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.

Judicial Independence or Judicial Supremacy?

The Supreme Court has recently strike down NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission), a legal body that decides the appointment of Judges of Supreme Court and High Court. The Court in its categoric statement, held that the NJAC was ultra vires of the basic structure of the constitution, for not allowing Judicial to enjoy its independence, for reasons of unwarranted interference in deciding the appointments by the Executive. Before getting into the merits of their arguments, let’s just understand why the NJAC was made in the first place?

Sedition: An Anarchic Law Used to Suppress Freedom of Speech

"The following article is written by Mr. Rohan Yadav, a 3rd year law student at O.P Jindal University."

(Image taken from here.)

Sedition, defined as inciting of ‘public disorder’ or ‘hatred’ against a lawful authority, acts as a deterrent for the general public to express their views. Sedition laws mostly affect artists, media people, activists etc. The respective elected governments, politicians and ministers seem to enjoy the provisions of the sedition laws to the fullest as it acts as a shield for them. Thus living in the 21st Century there is a need for declaring Sedition as unconstitutional as it violates Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution which gives citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression.

Decisions under Section 11 of Arbitration & Conciliation Act, Not Binding Precedent

A Division Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that decisions passed in section 11 Applications, under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, (“the Act”) are not binding precedents. This judgment was delivered in the case of State of West Bengal & Ors. v. Associated Contractors (incorrectly cited as S.Balachandran v.s M/S Ramaniyam Real Estates Ltd.in some places). The entire text of the judgement can be found here.