[This is a guest post by Samriddh Sharma.] In May of the previous year, the government banned a total of fourteen messaging apps in Jammu & Kashmir. Recently, this action came under judicial scrutiny as the Delhi High Court adjudicated a petition challenging the ban in Sublime Software Ltd v UOI.  The petition was filed by “Briar,” one of the proscribed applications, facilitated by a foreign company based in the United Kingdom. Briar distinguishes itself with a unique feature: the ability to function without internet connectivity. This capability has proven crucial in various disaster ..read more

[This is a guest post by Douglas McDonald-Norman.] The Supreme Court’s recent judgment in Md. Rahim Ali @ Abdur Rahim v State of Assam [2024] INSC 511 (Rahim Ali) has attracted press comment and controversy – because the appellant, Rahim Ali, who was declared to be an illegal immigrant by a Foreigners Tribunal in 2012, died in December 2021, more than two years before the Supreme Court overturned the Tribunal’s decision and declared him to be a citizen of India. But the judgment is significant for reasons beyond the human tragedy at its core. Through its careful scrutiny of the Tribunal’s reas ..read more

[This is a guest post by Rishit Soni.] Introduction Recently, the Supreme Court (‘SC’) in Arvind Kejriwal vs Enforcement Directorate decided upon the legality of the Delhi Chief Minister’s arrest. It held that out of the two conditions required for legally arresting someone under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (‘PMLA’): a) reasons to believe in guilt of the accused based on material/evidence at hand (‘reasons to believe’); and b) necessity of arrest, the first one had been satisfied by the Enforcement Directorate (‘ED’), i.e, there existed “reasons to believe.” Despite certain existing mat ..read more

[This is a guest post by Marushka Kenia.] In the 21st century, if one were to list down some of the most draconian laws across various democratic jurisdictions, UAPA would be one of the first statutes to be included. In a seemingly rare stroke of pragmatism, or even luck, when many perceive bail to be an exception under UAPA, the Supreme Court of India on 18th July 2024 granted bail to an accused in the case of Sheikh Javed Iqbal @ Ashfaq Ansari @ Javed Ansari v State of Uttar Pradesh 2024 INSC 534. The present judgement impacts the jurisprudence in two ways: (i) it does not whittle down the f ..read more

[This is a guest post by Kartik Kalra.] Last month, a Special Court delivered an order granting bail to Mr. Arvind Kejriwal in connection with his role as the “king conspirator” of an alleged liquor policy scam, holding that the rigours of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (‘PMLA’) – the bail-restrictive provision requiring a court’s belief that the accused was not guilty for granting bail – would not deter a court from coming to a conclusion of the accused’s likely innocence, or from incorporating constitutional considerations in deciding the question of their rel ..read more

Constitutions are documents that create, organise, and constrain power. Constitutions also have gaps and silences. What happens when an exercise of power is challenged, and the Constitution appears to be silent? This question has been at the heart of many constitutional battles across jurisdictions. In its judgment last week in Azimio vs The President, the High Court of Kenya gave a clear answer. The challenge was to a Gazette Notice issued by the President of Kenya, purporting to establish a “Commission of Inquiry” into the Shakahola Tragedy (a series of mass deaths occasioned by a religious ..read more

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written before the most recent interim bail order in this case.] [This is a guest post by Ayush Tripathi and Smriti Sharma.] I. Context It is not often that we see the Apex Court exercising its extraordinary powers under Article 142 to give relief to an appellant. This has happened in the case of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The Apex court on 10th May 2023 granted interim bail to Mr. Kejriwal till 1st June in the Delhi Liquor Scam case along with conditions. On June 2nd, Mr. Kejriwal surrendered to the court as directed by the honourable court, following ..read more

Many of the more recently drafted Constitutions (the 1990s and after) have provisions for public participation in both the legislative and the executive process. Public participation guarantees flow from the realisation that – to put it simply – a democracy where popular involvement is restricted only to periodic elections is too shallow, and often ends up inverting the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. There must be forms of accountability and participation that are direct and continuing. That said, public participation guarantees sit somewhat uneasily in modern Constitutions, whe ..read more

[This is a guest post by Garima Thakur.] Climate law in India has been an underappreciated practice, often understood as embedded within the larger paradigm of environmental law. Marginal acknowledgement of the distinct identity of climate law has been the norm in the Indian legal practice. This is paradoxical owing to the fact that India, being a part of the Global South, is already reeling under the impacts of climate change, from deadly heatwaves, inducing forest fires in the Himalayas, to short-spanned bursts of rainstorms, causing floods. Broadly, other than occasional social movements, t ..read more

[This is a guest post by Youngreen Peter Mudeyi.] Introduction On January 18, 2024, Hon. L.M. Wachira, the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Kenya, informed Mr. Ahmednasir Abdullahi SC through a letter, that the Supreme Court Justices had decided he would not be allowed to represent himself or be represented by anyone from his firm or acting under his direction, in front of the Court. This immediately raised the following question: was this letter an instance of a judicial decision, or an administrative action? On January 23, 2024, during the hearing of Supreme Court Petition No. E 021 of 2022 ..read more