What’s new at LAOT
1. In Dialogue with Arvind Datar: Tribunals, Gaming & Constitutional Power, (A conversation on key constitutional issues, including Gameskraft v. Union of India exploring judicial review and the future of regulatory governance).
2. Bihar’s SIR: Rethinking the Role of the ECI as a Guarantor Institution, (Examines the 2025 Special Intensive Revision in Bihar, highlighting large-scale voter deletions due to procedural gaps and arguing that stronger institutional autonomy and a permanent secretariat are essential to safeguard free and fair elections under Article 324.)
3. Branding the Complainant: Quashing, Punishment and Disbelief in a Rape Case, (Citiques a HC order quashing a rape complaint and penalizing the complainant, arguing it departs from limits on quash jurisdiction, conflates procedural stages, and raises serious concerns).
4. Decoding the World Court’s Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and What it Means for Developing Countries like India, (Examines the International Court of Justice’s climate change advisory opinion, analysing its interpretation of due diligence, customary international law, and CBDR through a TWAIL lens.)
Elsewhere Online
1. Editorial, Fangs Bared Against Equality, Economic and Political Weekly
2. Ishika Tanwar, Master of the Roster, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy Blog
3. Gautam Bhatia, Can the Supreme Court ban a book?, Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog
4. Chytanya S., Surveillance by Design: The Unconstitutionality of S. 7(i) of the Data Protection Act, Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog
5. Ritwik Sharma, Rethinking Judicial Approaches to Sexually-Explicit Deepfakes: The Case For Article 21-Based Relief Against Nudifying Websites, Law School Policy Review
6. Sandeep Dash, ‘Complaint Cases’ as Scheduled Offences under the PMLA, The Proof of Guilt Blog
Listen Up
1. Dismantling UGC Myths with Supreme Court Advocate Disha Wadekar, Anurag Minus Verma Podcast. (In this episode, Anurag and Disha Wadekar discuss the controversy around new UGC guidelines and the many myths circulating around them.)
2. ‘Ghooskar Pandat” Case: Can Supreme Court observations help reverse the protection for free speech in India?, In Focus by the Hindu. (In this episode, G. Sampath speaks to Supreme Court Advocate Deepak Joshi about the recent PIL concerning the Netflix film Ghooskhor Pandat and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan’s opinion, reflecting on the broader constitutional implications of the freedom of speech jurisprudence.)
3. What does the SC’s judgment on menstrual health mean for gender equity in India?, In Focus by the Hindu. (In this episode, Zubeda Hamid speaks to Poonam Muttreja, Executive director of the Population Foundation of India, about the Supreme Court’s judgment recognising the right to menstrual health and hygiene as a fundamental right, and what it means for awareness, education, and addressing period poverty in India)
4. Queer Feminism, Armed Conflict, and Law in Columbia with Angela Maria Parra Rojas, Feminist Law. (In this episode, Clara speaks with Angela Maria Parra Rojas about queer feminism, gender, sexuality and law, and activism in a Columbian Context).
5. Death Row Acquittals, Bharat Taxi, and compensation in fraud cases, 3 Things. (In this episode, Niharika Nanda speaks to Apurva Vishwanath about death penalties awarded by Indian Courts, in light of a study conducted by the Square Circle Clinic. She also speaks with Brendan Dabhi and Devansh Mittal about the government’s proposed Bharat Taxi service, and discusses the latest proposal to compensate customers for losses arising from fraudulent transactions.)
Lately in Academia
1. More Rights, More Danger for Police: An Experimental Look at How Messaging Shapes Public Views about Constitutional Carry, Hunter M. Boehme and Paige E. Vaughn, this survey experiment finds that only about one-third of Americans support constitutional carry laws; most believe they increase personal liberty but also increase danger to police, with public attitudes shifting depending on whether police leaders or politicians support or oppose the laws.
2. Systematic Corruption, Reilly Steel, the article argues that modern systematic corruption, where politicians manipulate economic privileges to entrench power, has become concentrated in the federal executive, and proposes institutional reforms (constraints on discretion, insulation from partisan control, and countervailing power) to curb it.
3. North-South Divide: Constitutional Challenges and Federal Implications of India’s 2026 Delimitation Exercise, Paladugula Dhanraj, the article examines how the upcoming delimitation exercise could shift parliamentary power toward northern states due to population growth, potentially penalizing southern states that achieved population control, and proposes hybrid representation models to balance demographic fairness with federal stability.
4. Judicial Interpretation as Power: The Crisis of Judicial Imagination in Indian Constitutional Law: A Mimamsa Perspective, Pratham Ahuja, the paper argues that modern interpretive methods reproduce social hierarchies and excessive judicial authority, and suggests Mimamsa hermeneutics as a framework promoting interpretive modesty, contextual reasoning, and moral responsibility.
5. Joint Parliamentary Committees in India, Evolving Patterns and Frameworks, Rupak Kumar, the article calls for developing a framework to understand the functioning and effectiveness of parliamentary committees, especially Joint Parliamentary Committees, and examines how political realities shape their performance as “mini-Parliaments.”
6. Few hits, many misses: the role of the Law Commission of India in ushering gender-just family law reforms, Saumya Uma and Parkhi Saxena, this article examines how the Law Commission of India has influenced gender-just reforms in family law by analysing its reports and recommendations, highlighting its role in addressing gender discrimination and shaping legal reform through research-based policy advice.
Opportunities
1. Call for Chapters: Book on Criminal Law in Transition – Foundations, Challenges and Futures. The last date of submission is 26th March, 2026.
2. Call for Registration: Courts and the Constitution Conference, 2026 at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. The deadline is 15th March, 2026.
3. Call for Papers: RV Law Journal of MKPM RV Institute of Legal Studies [Volume 5 Issue 1 (January – June 2026)]. The last date of submission is May 20, 2026.
4. Call For Papers: NALSAR Law Review (NLR) [Volume 11]. Last date of submission is March 31, 2026.
5. National Seminar on Media and Law in the Digital Age at School of Law, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai [April 24 – 25]. Submit by April 1, 2026.
