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Aparna Chandra

Dr. Aparna Chandra

Professor of Law

and

B.ALL.B. (Hons.) Chair

BA LLB (Hons) Curriculum Review Steering Committee Member

Faculty In Charge, M K Nambyar Memorial Chair

Phone Extension: 115 | Direct Number: 080-23010601

Teaching

Academic Programmes

5-Year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.)

LL.M.

3-Year LL.B. (Hons.)

Courses

Nov 2025

Nov 2024

Jul 2024

Mar 2024

Nov 2023

July 2023

Mar 2023

Nov 2021

Jul 2021

Mar 2021

Nov 2020

Education

B.A. LL.B (Hons.), National Law School of India University
LL.M, Yale Law School
JSD, Yale Law School

Profile

Aparna teaches and writes on constitutional law, gender and the law, human rights, judicial process reform, and empirical legal studies. She has previously worked at the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal and the National Law University, Delhi where she co-founded the Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance. She has assisted the Law Commission of India in various reports and has been appointed as amicus curiae by the Delhi High Court in matters involving the interface between constitutional and criminal laws.

Aparna is the co-author (with William Hubbard and Sital Kalantry) of Court on Trial: A Data Driven Account of the Supreme Court of India (Penguin Random House, 2023). The book provides a quantitative empirical account of the working of the Indian Supreme Court. Aparna is also the co-editor (with Gautam Bhatia and Niraja Gopal Jayal) of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to the Constitution of India (CUP, 2026). Her work has appeared in, amongst others, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Comparative Constitutional Studies, World Comparative Law, Asian Journal of Comparative Law, and the Indian Law Review. Her work on rights adjudication in India has been cited repeatedly by the Supreme Court of India in its judgments.

Aparna serves on the editorial boards of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law, and World Comparative Law. She is a national co-convenor of the Indian Feminist Judgments Project.

At NLSIU, Aparna heads the M.K. Nambyar Chair on Constitutional Law, and chairs the B.A. LL.B (Hons.) programme.

Aparna holds a B.A. LL.B (Hons.) degree from NLSIU, and masters and doctoral degrees from Yale Law School, USA, where she also held an appointment as a Tutor in Law.

Aparna has been part of various law reform efforts in India, some of which are mentioned below:

Work on Law Reforms

Appointed Amicus Curiae by the High Court of Delhi in SAFMA v. Union of India (challenge to the constitutionality of a law permitting the imposition of the death penalty for child sexual abuse).

Appointed Convener of a Committee of Experts to recommend measures for the prevention and redressal of child sexual abuse, and for rehabilitation of victims and young offenders.

Appointed Amicus Curiae by the High Court of Delhi in M/s Aman Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. v. Devender Singh, FAO 465/2016. Submitted report on the lacunae in the liability and compensation regime for fatal and disabling accidents in India.

Appointed Amicus Curie by the High Court of Delhi in in Court on its Own Motion v. State, WP (Crl) 1352/2015. Directed by the Court to submit reports based on research in prisons. Recommendations submitted to the Court formed the basis for guidelines issued in the Court’s order in this matter dated December 12, 2017. Further recommendations are under consideration.

Co-principal investigator, two Prison Advocacy Projects in collaboration with the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee, both examining causes for excessive undertrial incarceration in Delhi prisons, and solutions thereto.

Submitted a Memorandum to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare on the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016. Invited to depose before the Committee. The recommendations in the memorandum were accepted by the Committee and found place in its report tabled before Parliament.

Co-authored Report on Women in Detention, commissioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The Report formed the basis of the Ministry’s own report on this issue, submitted to the Supreme Court of India in an on-going matter (2018).

Member, Committee appointed by the Delhi High Court to study the working of the Vulnerable Witness Deposition Complexes in Delhi (on-going)
Member, Committee on Judicial Impact Assessment, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India (2013-2014).
Member, Drafting Committee, Law Commission of India’s 262nd Report: “The Death Penalty” (2015).
Core-Committee Member, Law Commission of India, Group to Review of the Working of the Criminal Justice System (2015).

Assisted in preparing the 277th Report: “Wrongful Prosecution (Miscarriage of Justice): Legal Remedies” (2018).
Assisted in preparing the 273nd Report: “Implementation of United Nations Convention Against Torture” (2017).
Assisted in preparing the 268th Report: “Amendments to Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 – Provisions Relating to Bail” (2017).

Consultant, E-Committee, Supreme Court of India, for a report on changes required in High Court rules governing civil and criminal trial processes in the subordinate judiciary, particularly for introducing technology in the trial process in order to make the trial process more litigant friendly, effective and efficient (2015).

Consultant, Law Commission of India, for a project to study the extent and resolution of delays in the Indian Judicial system, as per the orders of the Indian Supreme Court in Imtiyaz Ahmad v. State of U.P.,(2012) 2SCC688. This project culminated in the 245th Report of the Law Commission of India on Arrears and Backlog(2014).

Consultant, Law Commission of India, on a discussion paper on reforming laws relating to liability and compensation for fatal accidents in India. The paper locates the liability and compensation regime within the framework of the state’s constitutional obligations to ensure social justice and welfare, and to enable citizens to live their lives with dignity.

Publications

Books/Monographs/Edited Volumes

  • Cambridge Companion to the Constitution of India (CUP, forthcoming 2026) (co-editor)
    Court on Trial: A Data Driven Account of the Supreme Court of India (Penguin Random House, July 2023) (co-authored)
  • Guest Ed., World Comparative Law: Symposium on Feminist Judgements in India (Nomos, June 2023).
  • Guest Ed., Indian Law Review: Special Issue on Feminist Judgments in India (Taylor and Francis, 2021)
  • Legal Barriers to Accessing Safe Abortion Services: A Field Study (NLSIU and Centre for Reproductive Rights, New York, 2021) (co-authored).
  • Securing Reproductive Justice in India: A Casebook (NLUD and Centre for Reproductive Rights, New York, 2019) (co-authored).
  • Managing Ed., Journal of National Law University Delhi, Volume 6 (1) (2019) (Sage); Editor (2013-2017).
  • Prisoners’ Rights Manual, Volumes 1 & 2, 4th edn (Human Rights Law Network, 2017) (co-authored).

Articles/Book Chapters

  • Rights and Restrictions, in Aparna Chandra et al (eds.), Cambridge Companion to the Constitution of India (CUP, forthcoming 2026).
  • Minorities and the (Un) Making of Indian Democracy, in Glen Patmore (ed.), Elgar Research Handbook on Law and Democracy (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2026).
  • Death Penalty and Proportionality, in Anup Surendranath et al (eds.), Death Penalty in India (CUP, forthcoming 2026).
  • Law as Resilience and Law as Roadblocks: Protest Politics and Resistance in India, in David Trubek et al. eds., Legal Resistance to Autocracy: The Global Fight to Save Democracy (Routledge, 2025).
  • Detangling Knots in the Narratives: A Response to Theunis Roux, in World Comparative Law (2024) (1) (June 2024).
  • A Precious Heritage?: The Construction of Constitutional Identity by Indian Courts, in Comparative Constitutional Studies Vol. 1 (1) (2023) (Edward Elgar 2023).
  • India, in Jan Smits et al (eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (Edward Elgar 2023).
  • A Life of Contradictions: Group Inequality and Socio-Economic Rights in the Indian Constitution, in Sandra Fredman & Shreya Atrey (eds.), Exponential Inequalities (OUP, 2022).
  • Righting Together: The Indian Feminist Judgments Project, in World Comparative Law (2023) (1) (June 2023).
  • Introduction: The Indian Feminist Judgments Project, in Indian Law Review: Special Issue on Feminist Judgments in India (Taylor and Francis, 2021).
  • Equality and Diversity, in Philip Dann & Arun Thiruvengadam (eds.), Democracy in Diversity:
    Democratic Constitutionalism in the EU and India (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021) (co-authored).
  • Limitation Analysis by the Indian Supreme Court, in Mordechai Kremnitzer, et al (eds) Proportionality in Action: Comparative and Empirical Perspectives on the Judicial Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
  • Proportionality in India: A Bridge to Nowhere?, in Oxford Human Rights Hub Journal (2020) (cited by the Supreme Court of India in State of T.N. v. National South Indian River Interlinking Agriculturist Association,  C.A. No. 6764/2021, Akshay Patel v. Reserve Bank of India, C. A. No. 6522/2021, and Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, W.P. (Civil) No. 880/2017).
  • The Supreme Court of India: An Empirical Overview of the Institution, in Gerald Rosenberg & Sudhir Krishnaswamy (eds.), A Qualified Hope: The Indian Supreme Court and Progressive Social Change (Cambridge University Press, 2020) (co-authored).
  • Analysing Orders Granted under the PWDVA, 2005, in Indira Jaising et al (eds), Conflict in the Shared Household 203 (Oxford University Press, 2019).
  • From Executive Appointment to the Collegium System: The Impact on Diversity in the Indian Supreme Court Diversity, 51 (3) VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee: Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America 273 (2018) (co-authored).
  • Book Review: Anuj Bhuwania, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, 16 (2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 710 (2018).
  • The Supreme Court of India: A People’s Court?, 2 Indian Law Review 1 (2017) (co-authored).
  • Puttaswamy, the Right to Privacy and Women’s Rights, Economic and Political Weekly, December 23, 2017, p. 46.
  • India and International Law: Formal Dualism, Functional Monism, 57 Indian Journal of International Law (2017).
  • The Universal Periodic Review Process: A Critical Appraisal, 16 Journal of the National Human Rights Commission 233 (2017) (co-authored).
  • Book Review: Shubhankar Dam, Presidential Legislation in India: The Law and Practice of Ordinances, 12(1) Asian Journal of Comparative Law 203 (2017).
  • Bail and Incarceration: The State of Undertrial Prisoners in India, in Vidyasagar, Narsappa & Thirumalai (eds.), Approaches to Justice in India (Eastern Book Company, 2017) (co-authored).
  • A Socio-Historical Perspective on the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, UGC E-Pathshala Module for the Paper Social Legislation and Crime, for the Subject: Criminology (2017).
  • Indian Judiciary and Access to Justice: An Appraisal of Approaches, in Narasappa & Vidyasagar (eds.), State of the Indian Judiciary 183 (Eastern Book Company, 2016).
  • Criminal Law and the Constitution, in Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Sujit Choudhry and Madhav Khosla ed., Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution 794 (Oxford University Press, 2015). (co-authored).
  • A Capricious Noose: A Comment on the Trial Court Sentencing Order in the December 16 Gang Rape Case, 2 Journal of National Law University, Delhi 136 (2014).
  • Bhullar, the Bogey of Human Rights, and the Death of Due Process, 1 Journal of National Law University, Delhi 119 (2013).
  • Of Maternal State and Minimalist Judiciary: The Indian Supreme Court’s Approach to Terror Related Adjudication, 21(1) National Law School of India Review 54 (2009) (co-authored).
  • A Response to Kent Roach’s “Judicial Review of Anti-Terrorism Legislation: The Post 9/11 Experience and Normative Justifications for Judicial Review,” Online Symposium of the Indian Journal of Constitutional Law, 2009 (available at www.ijcl.net).
  • Third Party Intervention in Criminal Litigation, (2005) 2 SCC 73 (Journal). (co-authored).
  • Suresh Gupta v. NCT, Delhi, 17 Student Bar Review 92 (2005) (Case Note).
  • Apostasy and Conversion as Grounds for Terminating Marriages?, AIR 2005 Journal 80.
  • A Review of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, (2005) Labour Law Journal 15.
  • Marriage: A License to Rape?, (2004) 5 Supreme Court Journal 11. (co-authored).

Op-Eds/Other Significant Publications

  • The Role of a Judge in an Electoral Autocracy, I.CONnect Blog (Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law) (April 2024).
  • Constitutional but Criminal: Abortion in India, Verfassungsblog (January 26, 2023).
  • An Important First Step on the Road to Reproductive Justice, but Safe Abortion Remains Out of Reach, Article 14 (October 1, 2022).
  • Justice Arun Mishra and the Supreme Court’s Rule of Whim, Article 14 (September 5, 2020) (co-authored).
  • Ball’s in the Supreme Court, Indian Express (April 27, 2018) (co-authored).
  • Recriminalizing Homosexuality: A Requiem for Naz, Live Mint (December 12, 2013).
  • Tough Laws are not Tough on Terror, The Hindu (September 28, 2008).
  • Faith v. Reason: Secularism at Stake, The Hindu (October 7, 2007).
  • Misadventures of the Supreme Court in Aruna Shanbaug v Union of India, Law and other Things (Mar 13, 2011), available at http://lawandotherthings.com/2011/03/misadventures-ofsupreme-court-in-aruna/ (blog post cited by the Supreme Court of India in Common Cause v Union of India, 2018 SCC OnLine SC 208 (euthanasia judgment).