Gautam Bhatia is a lawyer and a post-doctoral fellow at SCRIPTS-Berlin.
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Disability Rights and the Argument of Misuse: The Indian Supreme Court’s Judgment
Image description: A person reading a book in braille.
The 2021 judgment of the Indian Supreme Court in Vikash Kumar v Union Public Service Commission, which mandated that a disabled student be granted the support of a scribe for ...
The Transformative Possibilities of a Constitution (with Joel Modiri and Gautam Bhatia)
Constitutions are the legal bedrock of many countries, but they're also political, and are produced within a specific socio-historical context, much like any text. As much as Constitutions are there to protect citizens, they can also ...
Indian Supreme Court Decriminalizes Same-Sex Relations
In a landmark judgment delivered today, the Supreme Court of India decriminalized same-sex relations, and affirmed that the LGBT+ community was entitled to equal rights under the Indian Constitution. The case – Navtej Johar v Union of ...
The Indian Supreme Court Reserves Judgment on the De-criminalisation of Homosexuality
In 2009, the High Court of Delhi handed down a landmark judgment in Naz Foundation v NCT of Delhi. It read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalized “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”, to exclude ...
The Indian Supreme Court’s “Curative” Hearing in the “LGBT Case”
In 2009, the High Court of Delhi decriminalized same-sex relations between consenting adults in India, holding that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalised “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”, could not be ...
The High Court of Delhi on Pregnancy and Sex Discrimination
This July, the High Court of Delhi handed down a landmark decision concerning sex discrimination under the Indian Constitution. Article 15(1) of the Constitution prohibits the State from discriminating “on grounds only of… [inter ...
Free Speech Under the Indian Information Technology Act: The Supreme Court’s Recent Judgment
In a landmark judgment on Tuesday, the Indian Supreme Court (PDF of the decision here) struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which criminalised, inter alia, “grossly offensive”, “menacing”, “annoying” and ...
Indian Supreme Court Changes Stance on Death Penalty: Holds Delay to be a Ground for Commutation
Recently, in the case of Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India, a three-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment on the death penalty: holding, in particular, that an excessive delay in carrying out the ...
Indian Supreme Court Upholds the Right to Negative Voting
In late September, the Indian Supreme Court, in PUCL v. Union of India, upheld the constitutional right of citizens to cast a negative vote in elections. This judgment crystallizes an emerging theme in Indian constitutional ...
Public Duties and Private Schools: the Indian Supreme Court’s Landmark Ruling
Problems of affordability and access have perennially plagued the Indian educational system. State-run schools, while affordable, have suffered from a severe absence of quality in every respect; and private schools have been beyond ...
