The Supreme Court of India Reads down the Marital Rape Exception: A Partial Victory for Women’s Rights Advocates
In a recent case, Independent Thought v. Union of India and Anr, a division bench of the Supreme Court of India partially read down an archaic exception to the offense...
Consent In Indian Rape Law: A Case For An Objective Standard Of Determining Consent
Section 375 of the Indian Penal code defines rape as the offence committed by a man having sexual intercourse with a woman “without her consent”. Since criminal law attempts to...
Farooqui v State Government of Delhi: Confusing Consent
The recent Delhi High Court judgment acquitting Mahmood Farooqui of rape is problematic as it appears to create a new test for consent The court held that a ‘no’, even...
Child Marriage before the Indian Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of India on 11th October 2017 ruled that sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his minor wife would amount to rape for the purposes...
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...
Atmospheric Trust Litigation: Offering Hope To India’s Hapless Adivasi Community
The all-encompassing phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change has endangered the lives and livelihood of humanity at large. However, the distribution of adverse effects of climate change is not uniform. The...
The Dignity and Rights of Manual Scavengers in India
Manual scavenging has been called the worst surviving symbol of untouchability. The International Labour Organisation defines it as the removal of human excreta from public streets and dry latrines, and...
Triple Talaq and Women’s Rights in the Indian Supreme Court
The Indian Supreme Court’s multi-religious Constitutional bench, in its much anticipated majority decision in the Shayara Bano case, has ruled the practice of triple talaq to be unconstitutional. The practice...
Slavery & Casteism in India: No Road to Freedom?
Modern slavery continues to be a significant problem, even in 2017. There are 46 million people around the world today who live in slavery, and 18 million (39%) of them...
Defining the Right to Privacy in India in light of Justice KS Puttaswamy & Anr. v. Union of India (2017)
A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India on August 24 ruled that right to privacy is a fundamental right and is ‘intrinsic to life and liberty’ which is...
The Indian Supreme Court Declares the Constitutional Right to Privacy
2017 has been a big year for constitutional development in India. In a historic and landmark decision, a 9-judge bench of the Supreme Court pronounced that the right to privacy...
Do Rohingya Refugees in India have Constitutional Rights?
The Indian Government recently issued a direction to identify and deport around 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India, labelling them as a burden on the resources of the country and a...
