How Justice Bhagwati’s 44-year-old dissent mirrors the state of death penalty in India

There has been significant empirical work demonstrating the inefficacy of the death penalty. In its 75th year, the Court must engage with it.

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Harsher rape laws do little to prevent sexual violence

We require broader social reforms, sustained governance efforts, and stronger criminal justice institutions. The hollow tough-on-crime political agenda is nothing but a distraction.

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Kolkata rape: Rage is justified, revenge is not

The approach to calls for swift justice has been to shorten the time required for investigations and trials without addressing pre-existing problems plaguing the police, forensic labs and the judiciary.

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Maitreyi Misra
Questionably foreclosing life imprisonment

The administration of the death penalty in India is in crisis, with over 95% of imposed death sentences not surviving appellate scrutiny.

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Hrishika Jain
Why the hurry?

The institutional readiness for new criminal laws coming into force is a serious cause for concern.

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The promise, and the fallibility, of forensics

Forensics as a field comprises different disciplines, but not all of them meet the requisite thresholds of accuracy and precision to qualify as a “science”.

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Shreya Rastogi
Justice for Bilkis Bano, questions on remission

While justice has been done in this case, difficult questions on state remission policies remain.


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Neetika Vishwanath
New criminal law Bills endanger civil liberties

Instead of decolonising criminal law, these Bills entrench colonial logic — where the state’s paramount interest is to control the people to the maximum extent.

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Justice, anger and the Nithari acquittals

The pursuit of accountability should not translate into a demand for convictions at all costs as it risks weakening an already broken criminal justice system.

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Stuti Rai
GPS ankle monitors for UAPA-accused on bail: Too many issues to ignore

Ghulam Mohd Bhat, who has been accused of terror financing under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967, was granted bail by a Special Court in Jammu on the condition that Bhat wears a GPS tracker around his anklet.

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Sakshi Jain
Criminal law Bills and a hollow decolonisation

The narrative of decolonisation must not be seen in isolation from developments in other areas of criminal law that are pushing us back into colonial ways of lawmaking.

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Maitreyi Misra
The Quotidian Life of Terror Trials in Delhi

Despite the terror charges being an outcome of the prejudicial and disparate impact of the law, the terror defendants in Suresh’s book are not defined by passivity and victimhood.

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Neetika Vishwanath
Judicial Discretion in Capital Sentencing for Child Rape in India

Since 2013, India has seen a consistent legislative expansion of the death penalty for sexual offences including the introduction of the death penalty for non-homicidal child rape.

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