Law

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• A Country For Sold Men in Law: It is happening quietly, but certainly. Little by little at first, and recently in ways far more brazen, whole chunks of our country are being sold. » continue reading
  
  
• A Manifesto For Gender Justice in Law: In this country, we have to come to expect that specially appointed commissions and committees will fulfill their charter in the most leisurely way, grinding for years together till the events that led to their formation, and even their purpose, become but the dimmest of memories. The Justice Verma Committee, appointed after the horrific gang-rape in New Delhi, has shown us what a focussed and dedicated team can achieve within an impossible deadline. » continue reading
  
  
• A Monument To Corruption in Law: The Adarsh Society scam has many dimensions—illegal permissions, allotments, extra FSI, contraventions of the law, ownership of the land, and more. But there’s another scandal quietly brewing and it is possibly the worst of all. On the basis that, following the Ministry of Environment & Forests’ notice to the society asking it to show cause why it should not be demolished, some lobbies have recently suggested that the building should be “auctioned” (the auction proceeds to go to the state treasury). » continue reading
  
  
• A Question Of Trust, A Matter Of Faith in Law: Civilization’s future, EM Forster wrote in his July 1941 essay, originally broadcast on BBC, demands something less dramatic and emotional than prattle about love. “Tolerance,” he said, “is a very dull virtue. It is boring. Unlike love, it has always had a bad press. It is negative. It merely means putting up with people, being able to stand things.” Speaking about a post-War England, he was convinced that it was this quality that would most be needed in the years ahead. » continue reading
  
  
• Accessing The Law in Law: As our world gets more complex, so do our statutes. We now have laws for everything from the preservation of wild elephants (1879; seriously) to the running of cybercafes. This statutory morass is confusing and intimidating, and the citizen is more often victim than intended beneficiary. This is a situation that breeds corruption and administrative oppression; few, for instance, know precisely what their rights are whether it is a traffic offence or applying for a factory license. » continue reading
  
  
• Ask The Experts in Law: We find television shows about lawyers, law firms and crime detection so compelling because we perceive court rooms as arenas for a civilized form of gladiatorial combat. ‘Courtroom’ TV serials show feisty lawyers trading verbal blows against each other and sometimes even against awkward judges. Witnesses are the hapless victims fed to legal lions. Every now and then an ‘expert’ witness — a scientist or a doctor, perhaps — is trundled out; sly lawyers try to tie them in knots, usually saying something like “so you can’t say for sure”, to which the witness responds “of course not; that’s just the most likely answer, in my professional opinion.” » continue reading
  
  

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• Chasing A Pipe Dream in Law: As a rule, Courts are not much given to strongly worded chastisements in their written orders, possibly on the understanding that it takes all types. Except for its language, there was, therefore, nothing very remarkable about the recent order of a Delhi tribunal fining a law firm for what is perhaps best described only as a series of procedural missteps. » continue reading
  
  

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• For Whom The Decibels Toll in Law: We Indians are especially fond of noise. It appeases our gods. It makes us go faster on our pot-holed roads. It makes us better neighbours and fellow passengers on railway trains. Shouting into a cellphone shows how important we are (never mind that some of us like to shout into the wrong end of the phone). It also makes us incredibly stupid. When I once yelled at a driver for honking he looked genuinely perplexed and said, “but I wasn’t honking at you!” » continue reading
  
  

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• In Joco Veritas: In Jest There Is Truth in Law: At the end of 2008, six people met at the Cardozo School of Law’s moot courtroom in New York. They included the free speech expert, Floyd Abrams; a sitting judge the United States Court of Appeals, Richard Posner; a judge of the New York state Supreme Court’s appellate division; a professor of law and novelist, Bernard Schlink; and a professor of literature. They were there to decide what appeared to be a simple case concerning a loan default. » continue reading
  
  

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• Judgement Daze in Law: What is about judges that so upsets politicians and political columnists? A couple of days ago, one politician referred to High Court and Supreme Court judges as the “laziest” layer of the judiciary. That’s a curious statement coming from someone who’s made a career and an exceedingly good living out of that “laziness”. On television, a self-anointed political pundit was even more waspish, suggesting that judges “get off their butts” and saying that the judiciary was thoroughly useless, or words to that effect. » continue reading
  
  

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• Live And Let Die in Law: He has been on death row for years. Now, three days before he was scheduled to be put to death, the Central Government has stayed his execution. This particular case, Balwant Singh Rajoana, seems to be peculiar. He was convicted for the assassination of Punjab’s Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995. He chose not to represent himself. He still does not seek a reprieve. He says he has no grounds to do so, and has no faith in our system. Instead, today, it is the ruling party in the state that urges clemency. » continue reading
  
  
• Lost In Translation in Law: In some form or the other, we all run up against the law. Some have the great good fortune not to run up against those who practice (and preach) law, but everyone has to deal with some manifestation of a legal regime, at work, at home, in the matter of habits and preferences or the hundred little things we encounter and do, or are forced to do, on a daily basis. Whether it is getting a passport or an Aadhaar card or a ration card, getting a telephone or cellular connection, a cooking gas cylinder, banking (those wretched KYC forms), a driving license or leaving a nightclub before an overzealous cop spirits off (so to speak) a hundred tipplers for daring, without a ragged piece of paper, to quaff a few, the law is always muscling in on us. » continue reading
  
  

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• Minority Report in Law: Of all the opening words of the Preamble to our Constitution, the most difficult is one that wasn’t even originally there. Till 1977, we were a sovereign democratic republic, recently turned gloomy with Mrs G in the middle of her run up to pole-vaulting us into bananadom. In that year, we became both socialist and secular; and, as the Aston Martins and Bentleys on our potholed roads, and repeated outbreaks of sectarian violence show, we have honoured both ideals. » continue reading
  
  

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• Not The One You Seek in Law: Recent events that have occupied so much of our time and attention have also goaded some, among them a surprising number of young men and women, into blaming modern communication technology and cinema for our apparent fall from if not a state of grace then certainly a condition of decency. » continue reading
  
  

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• PILfering Justice in Law: Last week, India’s Law Minister, M Veerappa Moily, announced his shiny new ‘National Litigation Policy’. It recognises that the single largest litigant in this country is the government itself, and outlines several measures to make the government an ‘efficient and responsible’ litigant. » continue reading
  
  

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• Shadows Of What Is To Come in Law: Ministers repeatedly say that our government is committed to the protection of the fundamental right to free speech. Such assurances sound hollow; every other day there is some renewed assault that finds voice in criminal and judicial action against speakers, writers, singers, artists. » continue reading
  
  
• Slave To Fate, Chance, Presidents And Law in Law: There are not many positive things to take away from the case of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the surviving terrorist of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, whose death sentence the Supreme Court recently confirmed and upheld. But there is a victory of sorts here, and it belongs to our judiciary for the manner in which it handled a difficult case with strong international overtones. » continue reading
  
  

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• That Seditious Mango Man in Law: A few weeks ago, a young cartoonist, Aseem Trivedi, was arrested on grounds of ‘sedition’. He was later granted bail by the Bombay High Court and, in short order, became the focal point of protests against the sedition law. Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code, it was said, is a relic of the British Raj, ‘outdated’ and has no place in modern society. Some pointed out that few countries today have such a law, and no comparable democracy does. It was abolished in England some years ago, and in the USA has been much diluted by courts. » continue reading
  
  
• The Good, The Bad And The Bovine in Law: It would be comic if it wasn’t so insidious. Karnataka proposes to pass into law the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill. This isn’t just to ensure the health of livestock (it does exactly the reverse) or control slaughter-houses. It targets specific communities and groups, particularly the poor, Dalits and Muslims. » continue reading
  
  
• The Lives Of Others in Law: It’s a day that begins like any other. A man rides his daughter to school on his motorcycle. A lady alights from an auto rickshaw. A group enters a café. And then it all turns inside out and upside down as a car careens into a one-way street the wrong way. In the mayhem that follows — “carnage” might be a better word — two lives are lost: the rickshaw driver and the father of the young schoolgirl. Two more are seriously injured, one with a broken back. The driver of the vehicle, we are told, was not drunk but attempted a ‘short-cut’. He is not the car owner but a paid employee, a chauffeur; and his employer is in the car too. » continue reading
  
  
• The Pushmi-Pullyu In Law: The RTI Act in Law: Hugh Lofting’s Dr Doolittle children’s books had many wonderful imaginary creatures. One of these was the pushmi-pullyu, a gazelle-unicorn hybrid with a head at either end of its body. When it moved, both ends headed off in opposite directions. » continue reading
  
  
• Tyrannosaurus Lex in Law: In 2006–2007, Bryan Garner, the paladin of plain language in the law, video-interviewed eight justices of the US Supreme Court on their views on legal writing and advocacy. American lawyers studied these videos closely to see what each judge liked and didn’t, and began tailoring their writing and arguments to fit.  » continue reading
  
  

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• Ugly Bettee in Law: Pity the poor IPL fan. All this brouhaha about illegal betting and spot-fixing assumes that the IPL cricket fan is a complete fool. So the police have found there is betting on IPL matches, and parts of games are being fixed. So what else is new? Everyone’s known this for years, though nobody can ‘prove’ it, and it hasn’t stopped anybody from watching, cheering, jeering, booing, applauding, dancing in the aisles and filling our stadiums to the rafters and beyond. » continue reading