Lawyer
There is a growing, cross-border jurisprudence that is coming to understand that arguments against criminal defamation go beyond parochialism and are applicable in any constitutional democracy that claims to value the freedom of speech and expression.
The Wire / February 2017
If the correct test is one of incitement to lawless action, then Section 295A are far too broad. Under no interpretation can it be said that intentional insult to religion, or to religious feelings, is necessarily equivalent to ‘incitement’.
The Wire / January 2016
The right to privacy flows from a structural reading of the Constitution’s Fundamental Rights chapter, and has been an integral part of our jurisprudence over the last 30 years
The Wire / July 2015
The Supreme Court cannot decide this case without engaging in a series of complex and difficult choices
The Hindu / May 2017
The top court’s orders banning liquor sale on highways encroach upon the executive’s domain of policymaking
The Hindu / April 2017
Three recent instances invite disturbing questions about the transformation of the Supreme Court
The Hindu / February 2017
This week, a divided Supreme Court placed before us two visions of the public sphere, pitting the ideal of the universal citizen against citizen-electors situated within their social contexts
The Hindu / January 2017
‘National security’ must mark the beginning of the debate over the one-day ban on NDTV India, not the end of it. Our broadcast laws allow the government sweeping powers of censorship with negligible attendant costs
The Hindu / November 2016
The Haji Ali Dargah case verdict was arrived at by hewing closely to the Constitution, to law, and to the task of defending individual rights. It is admirable for resisting the temptation of interpretive adventurism
The Hindu / September 2016
The Madras High Court must be lauded for upholding the rights of writer Perumal Murugan. But for speech to be truly free, the judiciary must stop asking literature to justify its aesthetic or its intent
The Hindu / July 2016
The Cinematograph Act, its Guidelines, and the censor board, by making the government the arbiter of what films are fit or unfit for citizens to see, are fundamentally at odds with our constitutional vision
The Hindu / June 2016
The Supreme Court has always had an ambivalent relationship with the freedom of speech and expression, treating free speech more as anannoyance than a right. Its defamation law judgment continues that long, unfortunate history.
The Hindu / May 2016
Maharashtra’s new social boycott law is an important step that must be applauded. It should also inspire work on a comprehensive anti-discrimination law on the lines of the Civil Rights enactments in the U.S. and U.K.
The Hindu / April 2016
Sections 377 and 124A of the Indian Penal Code highlight how the British left their stamp upon India’s criminal law in a manner entirely inconsistent with a democratic, constitutional republic. Parliament must take stock of the IPC for the first time in i
The Hindu / March 2016
The question of whether women can be barred entry to the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala demands a solution that advances the constitutional guarantee of equality, non-discrimination and freedom of religion.
The Hindu / January 2016
That the court’s power to ‘punish’ contempt includes the power to ‘prevent’ contempt was already stretching language to its limits. It has gone beyond that now.
Scroll.in / May 2017
It was not about the broad proposition about whether appeals to religion were allowed in politics, nor about the 'Hindutva judgement' of 1995.
Scroll.in / January 2017
The courts seem to suffer from a rather basic confusion between what is desirable and what is legal.
Scroll.in / December 2016
Court verdicts and debates point to the fact that personal laws do not come under the ambit of the Constitution's religious freedom clauses.
Scroll.in / October 2016
The Bombay High Court judgement is a model of clarity and restraint, keenly aware of the limits of its own jurisdiction, limiting it to the facts of this case.
Scroll.in / September 2016
The court stayed true to its bleak record on freedom of expression and civil rights.
Scroll.in / May 2016
The heart of Ambedkar’s Constitution has remained relatively unnoticed and unexamined by the courts.
Scroll.in / April 2016
The apex court judgment imposing certain restrictions upon the right to contest Panchayat elections, in essence, is an affront to democracy.
Scroll.in / December 2015
AAP has a brute majority and needs to take the initiative to repeal the provision that is constitutionally suspect and provides ample scope for abuse, as the Kerala House incident demonstrates.
Scroll.in / October 2015
Is it about judicial primacy or guarding against Executive dominance? The Supreme Court’s verdict on judicial appointments raises more questions than it answers.
Scroll.in / October 2015
Two books provide a rich set of resources to think about the intertwined issues of discrimination, social and economic exclusion, and access to resources.
Scroll.in / September 2015
Haryana and Rajasthan's move to introduce educational qualifications a necessary pre-requisite for contesting Panchayat elections are discriminatory.
Scroll.in / September 2015
This is the first time that the Supreme Court is hearing a frontal challenge to the constitutionality of criminal defamation.
Scroll.in / July 2015
The court struck a blow for individual liberty against the creeping power of anti-terror laws, ordering the state to pay Rs one lakh in compensation to a man who was wrongly jailed.
Scroll.in / May 2015
On the Supreme Court's obscenity judgement
The Wire / May 2015
On Marital Rape and the Constitution
Scroll.in / May 2015
Ambedkar and Article 15(2) of the Constitution
DailyO / April 2015
Tuesday's judgement on internet freedom could lead to a reconsideration of defamation laws, as well as the odious laws on film censorship.
Scroll.in / March 2015
The protesting women have a fundamental right to access the tomb and the inner sanctum of the dargah. The Trust has no equivalent right to exclude them.
Scroll.in / March 2015
AAP’s victory vests in it the legal and constitutional authority to bring about this change.
Scroll.in / February 2015
AAP's commitment towards the politics of change is on test: will it decriminalise homosexuality by amendment, if not outright repeal of Section 377 of the IPC?
Scroll.in / February 2015
Wikileaks’ revelations of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter highlight a particularly insidious attempt by the United States to undermine India’s patent regime, thus undermining its efforts to keep medicines affordable
Outlook / October 2014
Students have been photocopying expensive text-books all these years, and the publishing industry has thrived and prospered. Should not the Copyright Act have a liberal exception for educational books?
Outlook / September 2014
Karnataka government now is equipped to arrest you even before you commit an offence under the IT Act—even if it thinks you are planning to send a 'lascivious' photo to a WhatsApp group, or forwarding a copyrighted song...
Outlook / August 2014
June 19 marks two years that the founder of Wikileaks has spent as a political refugee within the confines of the Ecuadorean embassy in London. A time to consider our own engagement with the surveillance state.
Outlook / June 2014
It's not about AAP but about a law that allows a man to be put in prison because he called a politician “corrupt”. The debate about India’s criminal defamation laws is long overdue.
Outlook / May 2014
Free speech liberals should accept Navyana’s legal right to not publish Joe D’Cruz’s book, but nonetheless condemn its actions with the same vigour as they protested Penguin's decision regarding Doniger's book
Outlook / April 2014
It is common practice to deny a house, otherwise generally available on rent, to a person because of their religion. Time to recall the lost radicalism of Article 15(2)
Outlook / March 2014
If there was ever a time for the judiciary to redeem itself and to end the ambiguity about free speech, the time is now, when press freedoms stand at a critical crossroads.
Outlook / February 2014
As disturbing details about Netra become public, there are valuable lessons for India in the ongoing American debate over bulk telephone surveillance which has left two American courts to give opposing verdicts
Outlook / January 2014
Today's Supreme Court judgment that reverses the Delhi High Court judgment of 2009 is both constitutionally preposterous and morally egregious.
Outlook Magazine / December 2013
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