The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, hosted a two-day, closed-door discussion on “Public Interest Litigation from a Comparative Perspective: Legitimacy of Judicial Lawmaking,” on March 28–29, 2026 at the University campus. The discussion was organised in collaboration with colleagues from the universities of Tilburg and Utrecht, the Netherlands.

The discussion brought together former Supreme Court of India judges, practitioners, and scholars from India and abroad to examine the evolving role of courts in Public Interest Litigations (PILs) and the challenges of maintaining judicial legitimacy in complex governance contexts.

The discussions were structured around a framework of three dimensions of legitimacy:

• input legitimacy (access to courts and standing),
• throughput legitimacy (judicial reasoning, fact-finding, and procedure), and
• output legitimacy (remedies, compliance, and broader societal impact).

Participants engaged deeply with questions relating to access to justice, the role of expertise and amici, and the increasing use of supervisory remedies in PILs.

Day 1 featured intensive thematic sessions with contributions from senior advocates, academics, and former judges of the Supreme Court of India, who reflected on their institutional experiences and doctrinal approaches to PIL adjudication. The conversations highlighted both the transformative potential of PILs in addressing governance failures and the risks of judicial overreach, inconsistency, and challenges in ensuring compliance. The following speakers participated in the discussion:

Panel 1

• Ritwick Dutta, Advocate (Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, New Delhi)
• Thulasi K. Raj, Advocate, New Delhi and Kochi
• Jayna Kothari, Senior Advocate (Executive Director, Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bengaluru)
• Goutham Shivshankar, Advocate, New Delhi

Panel 2:

• Justice Abhay S. Oka (Former Judge, Supreme Court of India)
• Justice Uday Umesh Lalit (Former Chief Justice of India)
• Justice Kurian Joseph (Former Judge, Supreme Court of India)

Panel 3:

• Dr. Kamala Sankaran, Ford Foundation Chair in Public Interest Law, NLSIU
• Dr. Sanjay Jain, Professor of Law, NLSIU
• Dr. Anuj Bhuwania, Professor of Law, Shiv Nadar University, Chennai
• Dr. Ananth Padmanabhan, Vice Chancellor, Sreenidhi University, Hyderabad
• Dr. Siddharth Narrain, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

Day 2 focussed on consolidating insights from the discussion and identifying avenues for future research and collaboration. Comparative perspectives from jurisdictions including the United States, South Africa, and the Netherlands enriched the discussions, situating Indian PIL within a broader global context. Participants also explored prospects for joint publications to carry forward the discussions.

The day also saw two academic presentations by:

• Dr. Rob van Gestel, Full Professor at the Private Law Department of Tilburg University, the Netherlands, Courts to the Rescue of the Public Interest.
• Dr. Kamala Sankaran, Pranav Verma (Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU), and Shashank Patil (Student, NLSIU), Financial Viability of Private School Education: Understanding the Role of Courts in India.

The two-day discussions, which were opened by Dr. Sidharth Chauhan (Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU) and Dr. Rob van Gestel, form part of a larger international research project on how courts construct and sustain legitimacy in public interest litigation, combining comparative and empirical methodologies.

As a closed-door discussion, participation was by invitation only. The format was designed to facilitate in-depth and candid exchanges among participants, contributing to an ongoing research effort and fostering collaborative academic engagement.

The discussions are expected to inform future research outputs, including comparative scholarship and potential policy-relevant insights on judicial lawmaking in public interest cases.

Photo gallery

Image on PPT, is an illustration of the Supreme Court by Saahil, originally created for Outlook India. Image appears incidentally in event photographs.