Research

Mapping the responses of feminist groups to the J. S. Verma Committee, this article underscores inconsistencies between the positions on defining sexual offences on the one hand and suggesting appropriate punishments on the other. It argues that the absence of engagement around complex issues of criminal law and sentencing not only left feminists divided on the outcome in Mahmood Farooqui’s case but also revealed unintended consequences of the newly introduced law on rape.

When the Supreme Court of India upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab in 1980, it also laid down a sentencing framework for subsequent sentencing courts. This article argues that it is not within the mandate of sentencing judges to invoke penological theories as separate sentencing factors in individual cases when deciding between life imprisonment and the death sentence.

This chapter focuses on consumer protection in E-Commerce in India and the success of online dispute resolution through mediation initiative carried out by National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.

Looking at Article 31 and its initial amendments from a “law and development” perspective provides a critique of the current narrative of “conflict” and offers an alternative interpretation of its history. The paper argues that rather than arising from the pursuit of either authoritarian socialist planning or an egalitarian social revolution, the travails of the Article came in the context of India’s quest for economic modernity through a process of “passive revolution”.