Capital Punishment, the Need or Necessity

The present condition in India is such that one should support the abolishing of capital punishment in all cases, except for cases in which public conscience and national security is at stake. Crimes such as treason, rape and mutiny tend to create public outrage in the society. The Supreme Court in its landmark judgment and the legislature in amending the Code of Criminal Procedure in 1976 made it clear that death sentence would be prescribed only in rarest of the rare case.

Constitutional Validity of Triple Talaaq System

On 16th October, 2015 the Supreme Court of India passed a verdict with regard to equal rights for daughter in relation to partition of ancestral properties in Hindu’s. The second part of the judgement however concentrated on the gender discrimination faced by Muslim women due to the “arbitrary divorce system and second marriage of their husbands during the prevalence of their first marriage”. The Supreme Court has directed the registration of a Public Interest Litigation as well as asked Chief Justice H. L. Dattu to put in place a special bench to contemplate gender discrimination which Muslim women are subjected to.

HIV Stigma – The Modern Day Apartheid

Though HIV is widespread in almost all spheres of life, this paper will mainly focus on the stigmatization of AIDS victim in the public sphere. Finding a solution to these problems will lay a path to fighting such stigmatization in other areas of life.

Battling Transphobia: Providing Healthcare to All

“Inside every man there is a potential woman and inside every woman resides a potential man.”
― John Maxwell Taylor

Gender variant people mark their existence in India since various centuries, these communities have several indigenous identities mostly based on their geographic location they are known as Hijras (north), Shivshakti (Andhra Pradesh) and Arvani’s (Tamil Nadu). Historically, they were considered as a downtrodden class and due to this they have been away from the mainstream employment opportunities. Majority of the community has to resort to begging, dancing and sex work which makes them prone to harassment and subjects to violent assaults. If we look at the current statistics provided by NACO and the research conducted by government STI clinics it can be found that more than 45% of TG population who go for a medical checkup has HIV. Also, other diseases such as syphilis and genital warts were found to be in large number amongst the community. Hence it is necessary that they should be provided with rights with regard to healthcare.

Time to re-think Capital Punishment: A regressive approach

The following article is written by Rashmi Bishnoi, a 3rd year law student of Jindal Global Law School.

“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind”

..Mahatama Gandhi

At the United Nations where majority of countries said that it was time to abolish the death penalty. India along with several south Asian nations voted against the resolution and argued in favour of death penalty. Till now, death penalty is continued to be imposed in the rarest of the rare cases but I contend that it should be abolished exhaustively for it to not only be barbaric, immoral and unconstitutional but also a regressive approach in a civilized world.

Is Death Penalty discriminatory?

The following article is written by Ms. Barkha Yadav.

Straight after hanging of Yakub Memon the death penalty debate again resurfaced. Everyone is talking about whether it acts as a deterrent or not? Whether it should be abolished and if not then how should it be applied? But very few have actually spoken about the barbaric and discriminatory way in which death penalty is applied in our country? In my opinion death penalty should be abolished because it gives too much discretion to the judges to decide whether a case falls under the rarest of rare provision or not?I think that the judges are not free from the caste and religious biases which are prevelant in our society while awarding death penalty to the convicts. According to a report by National Law University, Delhia vast majority of the prisoners,who are on death row belong to backward castes, economically weaker sections and Muslims. To prove my opinionI will bediscussing two cases that have very similar facts and circumstances but judgments given were very different.

Review Petitions in Death Sentence Cases not to be by Circulation; only in Open Court & by Bench of atleast Three Judges

  

"When it comes to death penalty cases, we feel that the power of spoken word has to be given yet another opportunity even if the ultimate success rate is minimal."

A five-judge bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, headed by Chief Justice R.M. Lodha, by 4-1 majority, in the case of Mohd. Arif @ Ashfaq vs. The Registrar Supreme Court of India & Ors. threw to the wind its approx. 60-year-old rule  and held that hearing of Review Petitions of convicts on death row should not be by circulation but should only be in open Court. The Hon’ble Court further held that hearing of matters in which a death sentence has been passed should be by a Bench of at least three Supreme Court Judges. The majority Judgement was drafted by Hon’ble Justice R.F.Nariman while the dissenting opinion was passed by Justice Chelameshar.

Full text of Judgement can be found here.

Constitutional Validity of Narco-analysis: Valid Defence of Public Interest or a Result-motivated Stand?

This article was written  by one of our Ghost Writers

Introduction: “Nemo Tenetur Seipsum prodere”

Narco analysis 

In the current scenario, technology has been seen outpacing the law, and some of the main tools of this technological advancement are the methods of narco-analysis, brain mapping and lie detector tests that are extensively used by police for criminal investigation. The paper examines the extent of their permissibility in the legal framework that recognizes the conflicting interests manifested in the form of individual fundamental rights versus larger public interest. The paper analyzes the progressive decision[1] by a three-judge bench that