The JSW Centre for the Future of Law at NLSIU is organising a workshop titled ‘Designing (for & with) Justice: AI, Judicial Digitisation, and the Rule of Law in India’ with Dr. Akanksha Bisoyi, post-doctoral researcher at the Professorship of Law, Innovation and Legal Design, Technical University of Munich.

• Day & Date: Friday, 04 September 2026
• Time: 4:00 to 5:15 PM
• Mode: Online

The workshop is open to the public. Kindly register here.

Abstract

Designing (for & with) Justice: AI, Judicial Digitisation, and the Rule of Law in India

Judicial technologies, including AI, built to optimise efficiency, whether for case management, litigant communication, or decision support, encode a particular vision of justice, and with it a gap between the formal availability of courts and substantive access to them. The paper proposes designing (for & with) justice: critical making as both a methodological framework and an analytical lens for examining that gap across India’s judicial digitisation. It asks how such technologies might be designed and evaluated so that gains in institutional efficiency do not come at the cost of the rule of law values.

Critical making, coined by Ratto (2009), combines critical thinking with hands-on material engagements with technologies to surface the assumptions and social values embedded in technological design. It aligns with Nissenbaum’s ‘values in design’ and Costanza-Chock’s ‘design justice’. Unlike conventional user-centred design, which defaults to imagined ‘dominant’ users resembling the designer, thereby reproducing structural exclusions, critical making places affected communities within iterative design, where material choices pose questions rather than merely solving problems. Drawing on Loveless’s ‘research-creation’, the framework privileges
deliberate slowness and community accountability over optimisation logics.

Applied to judicial digitisation initiatives across India, the paper aspires to develop a framework to examine how technological artefacts reconfigure participation, reshape access to justice, and affect the institutional conditions necessary for the rule of law. It evaluates technologies by situating them within their institutional and socio-political setting, identifying affected stakeholders, surfacing embedded assumptions, and assessing outcomes against criteria for access to justice, equitable participation, and the integrity of the rule of law.

The paper contributes a methodology for integrating critical making into legal design research and develops equitable design criteria and affordances for the development of court technology. It offers a framework for community participation in justice system design, and evidence to help policymakers and civic-tech organisations navigate the tension between institutional efficiency and substantive access to justice.

Work in progress and limitations – This work is at an early stage. Analysis of judicial technologies and stakeholder interviews is ongoing, and the consolidated design framework will be refined through further fieldwork. The paper, therefore, presents a methodological intervention. Discussion is invited on the method and on the criteria proposed for evaluating the rule of law compatibility.

Acknowledgement – This research forms part of the ‘Visions of Justice Space’ project on judicial digitisation, participatory research, and the rule of law in India. The project is funded by the Friedrich Schiedel Fellowship for Technology in Society, TUM Think Tank, Munich, Germany.

The Tala Samudaya Centre at the National Law School is organising a public lecture on “Caste, Reservation and Social Mobility in India: 1857-2017” by Dr Tamoghna Halder on 03 September 2026 from 4:15 PM to 5:30 PM in the Conference Hall, Ground Floor, Training Centre, NLSIU.

Abstract of the Lecture

Title: Caste, Reservation and Social Mobility in India: 1857 – 2017

Introducing a novel data set on graduates from Bengal (India) for the period 1857- 2017, I show that social mobility in India continues to be low at the level of caste groups. By simulating counterfactual estimates, I show that perfect compliance to
reservation policy could have doubled the mobility for the marginalised caste groups.

In contrast, persistence of upper castes among elites remains unperturbed despite the demographic shocks caused by the Partition of India (1947). Contrary to the dominant wisdom, I show that caste-based endogamy is not the unique channel that explains such high persistence.

Profile of Speaker

Dr Tamoghna Halder is an applied economist whose research examines how historical institutions, both formal and informal, have persistent and long-term effects on inequality, human capital accumulation, growth, development, and diversity. His doctoral research includes the use of archived graduation records of students from elite universities to trace patterns of group-level social mobility across different caste and religious groups in India over the past 150 years. His research involves the analysis of economic information from historical texts and institutional records. His research interests span Economic History, Labour Economics, Development Economics, and Political Economy.

Dr Halder has taught Economics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including the course “How to Teach Economics” for PhD students at the University of California, Davis. He currently teaches Intermediate Microeconomics at the undergraduate level and Economics of Identity at the postgraduate level at Azim Premji University. He is also a regular contributor of opinion articles to Al Jazeera.

Under the conversation series by eminent speakers titled ‘Crafting Careers,’ our next interaction will feature Dipyaman “Deep” Sanyal, CEO of dōnō consulting and co-founder of propmath.com.

About the series

Crafting Careers organised by the NLS BA (Hons) programme is designed to help students navigate the world of work. Each session in the series will bring leading professionals from fields such as media, government, public policy, business, finance, and the creative arts to campus for candid conversations about their journeys. These experts will share insights and advice from their professional experiences and offer reflections on how social science majors may relate to different career pathways. These dialogues will offer students a chance to learn from diverse experiences, gain practical insights, and reflect on how to build careers that align with their own interests, skills, and values.

About the speaker

Dipyaman “Deep” Sanyal is CEO of dōnō consulting, co-founder of propmath.com, Adjunct Faculty at Northwestern University SPS, and a mentor at the Cornell Chief AI Officer program. A former quantitative and financial analyst with Dow Jones, Blackstone, REIS (Moody’s), Sorin Capital, and Thomson Reuters, he founded dōnō in 2013 to help organisations make better decisions using AI, data science, analytics, and management science. Deep also led academic programs with leading global universities and has received multiple national recognitions for his work in data science and AI. He holds a PhD in Economics, is a CFA charterholder, and a Commonwealth Scholar.

The JSW Centre for the Future of Law is organising a guest lecture on ‘Understanding Blockchain Technology, Crypto Assets, and the Evolving Regulatory Perspectives’ with Ms Sanhita Chauriha on 21 August, from 2:00–3:00 PM, at NAB 103. The talk is open to the NLSIU community.

Abstract

This session will introduce the fundamentals of blockchain technology, including how it works and its key applications. It will further cover the concept of crypto assets and stablecoins, providing clarity on their structure and use cases. The session will also explore regulatory approaches adopted across different jurisdictions globally, followed by a discussion on the current regulatory and policy developments in India.

About the Speaker

Sanhita Chauriha is a Technology Policy Lawyer. She holds an LL.M. from King’s College London and is currently associated with CoinDCX. She has previously worked in the Law and Technology vertical at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

The DPIIT IPR Chair of National Law School of India University is organising a Panel Discussion on ‘How to fairly train LLMs? Unpacking ANI v. OpenAI’. The event will be held on 17 August, 2026 from 2:00 to 3:30 PM at Allen & Overy Hall, Training Centre, NLSIU.

Panellists:
Dr. Dev Gangjee, Professor at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford
Dr. Bernd Justin Jütte, Associate Professor at Sutherland School of Law
Dr. Arul George Scaria, Professor at National Law School of India University

Moderator:
Dr. Zakir T. Thomas, DPIIT IPR Chair Professor at National Law School of India University

The workshop is open to the public. Kindly register here.

About the Discussion

Copyright concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence have been widely debated. Among these, a crucial question involves the use of copyrighted materials for training Large Language Models (LLMs). In the recent case of ANI Media (P) Ltd. v. OpenAI OPCO LLC [CS(COMM) 1028/2024, decided on 24-07-2026], the Delhi High Court declined an interim injunction, holding that OpenAI’s use of ANI’s copyrighted works for training ChatGPT does not prima facie constitute copyright infringement. The Court ruled that such training falls within the scope of fair dealing for ‘private or personal use, including research’ under Section 52(1)(a) of the Copyright Act, 1957. Applying both the ‘Purpose Test’ and the ‘Fairness Test’, the Court concluded that commercial use does not negate Section 52(1)(a), while emphasising the significant public interest in AI development and technological innovation. Crucially, the Court recognised Section 52 as embodying affirmative user rights. Although an interim order, its jurisprudential impact on AI model training in India carries substantial consequences. The panel engages with the larger question of fair dealing of copyrighted works for training LLMs, with a specific focus on ANI Media (P) Ltd. v. OpenAI OPCO LLC.

The Library Committee is organising a Book Talk on the 17th of August, 2026 (Monday) from 5 PM to 6:30 PM, in the Conference Hall, Training Centre. Prabha Kotiswaran, Professor of Law and Social Justice at King’s College London, will give her talk on her book Wages for Housework (OUP, 2026) , and Dr. Saurabh Bhatacharjee and Dr. Sudipa Sarkar will be the discussants.

About the Book

The book addresses arguments for and against unconditional cash transfers in feminist economics and welfare theory. It recollects the vision of the founding mothers of the Indian Constitution who advocated for the recognition of women’s unpaid work. It traces how Indian courts have, since Independence, treated women’s unpaid domestic and care work as being on par with an occupation to hold that the economic recognition of unpaid work is a step towards the constitutional vision of equality and dignity. Through an in-depth study of unconditional cash transfers in three states, namely, Goa, Assam, and West Bengal (implemented in 2013, 2020, and 2021, respectively), Kotiswaran elaborates on state-specific welfare regimes and analyses the implementation of cash transfers through interviews with bureaucrats, academics, feminist activists, and women beneficiaries to understand if and how they have resulted in women’s empowerment, whether in terms of education, paid employment, or the gendered division of labour.

About the Author

Professor Prabha Kotiswaran is Professor of Law and Social Justice. She previously taught at SOAS. She received her undergraduate law degree in India from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore and then an LLM and SJD (doctorate) from Harvard Law School. She also practiced law at the New York law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton.