Prof Sanjay Jain has secured a Major ICSSR Grant for a research project titled “Dynamics of Formal and Informal Constitutionalism: Towards Forensic Mapping of Formation, Functioning, and Adjudication of Constitutional Conventions in India”. The central argument of the proposed research is that prolixity of the Constitution of India does not in any way negate institutionalisation of informal constitutionalism through conventions and allied constitutional informalities. This is a two-year project that started in March 2026.

Scope and Objectives

The scope of this project involves engagement with Constitutional conventions in the context of Indian Constitutional law transcending Common Law tradition. Drawing inputs from non-Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions, the project inter alia seeks to inquire into the intersection of constitutional convention and constitutional conscience; and the role of transnational constitutionalism in the evolution of new constitutional conventions.

Its objectives include:

• To critically inquire into the formation, functioning and adjudication of constitutional conventions in India.
• To conduct empirical mapping of constitutional provisions to develop a matrix for generating constitutional conventions.
• To critique overemphasis on common-law orientation of constitutional conventions and investigate whether the same has a positive or negative impact on the entrenchment of the institution of constitutional conventions under the Indian Constitution.
• To catalogue various pathways for analysing the intersection and encounters between written and unwritten constitutional rules.
• To explore the viability of codified unwritten constitutional conventions into written constitutional rules.
• To explore i) an alternative to the Jennings test; ii) post-colonial rationales and justifications to lend legitimacy to constitutional conventions; and iii) Should legislature in India consider a proposal to attach a catalogue of constitutional conventions as a Schedule to the text of the Indian Constitution.
• To compare and contrast the position of Canadian and Indian Supreme Courts on the issue of enforcement of constitutional conventions.

Three-fold framework of the project-

Three-fold framework of the project: a) contesting overwhelming focus on English-law orientation of constitutional conventions; b) moving away from the narrow compass of determination and recognition of conventions based on Jennings test and to draw attention to evolution of new conventions in post-colonial constitutional settings and; c) To move beyond the narrow rubric of responsible government, constitutional conventions in India must be understood as operating across multiple registers: as vehicles of informal amendment, devices for addressing constitutional silences, and mediating norms structuring the judiciary–executive interface. They also animate the rise of fourth-branch institutions, recalibrate the separation of powers, nurture constitutional culture, and act as soft constraints against democratic backsliding and institutional capture.

For more information, please contact Prof Sanjay Jain at