Unpacking Role Of Custodianship Over Natural Resources In Panchayats

The Economic Survey 2025-26 has addressed a policy blind spot by recognising what markets alone cannot see: the commons. It acknowledges that water bodies, grazing lands, and other assets covering nearly 15 per cent of India's geographic area are not idle, residual spaces waiting to be priced, diverted, or encroached upon. They are productive, living resources that sustain village economies and are maintained through local governance systems. This shift matters, because it reframes natural...

When Certificate Is Not Enough: Law On Reassessing Disability

Summary: The Bombay High Court has upheld the state's power to reassess disability certificates of government employees, but only as a one-time, evidence-based exercise, not a template for open-ended suspicion. This piece traces how Indian courts arrived at that balance and what it means for the people caught in between.This year, twenty-one schoolteachers in Pune were abruptly sent home. Not for any wrongdoing, but because the state demanded they prove, once again, a disability that had already...

Brahmaputra Floods: Assam's Unfinished Constitutional Promise

Every monsoon, the Brahmaputra Valley transforms into an inland sea, bringing an inevitable wave of devastation that struggles to capture sustained national attention. It is a common misconception that localized rainfall volume is the sole detriment of this catastrophic flooding. Indeed, the Western Ghats and regions like Meghalaya, home to Mawsynram, one of the wettest places on Earth, receive significantly higher annual precipitation than Assam. Yet, it is Assam that repeatedly bears the brunt...

Collegium Must Speak But With Institutional Restraint

Silence is not Neutral. A judge's professional life is built quietly. It is built through years spent reading records after court hours, writing judgments that may never attract headlines, resisting local pressures, and deciding causes involving liberty, livelihood and human dignity. When such a judge is considered for elevation, superseded, deferred or rejected without any publicly intelligible explanation, institutional silence can become its own form of judgment, one against which there is...

NALSAR-BCI: An Assault On Constitutional Values

Right to dissent is strongly favoured. The Supreme Court of India, in a strong stance in favour of the right to question, has heavily rebuked the Bar Council of India (BCI) for its efforts to curb the NALSAR University of Law graduates from being enrolled after their peaceful demonstration against the Chief Justice of India (CJI). A bench presided over by CJI Justice Surya Kant, which heard the petition, has expressed its dismay, stating that the BCI acting was “uncalled for”. The Court granted...

Overlooked 'Waiver Clause' In Construction Contracts And Effect Of Doctrine Of Acquiescence

In construction arbitration, one of the most routinely overlooked provisions is the Waiver Clause. Unlike standard commercial agreements, infrastructure contracts (such as NHAI Concession Agreements and EPC contracts) often prescribe strict conditions to give effect to a waiver. A standard waiver clause reads as follows:"1.1 Waiver, including partial or conditional waiver, by either Party of any default by the other Party in the observance and performance of any provision of or obligations under...

Bar Council Needs A Wise Counsel

The NALSAR fiasco is symptomatic of gross deficiencies in the BCI's functioning, underscoring the need to rein in the unilateral exercise of powers by its Chairman.

Does Banker's Books Evidence Bill, 2026 Meet Constitutional Demands Of Privacy And Electronic Evidence?

On August 5, 2026, the Lok Sabha passed the Banker's Books Evidence Bill, 2026, by voice vote, amid opposition sloganeering that left the House without a substantive debate on its provisions. The Bill retires the Banker's Books Evidence Act, 1891, a statute drafted for leather-bound ledgers, and replaces it with a framework built for cloud servers, disaster-recovery sites and distributed core banking systems. That modernisation is overdue and, on its own terms, sound. What did not receive the...

Majoritarian Reapportionment System Must Ultimately Bow to Federalism

On and off the parliamentary tables in Delhi, Delimitation is around the corner, yet again. While the time and guise of introducing it has piqued the interest of many a few, the analysis of it has been lost, somewhere within the caustic mingling of the right, left and the centre. Time is neither lost nor is Delimitation a stranger to Indian Politics, in 1976, under the Constitutional Amendment Act, the Parliament temporarily blocked the periodic inter-state reapportionment under Article 82,...

Independence Day Reflections: Constitutional Values-Quest For Excellence

As we celebrate the 80th Independence Day and enter the ninth decade as a free democratic republic, it is appropriate to reflect and introspect. Asked about his achievement after the French Revolution, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, commonly known as Abbé Sieyès, said. 'I survived'. We have survived as a free, unified nation. Never before and nowhere else has more than one-sixth of the human race lived as one nation under conditions of freedom. We can be legitimately proud of this achievement. But we...

Strengthening Fight Against Examination Malpractice: Critical Analysis Of 2026 Amendment Act

The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 was enacted by the parliament of India in the year 2024 and the preamble of the Act says “An Act to prevent unfair means in the public examinations and to provide for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” The Act received the royal assent on 12/02/2024 and came into force on 21-6-2024, vide Noti. No. S.O. 2422(E), dt. 21-6-2024. The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Act, 2026 (which...

Global Backlash Against LGBTQ+ Rights: What India Can Learn

The Republic of Niger has criminalized same-sex relationships for the first time. Previously, Uganda and Burkina Faso enacted anti-LGBTQ laws with severe penalties for same-sex acts and related advocacy. Uganda's legislation includes life imprisonment and the death penalty, while Burkina Faso imposes up to five years' imprisonment. These measures have drawn widespread international condemnation and underscore growing legal discrimination against LGBTQ communities in Africa. Despite threats of...