges confronting investigators and courts in addressing this emerging technological threat.

This paper examines how participation in modern e-commerce and FinTech ecosystems is increasingly conditioned upon the continuous disclosure of personal data as the price of access to services such as retail, payments, credit and financial inclusion. Drawing on Shoshana Zuboff's account of surveillance capitalism, it argues that consent has been rendered largely illusory, as digital platforms have shifted from collecting data as a by-product of service delivery to extracting behavioural data as a core economic resource for prediction, profiling and behavioural influence. It contends that consent fatigue is not merely a consequence of complex digital architecture but a deliberate exploitation of users' cognitive overload, dark patterns and asymmetric power relations, operating disproportionately against economically and digitally marginalised groups. Through a comparative analysis of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and landmark judicial precedents from Indian, European and German courts, the paper identifies critical regulatory lacunae in both e-commerce and FinTech. Grounding its normative argument in Kantian and Rawlsian philosophy, it proposes a shift towards a more duty-based regulatory framework and the reconceptualisation of personal data as an extension of selfhood rather than a tradeable commodity.

This paper examines, through a criminological lens, the lives of children who reside in Indian prisons with their incarcerated mothers or who are otherwise affected by maternal imprisonment. Drawing on feminist criminology, attachment theory, labelling theory, and structural violence theory, it characterises these children as secondary victims who suffer institutional neglect, social stigmatisation, and developmental deprivation despite having committed no offence. The paper analyses the constitutional, statutory, and judicial framework in India, including Article 21, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, the Model Prison Manual, and the directions in R.D. Upadhyay v. State of Andhra Pradesh, alongside international instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Bangkok Rules. It reviews comparative best practices from Thailand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and argues for a shift towards child-sensitive justice through non-custodial alternatives, child-friendly prison infrastructure, and structured post-release support.

This paper examines the structural incompatibility between the international intellectual property regime, consolidated through the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and the rights of Indigenous Peoples over traditional knowledge in global trade. It argues that the foundational exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from the TRIPS framework reflects an epistemological architecture that privileges individualistic, market-driven innovation while rendering collective and intergenerational knowledge vulnerable to extraction and commodification. The paper evaluates international human rights instruments, including Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the 2024 WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, and the Nagoya Protocol, and undertakes a comparative analysis of national implementation across Canada, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Rwanda. It concludes that reconciliation requires not merely procedural adjustment but a paradigmatic reform centred on Indigenous epistemic sovereignty, comprising the use of TRIPS flexibilities to establish sui generis protection, the constitutional recognition of Indigenous data sovereignty, mandatory free, prior and informed consent within trade agreements, and the empowerment of Indigenous-led governance mechanisms.

This paper examines the legal status of refugees in India and evaluates the challenges arising from the absence of a comprehensive refugee protection framework. Forced migration driven by armed conflict, persecution, generalised violence, environmental degradation, and climate-induced disaster has emerged as one of the foremost humanitarian challenges of the twenty-first century, yet India remains outside the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol despite hosting diverse refugee populations for decades. The paper analyses the international legal regime governing refugees, the constitutional and judicial protections available within India, and the practical difficulties confronting refugee communities, including legal uncertainty, inconsistent treatment, documentation gaps, detention and deportation risk, and socio-economic exclusion. Drawing on comparative practice in Canada, Germany, and South Africa, it proposes legislative and policy reforms aimed at establishing a coherent, rights-based, and humanitarian refugee protection system. The paper argues that a dedicated refugee law would strengthen India's commitment to humanitarian principles while simultaneously addressing legitimate national security concerns.

This paper examines the inequities in the global distribution of vaccines, therapeutics, and health technologies exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the renewed debates these inequities have generated concerning intellectual property, technology transfer, and global health justice. It situates the ongoing negotiations surrounding the World Health Organization Pandemic Agreement and its proposed Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system within the broader framework of international law and global health governance, analysing the legal and political deadlocks that have arisen over benefit-sharing obligations, technology transfer mechanisms, and intellectual property protections. Drawing upon the evolving doctrine of the Common Concern of Mankind, and in light of recent developments in international jurisprudence, the paper argues that global health security should be treated as a collective legal responsibility requiring mandatory international cooperation. It analyses the interaction between the proposed PABS framework and existing international legal instruments, including the Nagoya Protocol and the TRIPS Agreement, while examining the challenges associated with pathogen sharing, zoonotic surveillance, and equitable access to health technologies. The paper further connects these debates to the persistent crisis of antimicrobial resistance, highlighting the limitations of existing innovation and technology transfer models, and advocates a harmonised legal framework that combines the PABS architecture with the Common Concern of Mankind doctrine to facilitate equitable peacetime technology transfers, strengthen regional manufacturing capacity, and secure a more resilient and just global health order.

This paper examines the intersection of psychology and criminal profiling and its implications for the administration of criminal justice. It situates crime and psychology as closely related disciplines, arguing that legal and societal assessments of crime are enriched by attention to the cognitive processes, personality characteristics, mental health conditions, environmental factors, and social interactions that shape criminal conduct. The paper traces the longstanding and often distorted association between mental illness and crime, the consequences of inadequate community mental health provision and deinstitutionalisation in India, and the risks of psychiatric labelling within the criminal justice system. It then analyses offender profiling as an investigative technique, assessing its reliability, scientific foundation, and admissibility as evidence across jurisdictions, and concludes that, although profiling is useful for investigations, it lacks the reliability required to establish the guilt or innocence of an accused person.

This paper examines the registrability of descriptive trademarks, a category of marks that directly conveys the nature, character or quality of the goods or services to which they are applied and therefore ordinarily lacks the distinctiveness that trademark protection presupposes. It explains why descriptive marks are not, as a rule, registrable, and the circumstances in which descriptiveness ceases to be an impediment, namely where the mark has acquired distinctiveness or a secondary meaning. Drawing on the parallel jurisprudence of the United Kingdom, the United States and India, the paper traces the rationale for refusing any trader the exclusive right to appropriate words that describe the characteristics of goods or services, and distinguishes descriptive marks from generic and suggestive marks. It concludes that a descriptive mark may be registered only where it is capable of distinguishing goods and services and has acquired a secondary meaning, and that the judiciary, through this delineation, continues to advance the object of the Trade Marks Act, 1999.

This paper examines how judicial interpretation has shaped the contours, scope, and limitations of reservation policies in India, with particular attention to their impact on Dalits, Scheduled Tribes, and religious minorities. Rooted in Articles 14, 15, 16, and 46 of the Constitution, reservation reflects a constitutional commitment to substantive equality and the redress of historical discrimination. The paper traces the constitutional framework and historical rationale for affirmative action, the evolution of judicial doctrine from an early emphasis on formal equality to the Mandal-era jurisprudence, and the development of principles such as the fifty per cent ceiling, the creamy layer exclusion, and the conditions governing reservation in promotions. It evaluates the differential effects of these policies across communities and assesses contemporary developments, including the introduction of economic criteria through the Economically Weaker Sections reservation. The paper considers whether judicial pronouncements have strengthened or diluted the constitutional promise of equality for marginalised communities in contemporary India.

This paper examines whether contemporary Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks adequately operationalise corporate accountability, particularly in relation to gender equity and the redistribution of structural power. It argues that ESG governance remains predominantly disclosure-driven and procedurally oriented, so that gender inclusion measured through numerical board representation rarely challenges hierarchical decision-making, wage disparities, precarious labour conditions, or systemic inequality. Drawing on Martha Fineman's vulnerability theory and Nancy Fraser's recognition-redistribution framework, the paper critiques the liberal foundations of ESG governance and exposes the limits of formal equality. It evaluates the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises as normative benchmarks that conceptualise accountability as prevention, mitigation, and access to remedy rather than mere disclosure, and it draws on empirical evidence linking women's board representation to corporate social performance. The paper concludes that embedding feminist leadership principles of care, relational accountability, and collective governance can transform ESG from a reputational compliance tool into a framework of substantive, structural accountability.

This paper examines the legal and ethical challenges surrounding the admissibility and use of forensic evidence in Indian criminal trials. As the Indian judiciary increasingly relies on forensic science, ranging from DNA profiling and fingerprint identification to cyber forensics, the reliability and validity of such evidence have become central to fair-trial standards. The paper analyses the statutory framework governing scientific evidence, principally the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, alongside the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and identifies persistent problems of inconsistent judicial interpretation, weak chain of custody, inadequate infrastructure, a shortage of trained experts, and the absence of uniform national standards. It further considers the ethical and constitutional concerns raised by procedures such as narco-analysis, polygraph testing and compelled sample collection, particularly in relation to the right against self-incrimination under Article 20(3) and the right to privacy under Article 21. Drawing on leading judicial decisions, the paper proposes reforms to ensure that forensic science is applied in a manner that upholds both scientific rigour and constitutional protections.

This paper examines the complex relationship between India and Nepal, two neighbouring nations bound by deep historical, cultural, and economic ties yet increasingly strained by unresolved border disputes, particularly over the Kalapani, Limpiyadhura, and Lipulekh region. The territorial disagreement concerns an area of approximately 372 square kilometres at the India-Nepal-China trijunction in Uttarakhand, where Nepal contends that India's claim violates Article 1 of the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which obliges both states to respect each other's sovereignty. Through a doctrinal and qualitative analysis of treaties, cartographic records, diplomatic exchanges, and policy responses, the paper traces the historical origins of the dispute to the 1816 Treaty of Sugauli and the contested source of the Kali River, evaluates the role of domestic political factors and external strategic influences, and assesses the implications of the standoff for regional stability in South Asia. The paper argues for a pragmatic, dialogue-centric and incremental approach to dispute resolution, emphasising the need for sustained bilateral engagement, regional cooperation, and strategic foresight amidst emerging South Asian geopolitical challenges.

Inter-state disputes have been a hallmark of international relations throughout history, while their peaceful resolution forms the basis of global governance. Since its creation in 1945 by the United Nations Charter, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been the principal judicial body settling disputes between states on issues such as maritime and territorial boundaries, diplomatic protection, and treaty interpretation. Despite the ICJ's importance, however, natural limitations attend its functioning, because it can intervene only upon the mutual agreement of the states concerned, a constraint compounded by lengthy procedures that frustrate states. The rising number and complexity of international disputes expose deficiencies in the system, particularly those associated with its legal dimension. Although treaties and diplomacy serve as the traditional tools for dispute resolution, the broader context of addressing inter-state disputes through alternative dispute resolution (ADR) strategies has yet to be explored thoroughly. The academic literature largely treats ADR as a transitional process rather than as an integral part of the legal process. Questions such as consent-based jurisdiction, limited enforcement powers, and the underutilisation of arbitration in multilateral settings require further research. This article examines how methods of dispute settlement other than litigation may be used to achieve peaceful resolution of conflicts between states. It focuses on the function of ADR mechanisms, such as negotiation, mediation, conciliation, inquiry, and arbitration, in settling interstate disputes, whether through collaboration with the ICJ or independently. The aim is to assess, using treaties, case law, and academic discourse, whether such methods can complement existing judicial processes.

The Indian Supreme Court's engagement with euthanasia and end-of-life decision-making has progressively transformed Article 21 from a purely negative guarantee against arbitrary deprivation of life into a positive source of autonomy, bodily integrity and decisional privacy at the threshold of death. Beginning with Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, which rejected a freestanding "right to die" while acknowledging a possible "dignified procedure of death", the Court moved in Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug v. Union of India to cautiously legitimise judicially supervised withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment in cases of persistent vegetative state. Common Cause v. Union of India completed this doctrinal trajectory by expressly recognising a right to die with dignity as part of Article 21, validating passive euthanasia and advance directives, and constructing an elaborate judge-made regulatory framework for living wills, subsequently streamlined in 2023 to ease procedural barriers. This paper argues that, despite its autonomy-enhancing rhetoric, Indian euthanasia jurisprudence remains structurally paternalistic and administratively fragile when applied in a health system marked by intensive-care constraints, palliative-care deficits and medico-legal anxieties. Drawing on comparative experience from the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, the United Kingdom and selected U.S. jurisdictions, it contends that a workable Indian model must clearly distinguish ethically justified withdrawal of futile treatment from "euthanasia", embed end-of-life decisions within robust palliative and consent infrastructures, and shift primary norm-setting from the judiciary to Parliament and medical regulators. The paper ultimately advances a normative framework that treats the right to die with dignity as an institutional and distributive project rather than a purely doctrinal achievement. It proposes statutory clarification, procedural minimalism, and context-sensitive safeguards against coercion and inequality as the core design principles for an end-of-life regime that is both constitutionally faithful and practically feasible in India.

When India introduced the Goods and Services Tax on 1 July 2017, the design promised a single, unified tax on the supply of goods and services with a seamless chain of credit flowing from supplier to recipient. One provision, Section 16(2)(c) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, has nonetheless become a recurring source of hardship and constitutional anxiety, because it conditions a registered recipient's final retention of Input Tax Credit on the tax charged by its supplier having been actually paid to the Government, an outcome the recipient can neither compel nor verify. This paper traces the full arc of the problem: the statutory text of Section 16(2)(c) and its pre-GST doctrinal foundations, the divergent High Court rulings that have produced an unstable legal landscape, the constitutional arguments advanced on both sides under Articles 14, 19(1)(g), 265, and 300A, and a proposed framework through which the Supreme Court might and should resolve the conflict. It argues for upholding the provision as valid legislation while requiring procedural safeguards that protect bona fide recipients from permanent denial of credit for a default attributable exclusively to the supplier.

Motherhood in India has traditionally been understood through biological birth, where the woman who gives birth is regarded as the legal mother. With the development of in vitro fertilisation, surrogacy, and other assisted reproductive technologies, this understanding has changed. Motherhood may now involve different persons, such as the genetic, gestational, and intended mother, which creates legal uncertainty and new challenges for Indian law. This paper examines how motherhood is treated under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021, and the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994. It demonstrates that these statutes are concerned mainly with regulation and the prevention of misuse, but do not clearly define legal motherhood in cases of assisted reproduction. The paper also analyses constitutional principles such as dignity, privacy, and reproductive autonomy under Article 21, together with significant judicial decisions that support reproductive rights. It shows that a gap exists between constitutional ideals and statutory law, producing uncertainty in determining legal motherhood. The paper further discusses ethical, social, and gender-related issues, including consent, exploitation, and the inequality faced by women involved in surrogacy and assisted reproduction. It concludes that motherhood should be understood in a broader sense that incorporates intention, care, and responsibility alongside biology, and recommends a clear, unified, and rights-based legal framework to address the changing nature of motherhood in the era of modern reproductive technology.

The refusal of the Delhi High Court in 2022 to grant an injunction against obscene online content did not resolve the question of intermediary liability; it merely deferred it. That deferral exposes a structural problem in Indian digital law: the statutory framework governing online platforms was built on the assumption of a very different internet, one whose users were mere conduits rather than commercial intermediaries that profit from making hosted content visible. The rise of the influencer economy now tests that framework. This article asks to what extent social media platforms are legally liable as intermediaries for nudity-based influencer content under India's Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Confining its analysis to intermediary liability under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the 2021 Rules, with supplementary attention to the obscenity provisions of the penal law, the article argues that the framework is structurally inadequate. It contends that algorithmic curation undermines the passive-conduit premise of safe harbour, that a due-diligence paradox penalises platforms that police content actively, and that definitional indeterminacy produces both over-enforcement and under-enforcement. Drawing instrumentally on the European Union, the United States, and Germany, the article concludes with recommendations for a graduated liability model, a specialised regulatory authority, and a statutory definition of sexually explicit content.

Food security is indispensable to human dignity, social justice, and sustainable development. India enacted the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) to provide protection against hunger and malnutrition, transforming existing food welfare schemes into legally enforceable entitlements for eligible households and guaranteeing access to subsidised food grains and nutritional support through a rights-based legal framework. The implementation of the Act has increasingly relied on digital technologies, particularly Aadhaar-based biometric authentication, to enhance transparency, eliminate duplicate beneficiaries, and reduce leakages in the Public Distribution System (PDS). While these interventions have improved the administrative efficiency of monitoring and distribution, they have also generated concerns regarding exclusion from food entitlements arising from authentication failures, connectivity problems, technological glitches, and digital illiteracy. This paper examines the implications of Aadhaar-enabled food distribution systems for the constitutional right to food in India through available literature and data. It critically analyses the legal, policy, and constitutional framework on food security, evaluates the role of digital authentication in welfare delivery, and assesses the challenges arising from digital exclusion. The paper argues that although technological developments have improved governance, excessive dependence on digital mechanisms may undermine access to food for vulnerable populations. It advocates a balanced approach that combines technological efficiency with constitutional commitments to social justice, human dignity, and welfare rights, and concludes that inclusive legal safeguards and alternative verification mechanisms are essential to ensure that digital governance strengthens rather than weakens the objectives of the National Food Security Act, 2013.

The legitimacy of any democracy rests fundamentally on the credibility of its elections, which must exist not merely in legal texts but in practice across the nation. A free election is one in which all citizens are able to vote for the candidate of their choice, and a fair election is one in which all votes carry equal weight and are counted accurately. In India this responsibility lies with the Election Commission of India, a constitutional body established under Article 324 and entrusted with the superintendence, direction and control of the electoral process. This paper examines the persistent threats to the institutional autonomy of the Commission, principally the opaque process for appointing Election Commissioners, the absence of financial independence, and the asymmetrical protection of tenure between the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners. Tracing the historical evolution of the Commission, the relevant judicial pronouncements, and the constitutional and legislative framework, including the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, this paper argues that the current arrangements continue to vest excessive discretion in the executive. It contends that a robust, transparent and bipartisan selection mechanism, together with genuine financial autonomy, is essential to restore public confidence in the neutrality of the Commission and to safeguard the principles of equality, accountability and integrity in India's electoral democracy.

The enforcement of intellectual property rights across national borders is one of the most structurally significant legal challenges of the digital age. The territorial foundations of intellectual property law, premised on physical infringement, identifiable defendants and localised harm, are wholly incompatible with a framework in which a single infringing act may originate in one country, pass through servers in a second, be monetised through payment processors in a third and reach consumers across fifty more within seconds. This paper examines the normative framework governing cross-border intellectual property enforcement, reviews the landmark judicial decisions that have shaped its development and analyses three frontier challenges, namely generative artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies and NFT markets, and platform liability divergence, that are altering the enforcement landscape in ways existing legal systems cannot accommodate. While negotiation and bilateral treaty-making remain natural instruments for resolving disputes, international courts and tribunals, together with specialist arbitral bodies and enforcement mechanisms, have become the most authoritative means of addressing complex and politically sensitive cross-border intellectual property disputes. This paper assesses the doctrinal significance of these developments in consolidating coherent enforcement methods, situates them within the global legal order, and addresses the destabilising effect of generative artificial intelligence on rights frameworks, the disruptive impact of blockchain technologies and decentralised digital asset markets, and the structural weaknesses of global adjudicatory discipline amid intensifying geopolitical competition. It concludes by outlining a set of policy-oriented reforms intended to improve the legitimacy, effectiveness and adaptability of the global enforcement framework.

The rapid transformation of workplaces through digital technologies has redefined the relationship between employment, well-being, and mental health. Digital workspaces, characterised by remote collaboration, flexible schedules, and virtual communication platforms, offer significant opportunities for inclusivity and efficiency, yet they also present complex challenges, including the erosion of work-life balance, digital fatigue, cyberbullying, and intrusive surveillance practices. These developments underscore the urgent need to situate employee mental health within the broader discourse of labour rights, organisational governance, and constitutional protections. This paper critically examines the intersection of employee well-being, mental health, and digital workspaces through a multidisciplinary lens, integrating perspectives from law, psychology, and organisational studies. It explores the conceptual foundations of workplace well-being, highlighting its role as a determinant of productivity and human dignity. It analyses judicial trends across India, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe, demonstrating how courts have progressively recognised psychiatric injury, stress, and harassment as legitimate workplace concerns. Landmark cases such as Walker v. Northumberland County Council (United Kingdom), Barber v. Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Group (United Kingdom), Faragher v. City of Boca Raton (United States), Copland v. United Kingdom (European Court of Human Rights), and Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (India) illustrate the evolving jurisprudence that situates mental health within constitutional and human rights frameworks. The paper further examines organisational policies, including Employee Assistance Programmes and wellness initiatives, as mechanisms for fostering resilience and psychological safety in digital environments.

The relationship between environmental regulation and economic growth has become a major concern in the twenty-first century. Developing economies, and India in particular, must reconcile rapid economic growth with environmental challenges such as degradation, resource depletion, and climate change. Environmental regulation was traditionally regarded as a barrier to industrial growth and economic competitiveness; however, a growing body of scholarship indicates that well-designed environmental rules can drive innovation, enhance resource efficiency, and support long-term economic success. This paper examines how environmental regulation interacts with economic growth in India, considering the constitutional basis for environmental protection, the development of environmental laws, and the influence of judicial activism in environmental governance. It also explores green growth as a developmental model that seeks to align economic progress with sustainable practices. Through a review of legal frameworks, significant judicial decisions, and policy initiatives, this paper assesses whether India's environmental regulations successfully balance development goals with environmental protection. It concludes that, although India has established a comprehensive legal structure for environmental governance, significant hurdles remain in implementation, institutional capacity, and regulatory enforcement, and that achieving sustainable development requires a coordinated approach that integrates environmental considerations into economic planning and governance.

Hate speech has emerged as a serious challenge to the democratic and constitutional framework of India, particularly in the digital age, where information spreads rapidly. While the Indian Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a), it also imposes certain reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) to maintain public order, decency, and social harmony. Although legal provisions exist under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and other statutes, the enforcement of hate speech regulations remains inconsistent and often ineffective. This article examines the gap between the legal framework and its actual application, focusing on the role of constitutional governance in ensuring effective enforcement. It analyses important judicial pronouncements, including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, which illustrate the judiciary's approach to striking a balance between free speech and necessary limits. The article also explores challenges such as vague legal definitions, the misuse of laws for political purposes, selective enforcement, and the growing influence of social media platforms. Through a doctrinal and analytical approach, it argues that effective enforcement requires not only strong laws but also accountable institutions, clear guidelines, and coordinated efforts among the legislature, executive, and judiciary. It concludes by suggesting reforms aimed at strengthening constitutional governance, ensuring that free expression is protected while preventing speech that incites hatred and threatens social harmony.

The criminal justice system performs a dual constitutional function: it must ensure that offenders are investigated, prosecuted, and punished according to law, while simultaneously protecting individuals against arbitrary, malicious, or legally unsustainable prosecutions. Indian criminal procedure has historically recognised two principal mechanisms serving the latter objective, namely the statutory remedy of discharge exercised by trial courts and the inherent jurisdiction of the High Courts now preserved under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. Although both remedies aim to prevent unjustified prosecutions, they differ fundamentally in source, scope, rationale, and institutional location. This article identifies and analyses the growing procedural overlap between discharge applications and quash petitions under the new statute. It argues that the progressive expansion of inherent jurisdiction has increasingly blurred the distinction between ordinary statutory screening and extraordinary judicial intervention, thereby generating doctrinal uncertainty and institutional tension. Examining these developments through constitutional, procedural, and comparative perspectives, the article proposes a framework founded upon procedural primacy, judicial restraint, and structured judicial oversight, and thereby seeks to contribute to contemporary debates concerning the future of pre-trial judicial screening in India.

This paper examines cyberstalking as an emerging form of cybercrime in India and the new challenges that artificial intelligence and rapidly evolving digital technologies pose for its regulation. It situates cyberstalking within the broader landscape of online harassment, conceptualising it as the persistent, unsolicited pursuit, monitoring or threatening of an individual through digital platforms. Adopting a comparative national perspective, the paper analyses the Indian statutory framework, including Section 78 (stalking) and Section 77 (voyeurism) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, against the gender-neutral approaches of the United States and the United Kingdom. It traces the legal evolution prompted by early incidents such as the case of Ritu Kohli, considers the psychological and sociological profiles of cyberstalkers, and evaluates the social and psychological impact on victims. The paper concludes by identifying the principal enforcement challenges, including cross-border jurisdiction, technological change, under-reporting and the preservation of digital evidence, and proposes reforms to strengthen cyber security and the protection of women in the digital realm.

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of three legal responses to the challenge of protecting personal data and privacy against state surveillance: the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the international standard set by Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights together with its associated jurisprudence. It argues that each regime contains a structural tension between rules that discipline data collectors and broad exemptions that permit governments to circumvent those rules, illustrated by Article 23 of the GDPR, Section 17 of the DPDPA, and the national-security qualifications recognised under international human rights law. Drawing on the constitutional foundation laid by Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India and the surveillance safeguards articulated in Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom and Szabo and Vissy v. Hungary, the paper contends that the decisive variable is not the text of privacy guarantees but the independence and enforcement capacity of the institutions charged with upholding them. It further examines how the rise of digital sovereignty after 2013 has reshaped cross-border data governance, frequently strengthening domestic surveillance under the guise of protection from foreign interference, and concludes that the principal unfinished task in data protection is the construction of strong, independent oversight institutions.

This paper examines the relevance of the right to recall elected representatives of Parliament and the State legislative assemblies as a mechanism for ensuring the accountability of legislators within a constitutional democracy. It argues that legislatures are the principal policy-making institutions in modern democracies and that elected representatives owe their primary loyalty to the electorate rather than to their political parties. Drawing on comparative practice in Western democracies, the recommendations of the 255th Report of the Law Commission of India, and the existing recall provisions at the panchayat and municipal levels in several Indian States, the paper contends that the right to recall would strengthen the vertical accountability of Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies. It traces the historical antecedents of recall, situates the demand within the framework of the Indian Constitution and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and proposes that technology and online voting could make periodic evaluation and de-election of representatives feasible. The paper concludes that supplementing the right to vote with a right to recall would deepen popular participation and reinforce the sovereignty of "we the people".

This paper examines how caste and gender shape access to school health services in rural India, and whether existing programmes are designed to address these social determinants. Drawing on government surveys, national education reports, and academic literature, it analyses how flagship initiatives, including the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (now PM POSHAN), the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram, and the School Health Programme under Ayushman Bharat, function on the ground. Rather than accepting programme reach at face value, the paper interrogates the social barriers that condition access, including caste-based discrimination, patriarchal norms that restrict girls' mobility and autonomy, the stigma surrounding certain health needs, and the expectation in many rural households that children, particularly girls, prioritise domestic responsibilities over schooling and health. It further accounts for the institutional and infrastructural gaps that compound these exclusions. The paper argues that health policy which fails to account for caste and gender is unlikely to reach those who need it most, and calls for a grounded approach to school health programme design that takes seriously the social realities of rural India.

This paper examines the rapid expansion of e-commerce in India and its implications for the protection of online shoppers and for inclusive socio-economic progress. It traces the structural shift from physical markets to digital platforms, analyses the threats that online consumers face, including counterfeit goods, deceptive advertising, fraud and the misuse of personal data, and evaluates the adequacy of the prevailing legal framework, comprising the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Drawing on doctrinal analysis and secondary empirical data covering internet penetration, market growth, consumer complaints and the participation of micro, small and medium enterprises and women, the paper situates Indian regulation against the comparative benchmarks of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation and the United States Federal Trade Commission model. It further surveys judicial and quasi-judicial interventions, including decisions of consumer commissions in disputes involving major platforms, that have advanced platform accountability and economic justice for consumers. The paper concludes that, although a substantial regulatory architecture exists, persistent implementation gaps demand stricter enforcement, greater transparency and faster grievance redressal to build trust in India's growing digital marketplace.

This paper examines the structural transition in India's personal income taxation from an exemption-based model to a concession-based model effected through the introduction of Section 115BAC by the Finance Act, 2020 and its consolidation by the Finance Act, 2023. It traces the welfare-oriented, deduction-driven philosophy that historically shaped the Income-tax Act, 1961, in which provisions such as Section 80C, Section 80D and housing-loan deductions channelled household savings towards socially desirable instruments. Against that background, the paper analyses the legislative intent behind Section 115BAC, namely simplification, neutrality in taxpayer decision-making and reduction of the compliance burden, and evaluates the consequences of making the new regime the default option. It assesses the likely effects on savings behaviour, middle-class taxpayers, welfare orientation and investment culture, and surveys the practical challenges of administering parallel regimes, including the difficulties posed by Form 10-IE. Drawing on recent decisions of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and the Bombay High Court, including <em>The Chamber of Tax Consultants v. Director General of Income Tax (Systems)</em>, the paper argues that judicial attention has so far centred on procedural and technological questions rather than the constitutional validity of the regime, and concludes that the long-term success of the shift depends on its sensitivity to the diverse needs of taxpayers.

This paper examines how blockchain technology may support copyright protection in digital environments and draws implications for Vietnam. The growth of digital technologies and the creative economy has reshaped the ways in which copyrighted works are created, exploited, and distributed, expanding access to knowledge while increasing the risk of cross-border infringement that is difficult to monitor. Traditional protection mechanisms have revealed shortcomings in establishing rights, managing copyright transactions, and enforcing rights in cyberspace. Blockchain is increasingly regarded as a technology capable of supporting copyright protection through its decentralised structure, transparency, traceability, and capacity to preserve data integrity. Drawing on the experiences of China and South Korea, this paper analyses the current Vietnamese legal framework governing copyright protection in relation to blockchain and discusses possible directions for legal reform. The analysis indicates that, despite the existence of a basic legal framework, a number of issues concerning blockchain-based transactions, smart contracts, NFTs, and the evidentiary value of blockchain data remain insufficiently addressed. The paper proposes several recommendations aimed at facilitating the use of blockchain in copyright protection in a manner consistent with technological development and international integration.

This paper examines the intellectual structure and research trajectory of nomophobia, or "No Mobile Phone Phobia," the psychological distress experienced when individuals are unable to access or use their mobile phones, through a bibliometric analysis of Scopus-indexed literature published between 2010 and 2026. Drawing on the conceptualisation of nomophobia advanced by Yildirim and Correia, which identifies four dimensions, namely not being able to communicate, loss of connectedness, not being able to access information, and giving up convenience, the study analyses 677 publications retrieved from the Scopus database on 9 March 2026. The data were exported in CSV format and examined using VOSviewer (version 1.6.20) to generate bibliometric networks and visualisations covering publication trends, keyword co-occurrence, citation patterns, author collaborations, organisational contributions, country-wise impact, and source analysis. The findings indicate a significant increase in nomophobia research, particularly after 2017, with the most prominent themes being nomophobia, smartphone addiction, anxiety, mental health, and social media use. Authors such as Mark D. Griffiths, Nicola Luigi Bragazzi, Chung-Ying Lin, and Triantoro Safaria emerged as influential contributors, while Turkey and India showed the highest citation impact. The study highlights the growing multidisciplinary nature of nomophobia research and its increasing relevance to understanding the effects of smartphone dependence in modern society.

This paper examines the concept of internalized borders and their connection to ecological alienation in Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines. Moving beyond political geography, it argues that borders are internalized within the human mind, shaping how individuals perceive space, identity and belonging. By tracing the spatial displacement of characters across Calcutta, Dhaka and London, the paper exposes a deeper systemic pathology, namely an identity so fractured by geopolitical borders that it loses the capacity to anchor itself in a lived, physical environment. Drawing on theoretical insights from ecocriticism and postcolonial studies, the paper further suggests that this psychological fragmentation contributes to a form of ecological alienation, in which the inability to relate meaningfully to lived environments reflects a broader detachment from the natural world. In this sense, the novel highlights how imagined boundaries weaken both social and environmental relationships. The paper concludes that recognizing and questioning these internalized divisions is essential for rethinking human engagement with both place and environment, and in linking these mental constructs of separation with ecological concern, it contributes to contemporary discussions on environmental humanities and ecocriticism.

This paper analyses the connection between the Sustainable Development Goals and environmental conservation, with particular reference to the role played by indigenous and tribal communities in India. It undertakes a review of the policies and laws relating to environmental protection and indigenous rights within the broader context of sustainable development. As a nation of diverse cultures and ethnicities, India recognises the need to conserve and protect the traditions, practices and rights of its indigenous and tribal peoples; yet, although numerous constitutional provisions and statutes address indigenous rights and environmental protection, several obstacles impede their proper implementation. The paper examines India's legal obligations arising from international agreements and conventions concerning sustainable development, climate change, environmental conservation and the rights of indigenous peoples, and emphasises the link between environmental conservation and the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 15 (Life on Land), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). It further offers a critical assessment of the role played by the judiciary, governmental institutions and tribal councils in enforcing environmental and indigenous rights, drawing on landmark decisions such as Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar, Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India, Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment and Forests. The paper concludes that neither environmental conservation nor the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is possible without addressing the inclusion of indigenous and tribal peoples, and it evaluates the legal framework to identify its strengths, weaknesses and gaps with a view to contributing to the development of an environment-friendly legal system in India.

This paper examines pre-trial detention, bail and the position of undertrial prisoners in India from constitutional, statutory and human rights perspectives. Pre-trial detention is one of the most visible points at which the power of the State comes into direct contact with the liberty of the individual; although the accused is presumed innocent until conviction, a very large proportion of persons remain in prison before their trials are concluded, raising serious human rights concerns relating to liberty, reputation, livelihood, family and dignity. Drawing upon constitutional provisions, Supreme Court decisions, recent prison data and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the paper argues that the central difficulty is not the absence of law but the weak implementation of bail principles, legal aid, undertrial review and speedy trial. It contends that criminal justice can be effective only when it is also fair, non-arbitrary and humane.

This paper examines the relationship between constitutional silence and the right to privacy in India, tracing the development of privacy from an unenumerated entitlement to a recognised fundamental right. Constitutional silence denotes the absence of express provisions in a constitution, leaving space for judicial interpretation and the recognition of implied rights. In India, the right to privacy evolved from such silence into a fundamental right, principally through landmark judicial pronouncements, most notably Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, which affirmed privacy as an integral component of the right to life under Article 21. The dynamism of digital technology has, however, transformed the character of state surveillance and tested privacy protection in novel ways. This paper analyses India's constitutional and legal framework for privacy protection, particularly against the backdrop of surveillance legislation such as the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. It raises concerns regarding proportionality, oversight, and accountability, and argues that India's surveillance regime must be brought into conformity with constitutional norms and international best practices in order to protect individual autonomy and dignity.

This study examines the experiences of elderly people in Chandigarh against the backdrop of population ageing in India, a demographic transition driven by improved healthcare, declining fertility, and rising life expectancy. While this transition reflects social progress, it has also generated socio-economic, psychological, and health-related challenges for older adults. The study explores the major problems faced by senior citizens, identifies the factors responsible for these challenges, analyses the impact of modernisation, urbanisation, and changing family structures on their lives, and assesses the effectiveness of government initiatives aimed at promoting their well-being. Drawing entirely on secondary sources, including books, peer-reviewed journal articles, government reports, census publications, policy documents, and reports from national and international organisations, the analysis indicates that many older adults in Chandigarh experience financial insecurity, chronic health issues, emotional stress, loneliness, and social isolation. These challenges are intensified by rapid urbanisation, the migration of younger generations, and the gradual weakening of the traditional joint family system, which has reduced familial care and support. Although various welfare schemes have been introduced for senior citizens, limitations in awareness, accessibility, and implementation often restrict their impact. The study argues that ensuring the well-being of older adults requires a holistic approach that strengthens family relationships, promotes community participation, enhances social security, and improves the delivery of elderly welfare programmes to create a more inclusive and age-friendly society.

The proliferation of digital technologies has reshaped human interaction, governance, and public discourse, bringing both promise and peril to the enjoyment of human rights. This paper critically evaluates the adequacy of existing legal regimes in addressing emerging digital human rights concerns, particularly those relating to privacy, freedom of expression, surveillance, algorithmic discrimination, and the digital divide. Through doctrinal analysis, the study assesses key international instruments, regional frameworks such as the General Data Protection Regulation, and national legislation such as India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. It finds that, despite measurable progress, current mechanisms frequently fall short in enforcement and adaptability. The paper recommends the adoption of a global treaty on digital rights, the enhancement of digital literacy, the enforcement of corporate accountability, and the promotion of inclusivity in digital policymaking. It concludes that digital rights are not separate from human rights but rather their necessary evolution within the digital context.

Money is indispensable to electoral democracy and yet capable of converting private wealth into disproportionate public power. This paper asks whether anonymous or insufficiently transparent political funding can be reconciled with the constitutional requirements of free and fair elections, democratic accountability, and the citizen's right to know in India. Through a primarily doctrinal method, it maps the statutory and constitutional architecture of Indian political finance, traces four decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on the voter's right to information, and analyses the 2024 Constitution Bench decision in Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, which struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme. The paper locates the right to transparency within Article 19(1)(a), the equality guarantee of Article 14, the basic-structure protection of free and fair elections, and the principle of democratic accountability, and argues that these anchors operate as a layered constitutional defence against opacity. It then assesses whether citizens can in practice trace political money from donor to influence, concluding that the existing disclosure regime remains porous at every stage. Drawing comparative lessons from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada, the paper proposes a sequenced programme of reform, including real-time disclosure, beneficial-ownership transparency, an independent regulator, and constitutional anchoring of the disclosure duty. It concludes that transparency, not anonymity, is the default the Constitution requires, and that full disclosure is a condition of the legitimacy of Indian electoral democracy.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 was designed as transformative legislation to rescue distressed companies within defined timelines and to restore creditor confidence in the Indian financial system. Yet, despite roughly a decade of implementation, the framework continues to face recurring delays, growing pendency before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and a traditional adjudicatory mechanism that struggles to process the volume and complexity of corporate insolvency cases. Artificial intelligence now presents a potentially disruptive influence in legal and financial governance, offering automated document processing, online dispute resolution platforms, machine-learning-based risk scoring, predictive analytics and related capabilities. This paper critically examines the potential for integrating AI-based technologies into the insolvency resolution process and the judicial case management system in India. Drawing on a systematic analysis of recent literature in insolvency law, AI governance, dispute resolution and financial regulation, the study identifies structural shortcomings in the existing framework, considers the transformative capacity of AI-based interventions and critically discusses the legal, ethical and institutional challenges they raise. The paper argues that, while AI can reduce delays and costs, increase transparency and improve the quality of decision-making, its deployment must be grounded in robust regulatory safeguards, judicial supervision and institutional development. The study proposes a human-in-the-loop, calibrated governance model that harnesses technological innovation without undermining judicial responsibility.

India's rapid digital financial transformation has fundamentally restructured the architecture of retail payments, financial inclusion, and banking operations. The expansion of real-time digital payment infrastructure, particularly through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Aadhaar-linked authentication systems, and mobile banking, has simultaneously enabled a new class of cyber-enabled financial offences that rely not on system intrusion or technical breach but on deception-driven fund extraction. This paper conceptualizes these offences as "money-extraction cybercrimes," defined as digitally mediated financial frauds in which victims voluntarily authorize transfers under psychological manipulation, impersonation, or synthetic technological simulation. Drawing upon criminology, behavioral economics, cybersecurity engineering, financial regulation, and Indian statutory law, the study develops an interdisciplinary analytical framework to examine emerging scam typologies, including digital arrest frauds, AI-enabled voice cloning, deepfake impersonation, SIM-swap attacks, mule account networks, and hybrid romance-investment schemes. Using data trends from the National Crime Records Bureau, the Reserve Bank of India, and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, the paper identifies structural vulnerabilities within India's digital financial ecosystem. The study critically evaluates the adequacy of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (read with its 2008 amendment), the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Reserve Bank of India's Digital Payment Security Controls, and customer liability frameworks, arguing that existing regulatory structures are calibrated primarily for unauthorized access scenarios and remain under-equipped to address deception-based voluntary transfers, especially those enhanced by artificial intelligence. The paper proposes a lifecycle-based intervention model integrating behavioral anomaly detection, telecom-bank coordination, real-time fund freezing mechanisms, regulatory clarification of liability standards, and AI authentication countermeasures, concluding that safeguarding India's digital payment infrastructure requires a coordinated socio-technical governance model bridging cybersecurity engineering, financial supervision, behavioral science, and criminal law.

Victim compensation in India represents a significant yet inadequately realised promise of contemporary criminal justice reform. The Indian criminal process has traditionally conceptualised crime as an offence against the State, placing the accused, the prosecution and the court at the centre of criminal adjudication while the victim remains procedurally marginal. To redress this imbalance, statutory provisions such as Sections 357, 357A, 357B and 357C of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and their reframing in Sections 395, 396 and 397 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, introduce compensation, rehabilitation and immediate medical treatment as elements of victim justice, while a series of landmark judgments has further enriched the normative framework. This paper contends that victim compensation in India is failing not because of legislative silence but because of administrative invisibility, judicial inconsistency, lack of awareness, delayed disbursement, the unevenness of State schemes, poor hospital compliance and the absence of a rights-based rehabilitative model. It concludes that victim compensation must be understood not as an act of discretionary financial support but as an integral, victim-centred and enforceable component of the criminal justice system.

Western patterns of education continue to exercise effective control over Indian learning and pedagogy, with academic degrees from Western institutions being privileged in a manner that reinforces a "knowledge superiority syndrome." Decolonizing legal education involves assessing and reframing the ways in which law is taught and practised in West Bengal, a region embedded in colonial structures yet central to India's modern legal framework. With its foundational High Court and renowned law colleges established during the British era, India still retains colonial assumptions in its legal teaching, judicial practice and production of knowledge. This paper highlights the need to construct legal paradigms that secure socio-legal justice, tracing the gap between colonial legal studies and their continuing impact in the twenty-first century of an independent country. It surveys national measures intended to balance postcolonial legal thinking with colonial legacies and proposes reforms to teaching pedagogy and practical legal training, together with collaboration with international law schools, in order to make legal education more inclusive and socially responsive.

The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across governmental, commercial, and social spheres has generated profound tensions with the foundational architecture of human rights law. Among the rights most acutely imperilled is the right to privacy, which occupies a central position in both international human rights instruments and constitutional jurisprudence across the world. This paper examines the multifaceted relationship between AI and the right to privacy, tracing how machine learning systems, mass surveillance infrastructure, facial recognition technologies, and predictive analytics challenge the normative content of privacy as a legal and moral right. It surveys the international human rights framework governing privacy, analyses the constitutional and statutory landscape in India with particular attention to the landmark judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and engages with comparative regulatory developments, including the European Union's AI Act and the Council of Europe's AI Convention. The paper argues that effective protection of the right to privacy in the age of AI demands not only updated legislation but a rights-by-design approach to AI governance, grounded in the principles of legality, proportionality, accountability, and non-discrimination. It concludes with a set of normative and institutional recommendations.

Scholarship examining the status of women in Indian society has frequently relied upon descriptive historical narratives emphasising social practices, legal reforms, educational participation, and changing gender relations across historical periods. While these approaches remain valuable, they often provide limited explanation of the institutional processes through which inequalities are reproduced and normalised. This study reconceptualises women's status through a governance framework that examines how familial, social, religious, caste-based, economic, and legal institutions collectively shape women's participation, mobility, labour, sexuality, and access to resources. Governance is conceptualised as dispersed institutional processes through which behaviour is directed and social expectations are embedded across both formal and informal institutional arrangements. Drawing upon feminist scholarship, socio-legal theory, and historical analysis, the paper argues that women's experiences cannot be adequately understood through isolated discriminatory practices, because regulatory processes operate simultaneously across multiple sites of authority. Examining ancient, medieval, colonial, and contemporary India, the paper demonstrates that although institutional forms have transformed significantly over time, the systems organising women's participation frequently adapt rather than disappear. Families, marriage institutions, labour systems, caste arrangements, legal frameworks, and technological environments continue to function as important sites through which participation and autonomy are negotiated. Understanding women's status through a governance framework therefore provides stronger analytical foundations for examining continuity, institutional persistence, and structural inequality, while moving beyond linear narratives of empowerment and decline.

Begging in India occupies a contested space between charity and criminality, survival and exploitation. This paper examines the multiple dimensions of begging, tracing its evolution from the Vedic practice of bhiksha through its colonial recasting as vagrancy to its present treatment under state anti-beggary legislation. Drawing on Census 2011 data, the paper offers a demographic and state-wise picture of begging in India and analyses its root causes, including illiteracy, physical disability, extreme poverty, poor health, organised syndicates, migration, and addiction. It surveys the governing legal framework, including the Vagrancy Act 1824, the West Bengal Vagrancy Act 1943, and the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959, and evaluates these statutes against the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India. The paper considers the leading judicial interventions in Ram Lakhan v. State, Harsh Mander v. Union of India, and Suhail Rashid Bhat v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, which have progressively held the criminalisation of begging to be unconstitutional. It concludes that the state should respond to begging through rehabilitation, education, and skill-building rather than penal sanction, while reserving criminal enforcement for the organised rackets that exploit the vulnerable.

The development of digital technologies has affected legal systems globally, and India, as a fast-growing digital economy, has experienced rapid change in governance, commerce, and communication. While technology has increased efficiency, it has also created challenges for existing legal frameworks by enabling new forms of crime, such as digital fraud and electronic financial crime, making the modernization of criminal laws and investigative methods essential. India has responded by enacting three criminal law reforms, namely the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, which aim to integrate technology within the criminal justice system and to replace the inherited colonial statutes. This paper evaluates the impact of technology on the transformation of the criminal justice system in India, focusing on the use of technology in law enforcement and judicial administration, the legal-technological advances introduced by the new criminal laws, the growing significance of digital data and electronic records, and the enhancements in techniques used to conduct criminal investigations. It further identifies challenges relating to privacy, the threat of expanded surveillance, and the protection of constitutional integrity and the system of checks and balances. This paper argues that the modernization of the criminal justice system is necessary to meet contemporary societal demands but must be undertaken in a measured manner that safeguards the rights of individuals.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 was enacted to safeguard children from sexual abuse, yet in practice it has produced a serious legal contradiction. By fixing eighteen years as a rigid age of consent, the Act renders factual consent legally irrelevant, so that a relationship that may in fact be consensual is treated as statutory rape. Empirical data underscore the extent of this problem: between 2017 and 2021, POCSO cases involving adolescents aged sixteen to eighteen rose by 180 per cent, suggesting that families frequently invoke the law to control romantic choices in inter-caste or inter-faith situations, with the result that the process itself becomes the punishment for young people caught in a legal grey area. Integrating the privacy and decisional-autonomy jurisprudence established in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India with interdisciplinary insights drawn from religious ethics and anthropology, this paper argues for a more balanced approach. Developmental research indicates that by the age of sixteen or seventeen, adolescents acquire substantial cognitive maturity and decision-making capacity, and several Indian religious traditions recognise the attainment of discretion at puberty, such as the doctrine of Khiyar-ul-Bulugh, or the option of puberty. This paper accordingly proposes a carefully designed Romeo and Juliet clause under POCSO, incorporating a gender-neutral age gap of up to three years and the creation of multidisciplinary preliminary screening panels to assess such cases before criminal prosecution. In place of automatic criminalisation, consensual adolescent relationships could be diverted, where appropriate, towards counselling or rehabilitative measures. The reform seeks to harmonise the State's duty to protect children with its constitutional obligation to respect the evolving autonomy and fundamental rights of older adolescents.

The integration of AI-enabled targeting systems into military operations raises pressing questions about the application of international humanitarian law (IHL). This paper considers how AI-based decision-support tools influence the implementation of the fundamental principles of IHL, namely distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack. It argues that the greatest challenge posed by AI is not a deficiency in the legal rules, but the emergence of epistemic uncertainty, which changes the nature of what military decision-makers are able to know, predict, verify, and justify at the point of attack. Drawing on doctrinal analysis of IHL principles, examination of state practice and military doctrine, and selected case studies from recent conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas conflict and the war in Ukraine, the paper evaluates the implications of AI-enabled targeting for legal compliance and accountability. It identifies three features of AI systems, namely opacity, probabilistic reasoning, and operational scale, as core conditions that alter the factual basis on which IHL is applied: they make target verification more difficult, distort proportionality assessments, and compress meaningful deliberation under the precautionary obligations, while fragmenting traditional structures of legal responsibility. Consequently, existing accountability mechanisms and weapons-review procedures are significantly constrained when applied to algorithmic decision-making environments. The paper concludes that IHL remains robust and technologically neutral, but that it must be reinterpreted and supplemented with stronger safeguards to govern AI-enabled weaponry effectively. Compliance is best secured by ensuring meaningful human control, strengthening Article 36 weapons-review processes, increasing transparency and auditability, and reinforcing accountability. The paper thereby contributes to ongoing debate by reframing AI-enabled targeting as a problem of epistemic uncertainty rather than a deficiency in the existing legal system.

This paper examines the changing paradigm of international investment governance in South Asia through the lens of the legal, economic and geopolitical consequences of Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) terminations and renegotiations in India and Sri Lanka. Both countries have turned sharply away from traditional investor-centric treaty frameworks to reclaim their domestic regulatory sovereignty, a shift catalysed by an unprecedented wave of high-stakes Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) claims, including the retrospective tax disputes in India and the unilateral cancellation of the Colombo East Container Terminal (CECT) agreement in Sri Lanka. This paper also examines the systemic reform initiated by India's mass treaty cancellations and the adoption of its highly defensive 2016 Model BIT, and considers the structural effects of shifting from asset-based to enterprise-based definitions of investment, removing the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) clause, and introducing strict Exhaustion of Local Remedies (ELR) requirements. It further explores how such postures intersect with Sri Lanka's ongoing economic restructuring and sovereign debt management. A critical analysis of the fifteen-year sunset or survival clause in the terminated 1997 India-Sri Lanka BIT exposes a fractured investment landscape in which legacy investments are protected for long periods while modern inflows during the crisis period are exposed to municipal law. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for a balanced BIT architecture, arguing that emerging economies can effectively protect foreign risk capital, without sacrificing their essential public policy flexibilities, by incorporating refined substantive standards, limiting arbitral discretion, and confining survival clauses to five years.

The rise of digital technologies has transformed corporate governance, introducing tools such as smart contracts to automate decision making in shareholder voting. These systems promise efficiency, transparency, and reduced human error, yet their adoption raises significant concerns for minority shareholders, who may find themselves particularly vulnerable to oppression in a digital voting environment. Unlike traditional voting mechanisms, smart-contract-based systems are coded with predefined rules that execute automatically, leaving little room for human oversight or intervention. While this automation can prevent certain forms of manipulation, it may also entrench existing power imbalances, allowing majority shareholders to design rules or triggers that systematically disadvantage minority interests. The technical intricacy of smart contracts may further mask important governance choices, making it difficult for shareholders with less technological expertise to monitor or contest unfair practices. This paper examines the relationship between minority shareholder rights and automated decision making, addressing the practical and legal dimensions of corporate voting powered by smart contracts. It considers risks such as the absence of recourse, the opacity of coded rules, and the unforeseen effects of algorithmic rigidity. By drawing attention to these difficulties, this paper seeks to inform regulators, corporate boards, and shareholders of the need for safeguards that ensure equity, accountability, and inclusivity in the governance of businesses adopting digital voting technologies. Ultimately, although smart contracts have the potential to transform corporate governance, caution is required to prevent automation from escalating the oppression of minority shareholders.

The systematic underrepresentation of women in clinical trials and biomedical research represents a long-standing breach of the principles of scientific integrity, medical ethics, and social justice. Despite regulatory requirements introduced since the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 in the United States, and comparable ethical principles elsewhere, women constitute only 41.2 percent of clinical-trial participants although they make up roughly half of the patient population. This imbalance has produced what researchers describe as the gender data gap, a serious deficit of evidence on the effects of pharmaceutical interventions and medical devices on women as compared with men. This paper analyses the legal, ethical, and institutional processes that contribute to gender bias in medical research, with particular attention to the Indian regulatory environment. By contrasting international legal systems with Indian policy instruments, this study addresses current systemic gaps in research and proposes detailed mechanisms of reform. Its central thesis is that gender bias must be tackled through the coordinated operation of legal change, institutional accountability, and intersectional feminist perspectives on research ethics. Specific recommendations include compulsory reporting of sex-disaggregated data in clinical trials, strengthened enforcement within the Indian regulatory framework (especially the CDSCO and ICMR systems), and the integration of gender medicine into medical-education programmes.

The idea of live-in partnerships in India calls into question the traditional view of marriage as a sacramental and legally binding institution. This paper examines the constitutional dimensions of cohabitation within the framework of Indian marriage law, with an emphasis on the fundamental rights of those involved. It considers how constitutional values, particularly those found in Articles 14, 19, and 21, protect individual liberty, privacy, and the freedom to choose a partner. The paper analyses seminal rulings that have progressively shaped the judicial acceptance of cohabitation, including Lata Singh v. State of U.P., Indra Sarma v. V.K.V. Sarma, and S. Khushboo v. Kanniammal. It assesses the current legal standing of live-in partnerships under Indian law, paying particular attention to the legislative gaps arising from the absence of formal recognition, as well as to statutory frameworks such as the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The doctrinal analysis finds that, although judicial rulings have extended crucial protections to persons in live-in relationships, the lack of clear legislative acknowledgment leaves this group legally exposed. The study argues that Parliament should enact a comprehensive statute outlining the rights and responsibilities of cohabiting couples, including matters of support, property, and protection from domestic abuse, and highlights the need for public awareness measures to reduce social stigma and advance a fuller conception of individual autonomy. By filling the legal gaps and fostering social acceptance, India can ensure that persons in live-in relationships enjoy equality, security, and dignity in accordance with the constitutional ideals of justice and liberty.

In today's business environment, stakeholders such as governments, customers and investors no longer evaluate companies solely on financial performance but also on how responsibly they engage on social, environmental and technological fronts. In emerging markets, the pursuit of profit often coexists with deep social and environmental challenges. Howard R. Bowen, widely regarded as the "Father of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)," argued that businesses bear a responsibility to undertake activities that advance the interests and values of society. CSR is not merely about donations or responsible corporate citizenship but about keeping solutions viable over the long term. This paper examines how CSR has evolved from peripheral philanthropy into a strategic instrument for sustainable growth. Within these rapidly growing yet institutionally fragile economies, CSR serves both as a risk-management tool and as a driver of innovation. By examining strategic frameworks such as the Adaptive Stakeholder Integration Model and the Tech-Enabled Transparency and Impact Model, this paper outlines how corporations can align profitability with social progress, promoting stakeholder trust, reducing costs, and expanding into new markets so as to balance reputation and profit. It concludes that in emerging markets CSR is not merely ethical but essential for resilience, stakeholder trust and long-term value creation.

Two of the world's most consequential data-protection regimes now reach beyond their own frontiers and claim authority over the very same act of processing. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation binds controllers located anywhere where they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behaviour of, individuals within the Union; India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, operationalised through Rules notified in November 2025, asserts a parallel extraterritorial grip over processing connected with the offering of goods or services to Data Principals in India. Where a single enterprise serves both populations, it falls simultaneously under two sovereigns whose commands on lawful basis, cross-border transfer, erasure and State access diverge sharply and at one point contradict outright. This paper argues that the resulting difficulty is not one of imperfect compliance but of architecture: each statute projects itself globally while no treaty, adequacy finding or choice-of-law rule presently sits above the two to coordinate them. Drawing on the divergence between the European adequacy-led model and the Indian negative-list model, the reasoning of the Court of Justice in Schrems II, the prohibition in Article 48 of the Regulation on compelled third-country disclosure, and the proportionality standard of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, this paper distinguishes genuine conflicts of obligation from differences of degree, and locates the sharpest conflict in the field of State-compelled access. It contends that unilateral extraterritoriality has reached the limit of its usefulness, and that the path forward lies not in louder assertions of jurisdiction but in interoperability instruments: calibrated reform of the Indian State-access exemptions, a bespoke adequacy or transfer framework, and eventual accession to a modernised multilateral instrument such as Convention 108+. The conceptual distance between the two systems, this paper concludes, is smaller than their operative defaults suggest; what is missing is the bridge.

India's criminal justice system stands confronted by a crisis of constitutional proportions. With 75.8 percent of its prison population comprising undertrial prisoners, individuals incarcerated without conviction, the systemic failure to secure the right to speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution of India has assumed an alarming character. The enactment of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), replacing the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), brought with it Section 479, a provision heralded as a transformative reform in undertrial bail law. By reducing the threshold for first-time offenders from one-half to one-third of the maximum prescribed sentence, and by attracting retrospective application through the Supreme Court's landmark order of 23 August 2024 in Re: Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons, the provision generated considerable expectation. This paper critically evaluates whether Section 479 BNSS has fulfilled that expectation in its first year of operation. Employing a doctrinal methodology supplemented by empirical data drawn from National Crime Records Bureau reports, Supreme Court orders and Ministry of Home Affairs advisories, it examines the provision's legislative design, judicial interpretation and on-ground implementation across India's states and Union Territories. It finds that while Section 479 BNSS marks a meaningful improvement over its predecessor in respect of first-time offenders, it simultaneously introduces a significant regression by excluding undertrials accused of offences punishable with life imprisonment, a right that existed under Section 436A CrPC, and faces deep structural barriers that no statutory text alone can overcome.

Violence against women continues to be a serious problem in India despite the presence of various laws aimed at protecting women's rights and ensuring their safety. Most legal measures focus on punishing offenders after an act of violence has occurred, while comparatively little attention is given to the social and cultural factors that contribute to such violence. One of these factors is gender socialisation, the process through which individuals learn the social roles, attitudes, and expectations associated with being male or female. This paper examines the connection between gender socialisation and violence against women from a legal perspective. Using a doctrinal research method, it analyses constitutional provisions, statutes, judicial decisions, and government policies relating to gender equality and the protection of women. It explores how patriarchal values, gender stereotypes, and limited interaction between men and women may contribute to unequal attitudes towards women and increase the risk of gender-based violence, and it evaluates whether the existing legal framework adequately addresses these underlying causes. The paper argues that preventing violence against women requires more than strict punishment: long-term solutions must include gender-sensitive education, the promotion of equality, and sustained efforts to challenge discriminatory social norms. It concludes that legal reforms, combined with positive social and educational measures, can play an important role in reducing violence against women and promoting a more equal and respectful society.

The doctrine of proportionality has emerged as the dominant framework for adjudicating limitations on constitutional rights, and its rise is closely associated with the transition from a culture of authority to a culture of justification, in which every exercise of public power must be supported by reasoned argument. This paper argues that the Indian Supreme Court's proportionality jurisprudence embodies a structurally hybrid pattern of adjudication that combines the form of structured justification with the substance of discretionary reasoning and the absence of a coherent burden-shifting rule. Drawing on the theoretical foundations of proportionality and on critical scholarship, the paper traces how Indian courts have merged proportionality with pre-existing standards of reasonableness rather than adopting it as an independent justificatory framework. Through an examination of decisions including Modern Dental College & Research Centre v. State of Madhya Pradesh, K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, and Sunil Kumar Singh v. Bihar Legislative Council, it shows that proportionality in India often functions as a legitimising language rather than a genuine constraint on State power, producing an illusion of justification. The paper concludes that the transformative potential of proportionality rests not on its formal adoption but on whether courts internalise its justificatory discipline.

Knowledge assets have eclipsed tangible property as the principal drivers of corporate value, and the acquisition of intellectual property portfolios has accordingly become one of the foremost motivations for mergers and acquisitions worldwide. This paper examines why intellectual property due diligence can no longer be treated as a peripheral formality and argues that it is a strategic imperative in any transaction where intellectual property forms a meaningful component of the target's value. It analyses the distinct legal characteristics, validity conditions, and transactional risks attaching to patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, and sets out the substantive components of a rigorous due diligence process, including portfolio mapping, chain-of-title verification, licence review, and the assessment of pending litigation and encumbrances. Drawing on the valuation of intellectual property assets, cross-border and jurisdictional complexities, and the competition law dimensions of intellectual property-intensive acquisitions, and on cautionary episodes such as the Google-Motorola, Verizon-Yahoo, and Waymo-Uber transactions, the paper addresses emerging challenges posed by data assets, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. It concludes by proposing a structured framework organised around five interrelated pillars: comprehensive asset identification, legal validation, commercial and contractual assessment, risk quantification, and strategic alignment.

Ragging in higher education institutions in India has long been trivialised as initiation or harmless campus tradition, yet the law has decisively recharacterised it as a legal wrong capable of triggering layered liability. This paper adopts a doctrinal and descriptive-analytical approach to map the legal, disciplinary, and criminal consequences that may follow when a student commits, abets, or participates in ragging within an Indian higher education institution. Reading the UGC Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions, 2009, the Supreme Court's anti-ragging jurisprudence in Vishwa Jagriti Mission and University of Kerala, the operational architecture of the national anti-ragging portal, and the post-2024 criminal-law framework of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, it situates the student perpetrator at the centre of analysis. It demonstrates that consequences operate through institutional and academic sanctions, criminal prosecution for the specific acts committed, parallel proceedings, the growing significance of cyber-ragging and electronic evidence, and enduring collateral and reputational burdens. The paper concludes that the framework is coherent in principle but fragile at implementation, and offers preventive and procedural recommendations to render its sanctions credible in practice.

Modern criminal law is, at bottom, the adaptation of criminal law to contemporary conditions, and the prosecution of perpetrators of the most serious crimes can no longer be conceived through either a rigid universalism or an isolating relativism. This study asks what legal technique is best suited to ensuring, within domestic legal systems, the effective diffusion and reception of the mechanisms, principles, and global discourse that underpin the prosecution of the most serious crimes. Domestic norms in this field are treated as a secondary institution that reformulates pre-existing frameworks and generates effects across each State's punitive culture. Against the background of an evolving culture of evaluation, the analysis situates fusion, uniformisation, and harmonisation along a continuum of modes of legal convergence, and argues, drawing primarily on the work of Mireille Delmas-Marty and Germain Ntono Tsimi, that the most appropriate response is an ordered construction of these modalities, that is, an ordered pluralism lying beyond both the relative and the universal. Turning to a modelled framework of convergence, the study examines the four degrees of internationalisation of criminal law, the pure international and pure national models and their integrated and moderated variants, and the question whether States Parties bear an obligation to adapt their domestic legislation to the Rome Statute. It concludes that, rather than absolute autonomy or total subordination, the principle of complementarity introduces a mode of normative articulation grounded in a complementary hierarchy, through which the prosecution of the most serious crimes initiates a dual opening of national criminal systems towards both the supranational and the infra-state levels.

Artificial Intelligence has a considerable impact on international trade law. It enables the automation of complex decision-making and technical innovation, and it can substantially improve the efficiency and efficacy of trade and related processes. Applications of Artificial Intelligence in international trade, particularly in predictive analytics and decision-support systems, have the potential to transform the field. However, the integration of Artificial Intelligence into international trade law presents substantial obstacles, including concerns about data privacy, accuracy and reliability. To balance these problems against the benefits of Artificial Intelligence, legal processes must remain fair and accurate, and international cooperation is needed to establish regulatory standards for the deployment of Artificial Intelligence in international trade. Such standards are essential to ensure that technological innovation advances the objectives of international trade while safeguarding the integrity of the legal framework. A comprehensive and efficient legal system is required to maximise the potential benefits of Artificial Intelligence while curtailing its risks. The integration of Artificial Intelligence technologies with international trade law is proposed as a critical factor in advancing free trade and global economic integration, accelerating economic connectivity and promoting a more compact global market, in alignment with the modern objectives of trade and the application of technological advancement.

The pre-trial stage in India's criminal justice system remains marked by a structural divide between police investigation and prosecutorial decision-making. Despite the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial under Article 21 and repeated judicial exhortations that the public prosecutor must act as an impartial minister of justice, the statutory framework, even after the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, affords the prosecutor no formal role until the charge-sheet is filed. This paper undertakes a jurisprudential analysis of the investigation-prosecution interface, interrogating whether the Indian legal architecture secures genuine prosecutorial independence during investigation and what degree of pre-trial coordination is normatively required. Through a doctrinal examination of statutory provisions, landmark Supreme Court rulings, Law Commission reports, and the recent BNSS reforms, the analysis reveals a persistent gap between judicial ideals and institutional design. The prosecutor remains structurally subordinate to the executive and functionally estranged from the investigative process, thereby perpetuating legally unsustainable charges and undermining fair-trial safeguards. The paper concludes by proposing an integrated model of arms-length coordination, including an independent State Prosecution Authority, mandatory pre-charge legal screening, and institutionalised early consultation between investigator and prosecutor, as essential reforms to align India's pre-trial process with constitutional due process.

The doctrine of precedent, embodied in the principle of stare decisis, constitutes one of the foundational pillars of the common law system. It ensures consistency, predictability, and stability in judicial decision-making by requiring courts to follow previously established legal principles in cases involving similar facts and issues. This paper critically examines the historical evolution, theoretical foundations, operational mechanisms, and contemporary relevance of the doctrine of precedent, tracing its development from medieval English common law to its formal institutionalisation within a hierarchical judicial framework. It explores competing jurisprudential perspectives, including natural law theory, legal positivism, legal realism, and Ronald Dworkin's concept of law as integrity, to assess the philosophical justifications underlying the doctrine. The paper analyses the concepts of ratio decidendi and obiter dicta, the distinction between binding and persuasive precedents, and the mechanisms through which courts may avoid or depart from precedent, such as distinguishing, overruling, reversing, and the doctrine of per incuriam. Through an examination of landmark English and Indian decisions, it demonstrates how precedent functions both as a constraint on judicial discretion and as a vehicle for legal development, and how courts balance legal certainty with the need for adaptability. The paper concludes that the doctrine remains an indispensable instrument of judicial governance, promoting coherence, equality before the law, and institutional legitimacy while allowing for principled legal evolution, its enduring significance lying in its capacity to reconcile continuity with change and thereby preserve the rule of law in modern constitutional democracies.

India's aviation industry, which operates largely on leased aircraft, has long faced a deep legal contradiction. The country's domestic insolvency law, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, has consistently blocked creditors from repossessing their aircraft, directly clashing with India's 2008 commitment to the Cape Town Convention. This tension culminated in the Go First insolvency of 2023, when lessors found their valuable assets trapped, an event that damaged India's international compliance rating and drove up leasing costs. This paper scrutinises the government's response, the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Act, 2025, which finally gives the Convention the force of law in India and allows it to override the moratorium of the Code. The Act activates "Alternative A," granting lessors a firm sixty-day window to reclaim aircraft from a failing airline. This analysis argues that the Act is a crucial step to rebuild global confidence and lower financial risk, while marking a significant policy pivot that prioritises rapid creditor remedies over the Code's traditional goal of corporate rescue, a creditor-first approach that may push more distressed airlines toward liquidation. Although the law is a net positive, its ultimate success depends on resolving ambiguous drafting, particularly conflicting override clauses and unclear governmental detention powers, which threaten to create fresh legal uncertainties.

The rapid integration of financial technology into India's financial services sector has reshaped digital banking, payments, lending, and investment, expanding access while simultaneously creating new vulnerabilities for money laundering. This paper examines fintech innovation in India and the money laundering risks it generates, and evaluates whether the country's anti-money laundering regulatory framework is adequately prepared to address them. Using a doctrinal and analytical methodology, it analyses the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002, Reserve Bank of India directions, electronic Know Your Customer requirements, the role of the Financial Intelligence Unit, India, and the standards of the Financial Action Task Force. The paper identifies vulnerabilities arising from transaction speed, reduced physical verification, multi-platform layering, high-frequency low-value transfers, and cross-border movement of funds. It concludes that India has built a substantial legal and institutional foundation but remains only partially prepared, and that fintech-specific regulation, stronger inter-agency coordination, advanced technological monitoring, and enhanced international cooperation are required to keep regulatory preparedness in step with financial innovation.

The integration of artificial intelligence into India's judicial system is not simply a question of efficiency; it forces a confrontation with constitutional first principles. This paper asks whether AI-assisted adjudication can survive scrutiny under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India and the doctrine of judicial independence that Articles 50 and 124 are meant to protect. Taking the Supreme Court of India's November 2025 White Paper on AI and the Judiciary and the Draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026 as its primary texts, this paper argues that AI can ease India's case backlog only if its role stays strictly assistive, transparent, and answerable to enforceable safeguards. The analysis combines a doctrinal reading of constitutional and statutory sources with a comparative look at judicial AI frameworks abroad and a close assessment of two tools already in use, SUPACE and SUVAS. On this basis, the study builds a rights-based, human-centred framework for governing judicial AI in India. It concludes that opaque algorithms, biased training data, and any quiet erosion of the duty to give reasons are constitutionally unacceptable outcomes, which legislative and institutional design must guard against before they take hold.

The constitutional validity of the death penalty remains one of the most debated issues in criminal jurisprudence, involving a balance between the State's authority to punish and the fundamental rights of the individual. In India, the death penalty has been held constitutionally valid by the Supreme Court, subject to the doctrine of the "rarest of rare" cases established in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab. Ongoing arguments over evolving constitutional values and international human rights standards have, however, reopened debate on its continued legitimacy. This paper examines the constitutional validity of capital punishment in India through the lens of Articles 14, 19 and 21 and other relevant provisions of the Constitution, and explores the judicial principles that regulate its imposition. It further analyses significant judicial reforms, including procedural safeguards for the accused and the growing emphasis on reformative justice. The paper also considers changing global norms, international trends towards abolition, and the influence of human rights discourse on Indian jurisprudence.

A persistent rise in judicial pendency has emerged as one of the most pressing issues confronting the Indian judiciary. The institution handles an overwhelming number of cases, the current weight of which stands at roughly 5.5 crore pending matters, and this backlog contributes to the erosion of public faith in the system. Existing scholarship has focused primarily on the limitations of judicial resources and has sought to improve the numerical strength of judges and to secure technological upgrades. Drawing on judicial data, government reports, and a review of secondary sources, this paper reconstructs the causes of judicial stress and highlights the decisive role played by the demand side, namely excessive government litigation, archaic laws, and limitations in executive grievance redressal. The analysis shifts focus to argue for a holistic approach to reform that safeguards the justice system and, through it, the citizen.

The environment is a source of precious natural wealth and biological resources, and indigenous peoples and local communities have long served as custodians of these resources and of the traditional knowledge associated with them. This paper examines whether the Indian legal framework guarantees fair and equitable benefit-sharing rights to indigenous peoples and local communities through the intellectual property regime. Adopting a doctrinal and comparative methodology, it analyses the international instruments that shape access and benefit-sharing, namely the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Nagoya Protocol, the TRIPS Agreement and the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization, before critically evaluating the Indian regime under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, the Patents Act, 1970 and the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023. The study finds that, while the amended regime continues to recognise the principle of fair and equitable benefit-sharing, its emphasis on ease of doing business, the decriminalisation of offences, the relaxation of prior-approval requirements for Indian entities and the narrowing of the scope of benefit-sharing raise serious concerns for the interests of indigenous communities. It further finds that synchronisation between the biodiversity regime and the patent system remains unsatisfactory because the National Biodiversity Authority and the Patent Office function as largely independent bodies with limited institutional coordination. The paper concludes by proposing reforms aimed at a synchronised legal framework with harmonised procedures, integrated digital platforms and clear timelines that promote innovation while safeguarding the rights of indigenous and local communities.

Amendments to India's criminal code have been the subject of ongoing debate as they seek to balance the sometimes-opposing goals of efficiency and fairness. The criminal justice system suffers from inefficiencies, including case backlogs, procedural delays, and resource-deficient courts, which compromise its ability to respect the rule of law, ensure equity, and safeguard individual rights. This paper analyses the development and present condition of criminal law reforms in India, concentrating on legislative and judicial initiatives designed to improve efficiency while maintaining fundamental justice values. It examines key reform issues, including procedural streamlining, expedited courts, court digitisation, and victim-centred amendments, through a qualitative examination of pertinent legislation, judicial rulings, and scholarly viewpoints. The paper finds that, despite progress, India's criminal justice system requires a more comprehensive, institutionalised approach to properly synchronise justice with efficiency.

With the replacement of colonial-era statutes by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), the Indian criminal justice system is undergoing a significant overhaul, at the heart of which lies a claimed transition from an offender-centric model to a victim-centric paradigm. This paper critically evaluates that transition, moving beyond a descriptive account of the new provisions to assess whether victims have truly emerged as autonomous rights holders. Identifying a research gap in the critical appraisal of these laws' implementation mechanisms, it asks whether the BNS, BNSS, and BSA effectively transform victims into rights holders or merely reinforce existing procedural dependencies. Adopting a doctrinal methodology, the study scrutinises key provisions, including the right to information, participation in the withdrawal of cases, and compensation, against the backdrop of landmark judicial precedents such as Mallikarjun Kodagali, Jagjeet Singh, and Ankush Shivaji Gaikwad. The analysis reveals that, while the new laws provide a stronger normative framework for victim participation, they often lack enforceable penalties for non-compliance, leaving victims largely dependent on judicial and prosecutorial discretion. The paper concludes that, although India has made significant strides, the transition from victim to rights holder remains incomplete and requires further structural reform to secure full autonomy and restorative justice.

The Supreme Court of India, in Baksish Ahmad v. Union of India, delivered a ruling limiting the application of the common law doctrine of forum non conveniens within the domain of writ jurisdiction under Article 226(1) of the Constitution of India. A Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma held that where a litigant invokes the jurisdiction of a High Court on the basis of the situs of the respondent authority under clause (1) of Article 226, the doctrine of forum non conveniens may only rarely be invoked to decline jurisdiction. This paper traces the history of the forum non conveniens doctrine from its common law and private international law origins, examines how it has been received within Indian constitutional jurisprudence, analyses the tension between judicial economy and access to justice, and argues that the decision requires a more rigorous theoretical structure. It further identifies doctrinal ambiguities left open by the judgment and proposes a structured framework for High Courts navigating competing jurisdictional claims in constitutional writ proceedings.

India has emerged as one of the world's largest cryptocurrency markets, with millions of investors participating in Virtual Digital Asset (VDA) transactions despite continuing regulatory uncertainty. At the same time, crypto-related frauds, hacking incidents, Ponzi schemes, and exchange failures have caused substantial financial losses to investors. Recent enforcement actions indicate a significant rise in regulatory intervention, with the Enforcement Directorate attaching crypto-linked assets worth hundreds of crores of rupees in money-laundering investigations, including attachments exceeding rupees 433 crore in the BitConnect-related case alone, while the Income Tax Department has intensified compliance measures by issuing more than 44,000 notices to crypto traders for non-reporting of VDA transactions and undisclosed income. Under Section 115BBH of the Income Tax Act, 1961, gains from VDAs are taxed at a flat rate of thirty per cent, accompanied by a one per cent tax deducted at source under Section 194S, while losses cannot be set off against other income or carried forward. Consequently, victims whose crypto assets have been frozen, seized, stolen, or rendered inaccessible through fraud may continue to face tax liabilities despite being deprived of any actual economic benefit. This paper critically examines the legal architecture governing asset-freezing mechanisms in India, including provisional attachment under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, seizure powers under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and exchange-level restrictions imposed by Virtual Asset Service Providers. It analyses the disconnect between criminal enforcement measures and tax administration, demonstrating how overlapping regulatory actions can produce compounded financial hardship for fraud-affected investors. The paper further evaluates the socio-economic implications of this framework, including reduced investor confidence, under-reporting of cyber fraud, and diminished trust in digital financial markets. Drawing upon comparative regulatory developments under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, the paper proposes a coordinated victim-protection model incorporating tax suspension during asset-freeze proceedings, statutory recognition of fraud-related losses, and enhanced inter-agency coordination among the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, and cryptocurrency exchanges, with a view to a more equitable and investor-centric regulatory framework.

Large-scale industrialisation, urbanisation, and the growth of consumer-based lifestyles are placing considerable stress on global natural resources and ecosystems, driving rising waste generation, higher energy use, and environmental degradation. The minimalist living movement offers a sustainable response, encouraging individuals and communities to reduce material wants, focus on what is genuinely necessary, and adopt practices that are better for the environment. This paper examines how a minimalist approach to life, informed by traditional knowledge systems, contemporary sustainable architecture, renewable energy sources, and environmental protection laws, contributes to sustainable living. It considers architectural approaches such as biomimicry, passive cooling, eco-friendly building materials, and water conservation methods that reduce dependence on energy-intensive technologies, and it assesses the role of international environmental policy, national regulation, and the action of state and non-state actors in promoting sustainable consumer practices. By analysing the relationship between minimalism and sustainability, the paper proposes a balanced framework for sustainable communities that combines ecologically sound practices, technological innovation, and responsible consumption.

The COVID-19 pandemic, a genuine black swan event, tested the constitutional order by concentrating extraordinary power in the executive under the guise of emergency management. This paper argues that the unbridled discretion assumed by the government during the pandemic made robust judicial review not merely permissible but necessary. Tracing the historical evolution of judicial review from Dr. Bonham's Case and Marbury v. Madison to its constitutional entrenchment in India through Articles 13, 32, 226 and the basic structure doctrine, the paper then examines the role of the judiciary during the pandemic through five contemporary controversies: compulsory vaccination, burial and cremation rights, the plight of migrant workers, the privacy implications of the Aarogya Setu application, and the constitutional legitimacy of the nationwide lockdown. It contends that the space available for legitimate judicial review is inversely proportional to the executive's discretion as measured by public trust, and that the judiciary, by intervening to check executive excess, upheld rather than eroded the separation of powers and the rule of law. The paper concludes by proposing a harmonised model of judicial review and separation of powers, while acknowledging instances, such as the controversy over the PM CARES Fund, where the courts fell short of their constitutional duty.

Access and benefit sharing (ABS) is a policy concept that the Nagoya Protocol seeks to promote by securing fair and equitable access to genetic resources and the equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilisation. India is a party to the Protocol and has developed domestic mechanisms to support ABS. This paper takes Uttarakhand, one of India's most biodiverse states, as a case study. It argues that, despite successive reforms, the ABS regime as applied in the state continues to attract criticism. Accordingly, the paper critically examines the legal framework governing ABS in India and Uttarakhand and identifies the difficulties that framework encounters, including inconsistency across jurisdictions, weak enforcement and limited community participation. On the basis of these observations, the paper offers practical recommendations for overcoming existing limitations and strengthening the future of ABS through wider recognition of traditional knowledge and closer cooperation between government authorities and local stakeholders. The paper aims to contribute to scholarship and practice on the improvement of the ABS regime in India, and in Uttarakhand in particular, and to suggest workable measures for the sustainable management of genetic resources.

The rise of streaming platforms has transformed how audiences access and consume digital content, offering convenient and legal alternatives to traditional media formats, yet digital piracy remains a persistent and evolving challenge. This paper examines the dynamics of digital piracy in the streaming era, exploring the factors that sustain it, including subscription fatigue, geo-restrictions and exclusive-content fragmentation, alongside increasingly sophisticated methods such as stream-ripping, illegal IPTV services and cloud-based sharing. It evaluates the effectiveness of current legal and technological enforcement mechanisms, including copyright laws, site-blocking, digital rights management and automated content monitoring, and situates these within a comparative and international framework spanning the United States, India, the European Union and China, together with the TRIPS Agreement and the WIPO Copyright Treaty. It finds that enforcement is frequently undermined by cross-border jurisdictional limits, anonymity tools and public indifference toward piracy, and that India's statutory framework in particular has not kept pace with streaming-based infringement. The paper argues for a comprehensive and adaptive approach that combines stronger international cooperation, platform accountability, public education and more affordable, user-friendly legal alternatives to safeguard intellectual property in the age of streaming.

Emergency arbitration is among the most significant procedural innovations in contemporary arbitration, granting a party access to urgent interim relief before the arbitral tribunal is constituted. For a considerable period, Indian arbitration law did not recognise emergency arbitration as a statutory form of arbitration, although it was well established in leading institutional centres such as the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, the International Chamber of Commerce and the London Court of International Arbitration. Indian courts therefore relied on judicial interpretation to determine the legal nature, enforceability and scope of an emergency arbitrator's order. The decision of the Supreme Court in Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC v. Future Retail Ltd. marked a turning point by holding that an emergency arbitrator's order under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is enforceable, while reinforcing party autonomy and minimal judicial intervention. The draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024 seeks to place these judicial developments on a statutory footing by defining the emergency arbitrator and providing for the enforceability of emergency awards. This paper traces the judicial development of emergency arbitration in India, examines the significance of the leading decisions, reviews the proposed legislative changes and considers whether they would resolve the legal and procedural difficulties of the earlier regime. It also discusses the continuing problems in the arbitration system and suggests reforms to strengthen it in India.

The Indian Space Policy, 2023, approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security on 6 April 2023, seeks to liberalise India's space sector by transforming a state-controlled model into one led by private enterprise, permitting Non-Governmental Entities to participate across the entire space value chain, from satellite manufacturing, rocket launches and ground stations to downstream data services. The declared ambition is to capture a larger share of the global space economy by 2033 and to reach a market valuation of forty-four billion United States dollars. These ambitions, however, are undercut by the near-total absence of intellectual property considerations in the policy. The policy remains silent on the ownership of inventions arising from public-private collaboration, on the protection of space-borne inventions and on the trade secret crisis threatening commercially valuable space know-how. This article contends that the Indian Space Policy, 2023, while opening the market, has simultaneously neglected the legal framework necessary to make private investment in the sector viable, sustainable and globally competitive. Drawing on a critical reading of the policy, empirical data on the growing space startup ecosystem and a comparative examination of the space intellectual property frameworks of the United States and the European Union, the article identifies structural intellectual property deficits in the policy and proposes a model legislative framework comprising a Space Activities Act with a dedicated intellectual property chapter.

India's engagement with international investment law reflects a persistent tension between its ambition to attract foreign direct investment and its determination to preserve regulatory sovereignty over fiscal, environmental and developmental policy. The escalating arbitral proceedings of the second decade of this century, most notably White Industries, Vodafone and Cairn, exposed the structural weaknesses of the first-generation 1993 bilateral investment treaty architecture. This article argues that although the 2015 Indian Model BIT correctly identified those weaknesses, it adopted an over-compensatory defensive posture that prioritises arbitral insulation at the expense of investment credibility, potentially discouraging the very quality and volume of foreign direct investment that a rules-based treaty regime is intended to encourage. Drawing on regulatory sovereignty theory, investment protection theory and the legitimacy critique of investor-State dispute settlement, and on a comparative analysis of the treaty practice of Singapore, the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, the article proposes a third-generation treaty model for India. That model combines a proportionality-reviewed fair and equitable treatment standard, a reformed and tiered local remedies mechanism, environmental, social and governance conditionality, and institutionalised dispute settlement, and it sets out a phased policy roadmap for its adoption.

Semiconductors have become an object of explicit industrial policy rather than ordinary trade, and India, having built three decades of growth on software services rather than hardware, now seeks to anchor itself in the semiconductor value chain through the India Semiconductor Mission and its financial outlay of the order of ten billion United States dollars. This paper argues that the binding constraint on India's semiconductor ambition is not the generosity of its incentives but the reliability of its execution, so that the decisive reforms are legal, institutional and administrative rather than fiscal. Drawing on doctrinal legal research, comparative policy analysis and the experience of Taiwan, South Korea, the United States and the European Union, it maps the obstacles that lie between aspiration and operational reality: regulatory proliferation and the limits of the single window, water and power constraints, an inadequate intellectual-property framework, an acute shortage of specialised talent, and weak Centre-State coordination. It then proposes an implementation-oriented public-policy and regulatory framework, organised by horizon, spanning time-bound deemed-approval clearances, a fast-tracked environmental-clearance category, operationalisation of the layout-design regime, a standalone trade-secrets statute, a national semiconductor talent programme, and a standing intergovernmental coordination council with performance-conditioned incentive disbursement. The analysis distinguishes verified empirical claims, each sourced in the notes, from the author's interpretive arguments, and concludes that whether India converts its finite window into durable capability depends on the coordinated urgency of its bureaucracies, courts, universities and State governments.

The tension between private contractual rights and the State's sovereign powers is a recurring issue in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) disputes, and the question of whether such disputes may be resolved through international commercial arbitration is complex. This paper supports a rights-based, non-categorical approach to arbitrability that transcends the traditional dichotomy between the public and private spheres and evaluates instead the nature of the dispute and of the State's conduct. It argues that most conflicts between PPP parties concerning payment, construction and performance are arbitrable, while conflicts involving inalienable sovereign powers remain exclusive to national courts. The analysis draws on Indian jurisprudence, in particular the four-fold test in Vidya Drolia and the recent Racing Promotions judgment, and compares the frameworks in the United Kingdom, Georgia, Nigeria, China and Latin America. It also examines jurisdictional questions relating to sovereign immunity, State consent and the separability doctrine, together with emerging developments such as the arbitration-insolvency interface under India's Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, a proposed misuse doctrine to deter procedural delay, and specialist regulators. Finally, the paper calls for an open and accountable arbitral process that protects public funds while preserving commercial certainty in the pursuit of India's infrastructure development goals.

Meme culture has evolved alongside the internet and social media, developing from informal amusement into a potent form of political, social and cultural expression on digital platforms. Memes now exert considerable influence over public opinion, yet their regulation remains unclear under Indian law. Limited guidance may be located in the Copyright Act, 1957 and the Information Technology Act, 2000, through the fair dealing exceptions for purposes such as criticism, review and reporting of current events. Online platforms operating under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Intermediary Guidelines, 2021 frequently adopt risk-averse takedown practices that overlook these statutory protections, leaving creators largely dependent on the platforms' own community standards. A further concern is that such moderation should not infringe the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19, within which memes fall as a form of artistic and creative expression; unexplained or automated takedowns of such content may therefore be arbitrary. This paper identifies the disconnect between the fair dealing framework of Indian copyright law and the content moderation practices adopted by digital platforms in relation to meme-based content. Even where meme content falls within the statutory exceptions, takedown decisions are frequently driven by automated enforcement and compliance-oriented intermediary obligations rather than by meaningful engagement with domestic copyright standards, so that determinations traditionally reserved for judicial interpretation are increasingly displaced by private, platform-centric enforcement. Combining statistical data with judicial interpretation, the paper locates a gap in India's intermediary liability regime, namely its inability to reconcile copyright exceptions with content governance obligations, and argues that platform moderation must operate in harmony with statutory protections to preserve the balance between copyright enforcement and creative freedom.

The integration of artificial intelligence into international commercial arbitration presents one of the more consequential jurisprudential questions of the present century. While AI tools are already deployed in document review, predictive analytics, and procedural management, the prospect of autonomous algorithmic decision-making at the merits stage raises problems that existing arbitral frameworks are ill-equipped to answer. This article argues that the deployment of AI as a decision-maker in international commercial arbitration generates a structural legitimacy crisis along three intersecting axes: the doctrinal requirements of independence and impartiality, the procedural guarantees of due process and the right to a reasoned award, and the systemic risk of algorithmic bias embedding itself within transnational commercial justice. Drawing on the UNCITRAL Model Law, the ICC Rules, arbitral jurisprudence, and comparative regulatory frameworks including the General Data Protection Regulation and the European Parliament's resolutions on algorithmic accountability, the article evaluates whether AI can satisfy the legal standards that underpin the enforceability of arbitral awards under the 1958 New York Convention. It concludes that, while AI may legitimately serve arbitration as an auxiliary tool, its elevation to primary decision-maker is, under the current doctrinal and conventional framework, deeply problematic and likely incompatible with the foundational requirements of arbitral legitimacy absent a transformative re-architecture of that framework.

The Fifty-Second Constitutional Amendment Act, 1985 introduced the anti-defection provisions contained in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, with the principal object of curbing political defections and preserving stability in government. This paper examines the extent to which the anti-defection law fulfils its purpose of protecting democratic governance in India. It traces the constitutional and statutory basis of the law, the historical circumstances that necessitated it, the grounds for disqualification and the exceptions permitted, including the revision effected by the Ninety-First Amendment, 2003. The study analyses the judicial treatment of the law, particularly the delineation of the Speaker's powers and the scope of judicial review, and considers a recent instance of party realignment in the Rajya Sabha. It concludes that, notwithstanding criticism that the law suppresses freedom of conscience, its restraint on unprincipled defection serves the larger interest of parliamentary democracy.

India's rapid transition to online life after the COVID-19 pandemic has made communication and services easier while also creating new ways in which women and children are harmed through the internet. Official reports and academic work record a rise in cyber offences such as online stalking, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, child sexual abuse material, online grooming and bullying, with offenders using fake identities, foreign-based platforms and encryption to conceal themselves while harmful content spreads rapidly across social-media and messaging services. Adopting a doctrinal method, this article reads together the Information Technology Act 2000 (as amended), the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. It first classifies forms of cyber violence against women, including cyberstalking, revenge pornography, morphing and deepfakes, sextortion, gendered trolling and fake profiles, and examines practical problems such as anonymity, viral circulation of intimate content and weak platform regulation. It then turns to cyber offences against children, focusing on child sexual abuse material, online grooming, cyberbullying, self-generated sexual images, gaming-related exploitation and dangerous viral challenges, and explains how section 67B of the Information Technology Act, key provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the 2020 Rules operate together. A separate section examines the roles of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal and state-level cyber units in building a coordinated institutional response. The article finally proposes reforms including specialised cyber-Protection of Children from Sexual Offences courts, stronger digital-forensic capacity, clearer platform duties, better cross-border cooperation and sustained digital-literacy campaigns, so that technology and law together can create a more secure, zero-tolerance online environment for women and children.

India ranks among the ten largest countries by both population and economy, and remains deeply diverse in culture, tradition and custom. Poverty, unemployment and illiteracy continue to impede the welfare of the state, and a large section of the population remains below the poverty line, unable to secure basic necessities such as food, shelter and education. Providing these requirements is an essential responsibility of the state. Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar each advanced distinct conceptions of the welfare state, yet all three held the state responsible for the welfare of its people. Gandhi grounded the welfare state in the principle of Sarvodaya, the upliftment of all. Nehru, a socialist, approached the welfare state from a socialist standpoint, insisting on an active state role in providing education, healthcare and other basic facilities. Ambedkar located the welfare state within the framework of social justice, arguing that marginalised communities must receive equal representation across every sphere of public life. This paper examines the views of Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar on the concept of the welfare state and reflects on its continuing significance.

The Indian judicial system continues to evolve in an effort to reduce the pendency of cases, and several initiatives, such as Lok Adalats and alternative dispute resolution, have been introduced to provide speedier remedies. The introduction of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies is among the more recent of these efforts, and it carries both promise and significant challenges. Many courts have adopted AI-driven tools to assist judges and to relieve them of repetitive tasks, enabling faster disposal of cases. This article examines how AI supports courtroom work while cautioning against the replacement of human judges by automated systems that cannot anticipate ethical questions or weigh the human circumstances of a dispute. It considers why AI, being pattern-based and dependent on data fed during programming, cannot exercise genuine judicial discretion, and it draws on comparative regulatory frameworks, including the European Ethical Charter of the CEPEJ, the UNESCO Guidelines for the Use of AI Systems in Courts and Tribunals, and the Supreme Court of India's draft regulations of 2026. The article proposes safeguards to ensure that AI remains an assistive tool that preserves judicial independence, accountability and human values, and it concludes with recommendations for a human-centred adoption of these technologies.

The rapid digitisation of the global economy has transformed the nature of consumer grievances, rendering traditional litigation increasingly ill-suited to small-value, cross-border digital claims. This study examines Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) as a structural response to the jurisdictional vacuum created by borderless e-commerce, tracing its evolution from video conferencing toward a decentralised, blockchain-backed architecture that prioritises transparency, immutability, and self-executing enforcement. It analyses the technological architecture, merits, and demerits of native ODR platforms, including algorithmic bias, cybersecurity threats, and the digital divide, and evaluates the role of digital forensics and smart contracts within emerging statutory frameworks such as the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. A comparative analysis juxtaposes the rights-based model of the European Union, the market-led enforcement model of the United States, and India's hybrid, state-backed model, with particular attention to flagship portals such as e-Daakhil and e-Jagriti and the Supreme Court's draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026. The study concludes with targeted recommendations for legislative reform across the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Mediation Act, 2023, and allied statutes, arguing for dedicated ODR legislation that ensures enforceability while preserving due process, explainability, and equitable access.

International commercial arbitration has become a preferred mechanism for resolving cross-border commercial disputes because of its flexibility, neutrality, confidentiality and the international enforceability of awards. The parallel digitalisation of legal practice, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has drawn artificial intelligence into the arbitral process across legal research, electronic discovery, contract analysis, translation, case management and predictive analytics. This article examines the opportunities that artificial intelligence offers for efficiency, cost reduction and accessibility, alongside the legal and ethical challenges it raises, including algorithmic bias, opacity, threats to due process, confidentiality and data-protection risks, cybersecurity exposure, questions of reliability, accountability and the preservation of human judgment. Adopting a doctrinal and comparative method, the study surveys the responses of arbitral institutions and jurisdictions, including UNCITRAL, the International Chamber of Commerce, the London Court of International Arbitration, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and India, and identifies shared principles of transparency, human oversight, accountability and procedural fairness. It argues that the responsible integration of artificial intelligence requires mandatory disclosure of use, international governance standards, robust data protection, explainability requirements, sustained human oversight and dedicated ethical guidance for arbitrators, so that technological innovation strengthens rather than undermines the integrity of arbitral justice.

India's first post-2026 delimitation is not a routine boundary exercise but a constitutional stress-test joining electoral equality, federal trust, demographic transition, habitat change, and the sequencing of representative guarantees. This article distinguishes the legal trigger, namely publication of the relevant figures of the first census taken after 2026, from the political failure of the introduced but unenacted Delimitation Bill, 2026 and its companion constitutional amendment. Reading Articles 81, 82, 170, 330, 332, and 329(a) together, it develops an integrated account of interstate reapportionment, intrastate boundary revision, reserved constituencies, Commission independence, and limited judicial review. Drawing on constitutional doctrine, census evidence, fertility surveys, population projections, migration and urbanisation data, legislative materials, and comparative institutional design, the study explains why India's inherited electoral cartography no longer adequately describes its population or habitats. It argues that strict population equality without transition safeguards could destabilise the federal bargain, while indefinite freezing would deepen vote-value inequality. The proposed solution combines census validation, transparent formula simulations, House expansion, temporary protection against absolute seat loss, auditable geospatial data, integrated reservation sequencing, reasoned public hearings, and post-election review. The 2026 package failed Parliament's stress-test because distributive consequences outran procedural legitimacy and intergovernmental consensus; a renewed bill can succeed only by treating electoral equality and federal confidence as mutually reinforcing constitutional commitments.

Higher education is a key instrument of social transformation, employment generation, and human development, yet access remains unevenly distributed across social groups in India. Tribal communities, particularly those in remote regions, continue to be underrepresented in higher education institutions. This paper examines the factors responsible for low higher education enrolment among tribal students in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh and analyses the structural inequalities affecting tribal learners. Drawing on All India Survey on Higher Education data, Census of India figures, and published studies, the paper shows that the Gross Enrolment Ratio of Scheduled Tribe students, though improving, remains well below the national average, and that the transition from school education to university education is especially weak in tribal-dominated districts such as Bastar. Poverty, first-generation-learner disadvantage, gender inequality, geographical remoteness, an inadequate number of institutions, the digital divide, and language and cultural barriers emerge as the principal constraints. The paper argues that while government interventions have widened access to some extent, sustainable progress requires long-term investment in infrastructure, inclusive educational planning, and community-centred approaches, and it offers a set of recommendations toward that end.

In criminal investigations that offer little direct physical evidence, psychological and behavioural tools assist investigators in identifying an offender and establishing motive. This paper presents a case study of an eight-year-old boy's homicide, initially reported as a missing-person matter, in which polygraph examination and Layered Voice Analysis (LVA) were applied in tandem to test the veracity of a suspect's statements. The suspect, a family acquaintance, confessed to the killing and led investigators to the disposal site, but the possible involvement of the victim's mother warranted further verification. Following the consent requirements laid down by the Supreme Court of India, the suspect underwent a Modified General Question Test on the polygraph and a subsequent LVA session. The polygraph indicated truthfulness on the act of murder but deception on questions of motive and the mother's involvement, while the LVA session recorded an absence of cognitive and emotional stress after the suspect elaborated on both the crime and its motive. The convergence of results from the two techniques helped elicit a fuller account and illustrates the practical, corroborative value of combining deception-detection methods, subject to their acknowledged evidentiary and reliability limitations.

This study examines the prevalence and causes of corruption in Yemen, focusing on the political, economic, and sociocultural factors that sustain it, and assesses the potential of e-management and information and communication technology (ICT) as instruments for reducing it. Corruption remains a significant barrier to Yemen's development, undermining governance, public service delivery, and economic growth, and is reinforced by weak institutional accountability, political instability, and entrenched patronage networks. Drawing on the theoretical literature and comparative experience, the study argues that e-management can enhance transparency, streamline service delivery, and reduce opportunities for corrupt practices by automating processes and creating auditable records. It further identifies the political, economic, infrastructural, and sociocultural barriers, including low digital literacy and limited connectivity, that constrain the adoption of e-government in a conflict-affected setting. The study concludes by proposing strategies for integrating ICT solutions into Yemen's governance framework to combat corruption and promote good governance.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing legal and administrative decision-making, creating new challenges for statutory interpretation. Traditional interpretative methods were developed for human decision-makers and often struggle to address issues arising from algorithmic systems, including opacity, accountability and bias. This article examines how Indian courts may interpret statutes in the age of artificial intelligence while preserving fundamental rule-of-law values such as transparency, fairness and reasoned decision-making. It analyses emerging judicial and institutional responses to artificial intelligence in India and evaluates competing interpretative approaches, including textualism and purposivism. It argues that courts should adopt a balanced approach that extends statutory protections to algorithmic harms where necessary while ensuring procedural safeguards such as explainability, human oversight and evidentiary scrutiny. Such an approach enables the legal system to respond effectively to technological developments without compromising constitutional principles or judicial accountability.

This article examines the interface between judicial review and the adjudication of election petitions in India, situating the inquiry within James A. Gardner's account of election law as applied democratic theory. It first isolates the conceptual meaning of an 'election' and distinguishes the universalist and particularist models of democratic commitment before turning to the architectural and extra-legal modes by which the Election Commission of India regulates the electoral environment under Article 324 of the Constitution. The constitutional scheme in Articles 324 to 329 and the machinery of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, including the grounds for declaring an election void and the treatment of corrupt practices, are then analysed alongside a line of authority running from N.P. Ponnuswami to the Model Code of Conduct litigation. Drawing on Richard Hasen's critique of the United States judiciary and on comparative data linking judicial independence to personal freedom, the article closes with reform proposals for stricter and more accessible judicial oversight of election disputes, including safeguards against cybersecurity threats and misinformation.

This paper examines social deviance as a driver of structural change through three contemporary expressions: collective political deviance in the Nepal Gen Z protests of September 2025, instrumental cyber-deviance as an organisational and rhetorical tool, and the conceptual framing of artificial intelligence as a technological social deviant. Drawing on Merton's strain theory, conflict theory, and labelling theory, the paper argues that deviance is not merely pathological but frequently liberatory, a mechanism through which entrenched norms, corrupted institutions, and asymmetric power structures are challenged and reconstituted. The Nepal protests are analysed as a Mertonian rebellion against structural inequality and elite impunity; the Nepo Kid social media campaign illustrates digital stigmatisation as counter-labelling in action; and the rise of AI is examined as a disruptive technological actor that dominant institutions seek to regulate and contain through mechanisms analogous to social control. The paper concludes that deviance, whether enacted in the streets of Kathmandu, across digital platforms, or in the training runs of generative AI, performs the sociological function of compelling institutional self-examination and systemic reform.

Product liability makes manufacturers, sellers, and service providers accountable for harm caused by a defective product or a deficiency in service. The Consumer Protection Act 2019 gives this concept fresh statutory recognition in India, defining product liability, defect, and product, and setting out the grounds of liability of manufacturers, service providers, and sellers, together with the exceptions to a product liability action. This paper examines the concept and its theoretical foundations in negligence, misrepresentation, strict liability, and market-share liability, compares the position under the United Kingdom's Consumer Protection Act 1987 and the United States' State-based regimes, and analyses Chapter VI of the 2019 Act. It concludes that, while the statutory framework meaningfully strengthens consumer protection and accountability, the concept remains at a nascent stage whose utility in promoting consumer justice will be tested over time.

India's civil aviation sector has expanded to become the third-largest aviation market in the world, yet its rapid commercial growth has outpaced the legal and institutional frameworks meant to govern it. This paper adopts a socio-legal perspective to assess whether the privatisation of Air India, acquired by the Tata group in January 2022, has genuinely transformed the sector or merely effected a change of ownership. It argues that the transfer, though a significant milestone, leaves the industry's deeper structural problems unresolved: a duopolistic market in which IndiGo and the Air India group together hold roughly ninety per cent of domestic traffic; fragmented regulation in which the DGCA, AERA and CCI operate in silos; and a consumer-protection regime that is formally sound but practically ineffective. Examining the democratisation of air travel, market concentration, passenger rights and the social dimensions of privatisation, and analysing the risk of abuse of dominance under the Competition Act, 2002, the paper concludes that genuine reform requires a statutory, automatic passenger-compensation regime modelled on EU Regulation 261/2004, an independent aviation ombudsman with binding powers, and stricter merger review conditioned on slot divestiture at congested airports.

Migration, the movement of people across national boundaries, is governed by an interlocking body of international and domestic law that seeks to reconcile the sovereign right of States to regulate entry with the human rights of persons who cross borders in search of safety, work, or asylum. This paper undertakes a comparative study of the global and national frameworks that protect migrants. It surveys the principal international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1990 Migrant Workers Convention, and the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, and situates alongside them the customary principle of non-refoulement. It then examines how these norms are received, and often diluted, in national legal systems, drawing on illustrative State practice and on judicial decisions from India and the European Court of Human Rights. The paper argues that, although international law establishes a broadly universal foundation for migrant protection, its practical realisation depends heavily on national implementation, which is shaped by domestic priorities, resource constraints, and the prevailing political climate. It concludes that closing the gap between international obligation and national practice requires legal reform aligned with international standards, institutional capacity-building, and sustained cooperation among States, international organisations, and civil society.

Menstruation in India has been framed principally as a matter of hygiene and sanitation, captured by the policy vocabulary of menstrual hygiene management. That framing leaves unanswered a set of questions that are properly constitutional: State-endorsed menstrual exclusion from public temples, the statutory omission of menstruation from labour law, forced hysterectomies performed on disabled menstruators as a mode of menstrual management, and the exclusion of transgender menstruators from a policy vocabulary of 'women and girls.' Building on the menstrual-justice scholarship of Johnson and its Indian and Global South reworkings, this article argues that while that literature has done the conceptual work, it has not developed the doctrinal-legal scaffolding the Indian Constitution makes available. Reading Articles 14, 15, 21, and 25 together, and drawing on the Supreme Court's substantive-equality and dignity jurisprudence, the Sabarimala judgments, and Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, the article traces the shape of an emerging Indian menstrual-justice jurisprudence and sets out three priorities for its doctrinal development.

Affirmative action in India, implemented principally through reservations, is one of the most complex socioeconomic experiments in modern constitutional history. Designed as a temporary mechanism to redress historical caste-based exclusion, it has evolved into an expansive and largely permanent feature of State policy. This article examines the role of the Indian judiciary in regulating that mechanism. Exercising the power of judicial review, the Supreme Court of India functions as both an arbiter of social justice and a check against political populism, navigating the equilibrium between substantive equality and administrative efficiency.

Property rights of women are central to achieving sustainable development, as they directly influence economic security, social equality, and intergenerational well-being. This paper examines the role of legal frameworks in securing women's rights to own, access, and control property and land as a means of promoting inclusive and sustainable development. International human rights instruments and development frameworks increasingly recognize that secure access to and control over property enhance women's economic autonomy, reduce poverty, and contribute to food security, environmental sustainability, and inclusive growth. Against this global backdrop, India presents a complex case owing to its plural legal system governed by diverse personal laws. The paper critically examines women's property, land, and inheritance rights from a global perspective, with specific reference to the personal laws of India. It analyses international legal standards alongside constitutional provisions, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Parsi personal laws, statutory reforms, and landmark judicial decisions. It highlights the tensions between global equality norms and domestic personal-law regimes, the persistence of patriarchal practices, and gaps in implementation, and argues that harmonizing personal laws with constitutional principles and international human rights standards is essential for advancing gender-just and sustainable development in India.

This paper examines the condition of women prisoners in India, tracing the gap between the constitutional promises of equality and dignity and the realities of prison life. Drawing on national data, state prison manuals, and significant judicial rulings, it analyses the daily challenges faced by female inmates, including severe overcrowding, an overwhelming proportion of undertrials, inadequate healthcare, poor sanitation, and the often-overlooked needs of children growing up inside prison walls. The study adopts a regional classification of states, spanning the North (Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi), the South (Kerala and Andhra Pradesh), the East (Bihar, Odisha, and West Bengal), the West (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan), and the Northeast (Assam), chosen to present a representative cross-section of India's carceral landscape. By setting examples of innovation, such as Kerala's open prisons and Delhi's childcare initiatives, against the pressing concerns of states such as Bihar and Rajasthan, the study identifies where India falls short and where it shows promise. Landmark judicial interventions, from Supreme Court guidance on prison reform to High Court rulings on reproductive rights and dignity, are analysed to show how law can be an instrument of transformation. The paper argues for a rights-based overhaul of state prison manuals, urging amendments that prioritise gender-sensitive care, children's well-being, and meaningful rehabilitation. Aligning with international standards such as the Bangkok Rules, its recommendations seek to ensure that women in custody are not stripped of their humanity but afforded the dignity, protection, and opportunities they deserve.

The Indian Penal Code has long remained silent on the issue of marital rape, and although the offence is now governed by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the marital-rape exception persists. This paper examines the legislative lacuna surrounding marital rape in India, tracing its colonial origins in Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code and the perpetual-consent doctrine attributed to Sir Matthew Hale. It contrasts the Indian position with the treatment of marital rape in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and analyses key judicial interventions, including Independent Thought v. Union of India and the Delhi High Court's split verdict in RIT Foundation v. Union of India, now pending before the Supreme Court. The paper argues that the exception is inconsistent with Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution and with the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee and CEDAW, and it concludes that codification, accompanied by social and institutional reform, is necessary to secure gender justice and bodily autonomy for married women.

Cities are at the forefront of climate change. Urban populations face significant hazards such as heavy rainfall, high temperatures, and rising sea levels. High energy consumption from fossil fuels for heating, industrial activity, and transport has become a major driver of climate change through greenhouse-gas emissions. Rapid urbanisation, inadequate planning, and damage to the natural environment render cities increasingly susceptible to climate risks. This paper examines climate-resilient planning as a governance and legal response to urban climate risks. It analyses the constitutional guarantee of the right to life and liberty, environmental legislation, and key legal principles such as precaution, sustainable development, and the public trust doctrine as means of building resilient, sustainable cities capable of addressing future climate uncertainties.

This study examines marriage, divorce, and spousal responsibilities as customary practices within the matrilineal system of Meghalaya, focusing on the Khasi, Jaintia (Pnar), and Garo tribes. In these societies lineage, inheritance, and identity descend through the female line, yet decision-making authority frequently vests in men, particularly the maternal uncle. The paper analyses how marriage and its dissolution are conceptualised and regulated under largely uncodified customary law, the division of roles and responsibilities between spouses during marriage and after divorce, and whether the system empowers women or produces gender disparity by imposing a disproportionate burden upon them. It concludes that the matrilineal framework is paradoxical: it secures women's identity, inheritance, and social security and removes the stigma of divorce, but it also loads women with the greater share of child-rearing, economic, and domestic responsibility, compounded by the historical absence of legally enforceable maintenance obligations on fathers.

India's traditional textile arts, encompassing Chikankari embroidery, Bandhani tie-dye, Kantha stitching, Zardozi metalwork, and dozens of related craft traditions, represent an irreplaceable cultural and economic heritage. According to the Ministry of Textiles, the handloom sector alone employs approximately 35 lakh weavers, making it one of the largest sources of rural livelihood in India. Yet these traditions are increasingly subject to commercial appropriation by foreign luxury and fast-fashion enterprises, which reproduce their distinctive motifs, techniques, and aesthetics without attribution, compensation, or legal consequence. The existing intellectual property framework, specifically the Copyright Act, 1957, the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, is structurally incapable of addressing this form of exploitation. Copyright vests in individual authors and cannot accommodate collective, intergenerational creativity. Trademark law protects commercial identifiers but not the underlying knowledge systems of artisan communities. Geographical indications protect product names linked to origin but do not regulate design knowledge, technical processes, or benefit-sharing with artisans. Together, these instruments leave the most commercially significant dimension of cultural appropriation, the commercial incorporation of aesthetic vocabularies by profitable foreign enterprises, substantially unaddressed. This article argues that closing this protection gap requires two coordinated interventions: first, a purposive reinterpretation of existing statutes that extends their reach to the specific harms facing textile artisans; and second, a sui generis framework vesting collective rights in identifiable artisan communities, creating enforceable benefit-sharing obligations, and establishing a national register of protected traditional textile expressions. Drawing on Indian and international case law, comparative models, and India's existing biodiversity legislation, the article outlines what such a framework should contain and why existing law, even at its most generously interpreted, cannot substitute for it.

Bio-piracy refers to the unauthorised appropriation of indigenous biological resources and traditional knowledge without prior informed consent or equitable benefit-sharing. This paper examines the phenomenon in India, a mega-biodiverse nation whose tribal communities hold extensive ethnobotanical knowledge, and traces its trajectory from colonial resource extraction to the contemporary patenting of genetic materials by corporations. Using the landmark Neem, Turmeric and Basmati disputes as reference points, the study evaluates India's legal and institutional response, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Biological Diversity Act 2002, the Patents Act 1970, the Nagoya Protocol and the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. It analyses the Kani-Jeevani benefit-sharing model and the ruling in Divya Pharmacy v. Union of India, before assessing emerging challenges such as Digital Sequence Information. Drawing comparative lessons from South Africa, the European Union and Brazil, the paper argues that India must shift from formal compliance to substantive community participation, and recommends stronger prior-informed-consent mechanisms, standardised benefit-sharing, and user-side due diligence to protect indigenous bio-wealth.

A nation's greatest asset and principal resource is its youth. The energy, capacity, and enthusiasm of the young, if properly channelled, are among the most significant positive contributors to a nation's development and progress; but if the young are misguided or misled, national growth is retarded. India presently faces a serious crisis of unemployment, poverty, and illiteracy that most directly affects its youth, and, in turn, some of the young engage in anti-social activity for easy money, excitement, or under peer pressure. It is here that the judiciary, and more particularly the Indian criminal justice system, assumes importance as a guardian of the democratic order. This paper studies the nature of youth offenders with reference to relevant instances and seeks to highlight the relationship between youth offenders and the Indian criminal justice system.

Bangladesh stands at a crossroads in the management of energy. Economic expansion, industrialisation, and electrification have traditionally been achieved through the rapid growth of established fossil-fuel-based sources of energy. This paradigm is no longer sustainable, however, as the nation becomes more exposed to climate change and to volatile international fuel markets. This article addresses whether the constitutional and legislative structures of Bangladesh can support a substantial transition to green energy without jeopardising energy security or environmental conservation. Although Bangladesh does not possess a constitutionally enforceable right to a healthy environment, the reading of Article 18A, Article 32, and public interest litigation together with international environmental standards can contribute to an emerging environmental constitutionalism. This article argues that the conventional opposition between energy security and green transition has become a less tenable framing within a sustainable development context. Overdependence on fossil fuels undermines long-term energy security and imposes fiscal and environmental strain. The article contends that the legal basis for a green transition in Bangladesh already exists and requires greater consistency, enforceability, and integration of constitutional values into energy governance. The transition must be understood as a legal commitment central to the pursuit of sustainable development.

The rapid evolution of technology and the pervasive use of data in the digital world have rendered children among the most vulnerable categories of data subjects, or data principals, globally. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 represents India's first comprehensive legislative effort to address children's data protection, principally through Section 9. In the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) together constitute the most elaborate children's data governance framework in operation today. This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of these frameworks, examining their structural architecture, age thresholds, consent mechanisms, enforcement postures and underlying normative commitments. It argues that while India's DPDP Act adopts a more protective age threshold than the GDPR, it still suffers from critical implementation gaps, particularly the absence of a specified verification mechanism, the unresolved exemption architecture under Section 9(4), and the absence of any equivalent to the DSA's systemic risk assessment obligations for large platforms. Drawing on the European Commission's July 2025 DSA Guidelines on the protection of minors, the paper proposes a risk-stratified compliance model suited to India's digital ecosystem and recommends specific legislative and regulatory reforms to fortify child data protection in India.

This article examines the jurisprudence of capital punishment by comparing the abolitionist model of the United Kingdom with the retentionist model of Bangladesh. Although the two jurisdictions share a common law tradition, they have adopted opposing stances on the death penalty. This study analyses that divergence through three lenses: judicial fallibility, constitutional governance, and the rule of law. It traces the evolution of the death penalty within the common law and considers the philosophical underpinnings of the retributive, utilitarian, and reformative theories of punishment that remain relevant to contemporary debate. Particular attention is paid to the risk of wrongful conviction and the consequences of irreversible punishment within inherently fallible criminal justice systems. The article also examines the significance of judicial discretion, individualised sentencing, human dignity, and constitutional morality in death penalty case law. The United Kingdom, having confronted serious concerns about human rights and miscarriages of justice, has phased out capital punishment, whereas Bangladesh has retained the death penalty for the most serious offences while tightening its procedures and subjecting it to closer judicial scrutiny. The central question, this article suggests, is not merely whether capital punishment should be retained or abolished, but whether the doctrine of the rule of law in a constitutional democracy can accommodate an irrevocable punishment within a system that is inherently prone to human error. It concludes that the problem of judicial fallibility has long been central to the death penalty debate and continues to shape the development of criminal justice systems around the world.

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) remains one of the most widespread human rights violations committed against women, children and gender minorities in India, despite the legislative and institutional measures already in place. The enactment of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) marks a shift from a perpetrator-focused criminal justice approach to a victim-centric model. Yet the success of these reforms depends not only on the recognition of victims' rights in law but also on their effective implementation through responsive institutions, trauma-sensitive procedures and support services. This study critically examines the development of victimology in India, the socio-legal context of sexual and gender-based violence, and the transformation brought about by the recent criminal law reforms. Drawing exclusively on scholarly sources, the paper analyses the experiences of victims in universities, public institutions and child protection agencies, with particular attention to the psychological, procedural and institutional barriers that victims continue to face. The paper contends that although legislative changes have strengthened legal protection and procedure, entrenched patriarchal inequality, social stigma, institutional indifference and the absence of adequate victim support continue to obstruct the pursuit of justice. It argues that a sustainable impact requires not only progressive legislation but also institutional accountability and gender-sensitive administration.

Digital financial fraud has transformed cybercrime enforcement from a question of criminalisation into one of preservation, adjudication, and restitution. The central concern is whether India's legal and institutional framework can secure fraud proceeds rapidly while protecting due process and enabling financial recovery for victims. Through doctrinal examination of statutory provisions, official materials, judicial decisions, and academic literature, this study distinguishes complaint-based holds, police seizure, judicial attachment, interim custody, and final restoration of funds. These measures perform different legal functions and should not be treated as interchangeable. The national reporting and financial-fraud management framework has improved early intervention and reduced the risk of dissipation, yet uncertainty persists regarding the statutory basis, duration, scope, and review of account restraints. Recent judicial developments also reveal tension between victim protection and the disproportionate hardship imposed on innocent account holders, merchants, and downstream recipients. The emerging restitution framework provides procedures for holds, seizure, grievance redressal, interim custody, and restoration, but gaps remain in statutory coherence, judicial consistency, uniform implementation, and outcome reporting. A balanced framework therefore requires amount-specific restraint, prompt judicial supervision, transparent claim verification, periodic review, and disclosure of restoration outcomes. Effective cybercrime restitution depends on speed, legality, proportionality, and enforceable recovery operating together.

The rapid expansion of digital media has fundamentally changed the ways in which information is created, shared, and consumed across the globe. While this transformation has opened numerous opportunities for public engagement, citizen journalism, and the free flow of ideas, it has also raised significant legal and regulatory challenges that existing systems struggle to address. In India, where Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression, the digital revolution introduces new complexities into the delicate balance between freedom and responsibility. This paper examines three critical areas in which digital media and legal frameworks are increasingly at odds: press freedom, individual privacy, and the integrity of public discourse. As governments worldwide expand their control over online content through takedown orders, surveillance measures, and platform regulation, press freedom faces serious challenges. At the same time, the widespread collection and misuse of personal data by online platforms have raised urgent concerns about privacy rights, particularly in the absence of a strong and comprehensive data protection regime. The unchecked spread of misinformation, false news, and hate speech on social media has degraded the quality of public discourse, making it more difficult for citizens to distinguish fact from falsehood. The study adopts a doctrinal method, drawing upon Supreme Court decisions, legislative developments, and international regulatory frameworks to examine these issues in depth. The findings demonstrate that India's current legal framework is inadequate to address the challenges posed by digital media effectively. The paper concludes by advocating targeted legislative reform, improved judicial oversight, and accountable platform governance in order to create a digital media environment that is transparent, responsible, and protective of rights.

Equity and human rights are foundational principles for building inclusive societies. They are especially important in ensuring that children with disabilities, often referred to as special children, receive equal opportunities to participate in education, healthcare, recreation, and community life. Although international conventions and national policies have strengthened the legal protection of children with disabilities, many continue to experience discrimination, exclusion, and unequal access to essential services. Contemporary society increasingly recognizes that equality alone is insufficient, because children have diverse needs that require individualized support. This paper examines the concepts of equity and human rights, discusses the international legal frameworks that protect special children, identifies barriers to inclusion, and highlights the importance of inclusive education, family support, community participation, and government responsibility. It further explores practical strategies for promoting equitable opportunities and protecting the dignity and rights of children with disabilities. Ensuring equity requires collaboration among governments, educators, healthcare professionals, families, and society to remove barriers and create environments in which every child can achieve their full potential.

The Indian criminal justice system has increasingly moved from an offender-centred model towards a framework that recognises the rights, dignity and experiences of victims. Yet several substantive provisions, both under the erstwhile Indian Penal Code and under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, remain gender-specific, operating on the assumption that women are victims and men are offenders. This paper examines whether the current criminal justice framework adequately reflects the constitutional developments in equality, dignity and personal liberty under Articles 14, 15 and 21, as expanded in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India and Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India. It evaluates the legal protection available to men and transgender persons who experience sexual violence, domestic abuse and coercion, and argues for a gradual, victim-centric and gender-inclusive approach. Drawing on comparative reforms in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, the paper contends that gender-neutral drafting is compatible with continued protection for women. It does not call for the removal of existing safeguards for women; rather, it advocates a broader framework capable of recognising all forms of victimisation while preserving protection for historically disadvantaged groups.

The principle of finality of judgments is a vital feature of every legal system, for it brings certainty, stability, and public confidence to the administration of justice. There are, however, situations in which a final judgment may contain serious error, resulting in injustice. To address such exceptional cases, the Supreme Court of India developed the concept of curative jurisdiction. This article examines the constitutional and legal foundations of curative petitions in India and traces their development through significant judicial decisions. It also considers how curative petitions have operated in practice, discusses the available statistical trends, and analyses the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Nithari case concerning Surendra Koli. Through this case study, the article evaluates the role of curative petitions in correcting serious judicial error while maintaining the balance between the finality of judgments and the need to ensure justice.