Lately in Public Law | March’25

Summary: A fortnightly feature inspired by I-CONnect’s weekly “What’s New in Public Law” feature that addresses the lacuna of a one-stop-shop public law newsletter in the Indian legal space.

What’s New at LAOT

1. Prof. Aditya Nigam, Secularism as Misdirection: Response by Aditya Nigam (provides his comments on the second, fifth and seventh chapters of the book).

2. Saif Ali, Explainer: Recall of Ganpati Dealcom – Putting the genie back in the bottle? (examines Union of India v. Ganpati Dealcom and its subsequent application in High Court rulings to argue how it led to the statutory exclusion and retrospective decriminalisation of pre-2016 benami transactions).

3. Shreya Jain and Tanmay Durani, Reading-In, SDI, and the Limits of Judicial Activism – A Response: Part I and II (a response to ‘interim reading-in’ remedy with arguments addressing legislative inertia).

4. Shaurya Mahajan, Section 104 BNS: Old Wine in a New Bottle? (critically examines the structural flaws of the section, evaluates its implications through key judicial precedents, and calls for its removal in favour of a more rights-centric approach to criminal justice).

Elsewhere Online

1. Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth, How Govt in India’s Capital Keeps Homeless out of Shelters: By Insisting on IDs & Phone Numbers, Article 14.

2. Sarthak Gupta and Priyam Agarwal, Love, Lies and Section 69 of the BNS, The Proof of Guilt blog.

3. Upendra Baxi, Israel Supreme Court and the ‘Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendment’ amid the Aggression in Gaza, Economic and Political Weekly.

4. Rishika Sahgal, Spatial Justice in Eviction Cases under the South African Constitution, Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog.

5. Ishani Mookherjee and Mahek Bhatia, Discarding the Marital Rape Exemption: From Fundamental Rights to Vulnerability Theory, Oxford Human Rights Hub.

6. Sarthak Sahoo, Not My Type – A different ‘Look’ at Judicial Reform, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

7. Sachin Malhan, Varun Hemachandran & Smita Gupta, How AI is Transforming Access to Justice In India, NLSIR Online.

Lately in Academic Articles

1. Anoop Singh, Fiscal Federalism and Climate Change: Building the Institutional Framework in India, Indian Public Policy Review (examines India’s climate governance through the lens of fiscal federalism, highlighting gaps in coordination, the need for a unified climate law, and strategies for integrating climate action across national and subnational levels).

2. Preeti Raghunath, “Hated Speech”: The Communicative Dimension of Progressive Politics and (Un)democracy in India, Elgar Online (analyzes how speech challenging entrenched power structures is met with hostility, framing “Hated Speech” as expressions of dissent that disrupt the status quo and examining the experiences of individuals facing backlash for progressive activism).

3. Rouf Ahmad Dar, Aejaz Ahmad Wani & Javid Ahmad Dar, Emergent Plutonomy in India: Limits of Transformative Constitutionalism, Economic and Political Weekly (critiques how India’s constitutional framework, despite its transformative aims, has failed to curb rising wealth inequality, allowing for the emergence of plutonomy through both implicit and explicit legal-political allowances).

4. Gourav Kumar Sharma, Understanding the Influence of Appellate Tribunals on the Judicial Process in India, Journal of Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence (explores the dual impact of appellate tribunals on efficiency and judicial independence, highlighting their contribution to reducing pendency while underscoring concerns around executive dominance, procedural fairness, and the need for institutional reforms to uphold constitutional accountability).

5. Anmol Jain, Judicial Review of Parliamentary Process in Dr Sunil Kumar Singh v. Bihar Legislative Council, Constitutional Law, and Philosophy (analyses the Supreme Court’s approach to Article 212 in the context of legislative privilege and judicial scrutiny, arguing that the judgment lays a conceptual foundation for reviewing decisions like the Speaker’s certification of money bills by creatively delimiting parliamentary immunity).

Listen Up

1. All Things Policy, State of AI Governance (discusses the upcoming developments in AI and its regulation).

2. In Focus by the Hindu, Understanding the concerns over EPIC-Aadhar linkage (discusses whether concerns about linking EPIC with Aadhaar leading to voter profiling, selective disenfranchisement and data privacy violations among others are valid or overblown). 

3. Ideas of India, Justice Chelameswar on Constitutional Interpretation and Judicial Independence (a discussion on his judgments ranging from issues of electoral qualifications to separation of powers and how dissent shapes constitutional interpretation, and much more)3 Things, Concerns over Waqf Bill, India’s bioeconomy, and demand for J&K’s statehood (experts delve into these three issues in the news in March).

Opportunities

1. Call for Papers by Indian Journal for Constitutional Laws by NALSAR. The last date for submission is 31 May 2025.

2. Call for Papers: National Conference on ‘Seventy-Five Years of the Constitution of India’ by CCLG, RGNUL, Punjab. The last date for submission is 14 April 2025.

3. Call for Essays for the 2nd IDIA ICUL Essay Writing Competition. The last date for submission is 20 April 2025

4. Call for Papers: Case Comment on Kunal Kamra v. Union of India for  Volume 36(2) of the National Law School of India Review. The last date for submission is 28 April 2025.