(This is a guest post by Aadi Belhe) The President gave assent to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, 2023 (‘BNSS’) on the 25th of December, 2023. This Act is intended to replace the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (‘Code’) due to its “colonial” nature. Section 187 of the BNSS deals with pre-trial detention in cognizable cases and is the equivalent of section 167 of the Code. This piece argues that the text of section 187 suffers from a fundamental issue brought about by an attempt on the part of Parliament to change the existing legal position on pre-trial custody. Furthe ..read more

(This is a guest post by Aaditi Sinha) Introduction The case of S. Harish v. Inspector of Police (2024) (“S. Harish”) brings to light critical questions regarding the interpretation and application of Indian law concerning possession of child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”). I will primarily use the term CSAM to mean any material that depicts or gives the impression of children in a sexually explicit or obscene manner. While the term child pornography is also used here when referring to legal provisions, it is preferable to use CSAM, as calling it pornography implies a level of consent that i ..read more

(This is a guest post by Nachiketh Patil) On 20 October 2023, the Supreme Court in Balram Singh v. Union of India issued various directions to ensure the proper enactment of provisions in laws to eradicate manual scavenging in India. The judgement highlighted various issues, such as inaccuracies in surveys conducted to establish the number of people involved in manual scavenging labour as well as shortcomings in the implementation and functioning of institutions arising from the acts. Seemingly in the face of these efforts comes the Judgment and Final Order dated 14.12.2023 pa ..read more

(This is a guest post by Prabash Pandey) A Bench of the Supreme Court recently delivered the judgment in Javed Ahmad Hajam v. State of Maharashtra [2024 INSC 187, decided on 07.03.2024 ('Javed Hajam')] – in an appeal from the Division Bench of Bombay High Court for refusing to quash FIR under Section 153A of the IPC, which pertains to promoting enmity or disharmony between different groups. The Supreme Court affirmed that even at its most deferential standard (i.e., a mere existence of a prima facie case based on prosecution’s case records), the ingredients cons ..read more

(This is the third post in a series on restrictive bail regimes) The previous post considered restrictive bail regimes in India's pre-independence context. In the first of two posts, we travel through independent India's history to look at such regimes. Partition and Post-War Scarcity It appears that the earliest instance of a restrictive bail regime in post-independence India came a few months after independence, in the form of the East Punjab Armed Bandits (Arrest and Detention) Act 1947. This law was promulgated to replace an ordinance that had come in less than a month after August 15 ..read more

 (This is the second post in a series discussing restrictive bail regimes) This post looks at restrictive bail provisions through Indian legal history, drawing the line at India's independence. The next post will look at post-independence history. A similar exercise was attempted several years ago on the Blog, and a gradual increase in digitisation has meant that even within this short span of a decade, one can try to offer a more nuanced and textured presentation of the issues involved here. However, since this post is, again, based on publicly available material, it may have missed out ..read more

Growing up, the soundtrack of Amar Prem was very popular in my house. I never understood it much, but as I grew older, I came to love it too. Why such a random start? Because it is a few lines from one of its songs, called Chingari Koi Bhadke, that I have been stuck on for the past few days. The poetry of its lyric (crooned by Kishore Kumar) is laced with intriguing posers, and one of them asks us that if the boatman is the one responsible for keeping us afloat at sea in choppy waters, what will happen if the boatman decides to sink the ship?  Let me use a different f ..read more

(This is a call for submissions for the National Law School of India Review) NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL OF INDIA REVIEW (NLSIR) VOL. 36(2): DEMOCRACY, FREE EXPRESSION, AND PRESS CENSORSHIP INTRODUCTION The freedom of expression finds expression in the world’s largest democracy in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India. In any democratic polity, accountability, checks and balances, and transparency among various institutions are of paramount importance. As an institution, the media and the free press play a critical role in upholding accountability and transparency norms in public life. In Indi ..read more

(This is a guest post by Kartik Kalra) The Supreme Court delivered its judgment in Central Bureau of Investigation v. Kapil Wadhawan on January 24 ('Wadhawan'). It held that the Respondent-accused’s previous release on default bail sanctioned by the trial court, and affirmed by the Delhi High Court, was incorrect, as these findings were based on an incorrect appreciation of the “sufficiency” or “completeness” of the police investigation when assessing applications u/s 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (“CrPC”).  In this post, I propose that the Court’s prohib ..read more

(This is a guest post by Manya Gupta) The doctrine of last seen evidence “LS” is one of the major kinds of evidence under the IEA “Act” which provides for an inference of guilt on the accused if they are last seen with the deceased, and subsequently the victim is found dead. It is deduced from Section 7 of the Act which provides for fact(s) which is the occasion, cause or effect, immediate or otherwise, of a relevant fact, or a fact in issue to be relevant under the scheme of the Act. It is one of the most interesting pieces of evidences in the circumstantial chain; since it effectivel ..read more