All Writings

Public interest litigation started out as a way to make justice and fundamental rights accessible to the exploited and oppressed. There was a time when the higher judiciary would provide…

The secret hanging of Afzal Guru is another blot on India’s political class and national consciousness. What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no…

The Supreme Court judgment condemning Chhattisgarh state’s use of the Salwa Judum to counter the Maoist menace is not infringing on the security responsibilities of the executive or legislature, but…

The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, is a draco-nian law because it places the state in the capacity of a moral guardian vis-a-vis the citizen. The recent…

It is merely by chance that a stringer of a TV news channel recorded the beating, chaining and dragging of a petty thief behind a motorcycle by policemen in Bhagalpur.…

The Supreme Court has stated that the death penalty is to be awarded only in the rarest case of exceptional depravity and brutality. But human judgement, as several recent court…

In a rare exception, a chargesheet has been presented before criminal court against five officers of the army, for the murder of five innocent villagers. The five were killed after…

Recently, Rajnath Singh, a 50-year-old man, was dragged out from his house in Mehrauli, Delhi, and beaten up at the police post, his legs broken. Last year, Singh's son was…

We recently had the spectacle of a Supreme Court bench taking strong exception to criticism of a judgment doing away with quotas in private professional colleges. The Chief Justice went…