Category: Constitutional Law

Death Penalty Illustration

Death Penalty Sentencing Framework: Inconsistently Applied or Inherently Flawed?

On By In Constitutional Law, Death Penalty, Fundamental Rights, Supreme Court of India

In an order dated 19 September 2022, the Supreme Court for the first time in 42 years has referred issues relating to capital sentencing to a Constitution bench. Driven by the objective to revisit and correct the gaps in the law itself, the order adopts a markedly different approach from the dominant Supreme Court jurisprudence which has repeatedly articulated the inconsistent application of the existing law as the main problem. Through this article, Lakshmi Menon analyses the current sentencing framework and the need for revision of the same.

Continue reading

Is Marital Rape Exception an Immunity Clause or an Ingredient of the Main Definition Clause of Section 375, IPC

On By In Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

Ashwani employs textual and conceptual analysis of provision-specific exceptions to rebut Justice Harishankar’s arguments that the MRE forms a part of the main definition clause. He argues that the MRE is merely a permissive norm that cancels the legal force of the offence of rape but does not cancel the offence itself.

Continue reading

Phenolphthalein Test: An Anathema to Protection provided under Article 20(3)

On By In Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Fundamental Rights

The phenolphthalein test is prevailingly used by the ACB for investigating a ‘corrupt’ public servant. However, the self-incriminating nature of the test attracts the vice of unconstitutionality under article 20(3) of the Constitution. In this blog, the author has argued that the test is very coercive & arbitrary and stands violative of the touchstones enumerated under article 20(3) of the Constitution.

Continue reading

LAOT Podcasts: #Episode 1 – Interview with Arvind Narrain – Lawyer, Author & Scholar 

On By In Constitutional Law, Podcasts, Public Rights

In this episode, Shanthan (Senior Analyst, LAOT) interviews Arvind Narrain, author of the recently published book “India’s Undeclared Emergency -Constitutionalism and the Politics of Resistance”. The conversation entails a discussion on authoritarian and totalitarian states, India’s declared emergency of 1975, India’s current undeclared emergency, methods of resistance in modern India and other such inter-related topics.

Continue reading