Introduction: Juvenile Justice at the Crossroads A 2024 study by the National Institute for Mental Health and Neurosciences (‘NIMHANS’) found that 90.9% of children referred from the juvenile justice system in India had experienced at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (‘ACE’), including abuse, neglect, etc. Similarly, a global study across 13 countries found that nearly 87 per cent of justice-involved youth had experienced at least one traumatic event. The study also fou

Introduction On 17 April 2026 an award debtor applied under Section 36(3) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for a stay and for continuation of a bank guarantee. Seven days later the Supreme Court decided Home Care Retail Marts v Haresh N Sanghavi, holding that an unsuccessful party may invoke Section 9 after an award. Four days after that the debtor abandoned its Section 36(3) prayer, moved under Section 9, and obtained the relief. Counsel argued in both forums th

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act, 2026 (‘Amendment Act’) received Presidential assent on 6 April 2026. It introduces the most structurally significant change to India’s insolvency framework since the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (‘Code’) was enacted. Its centrepiece is the Creditor-Initiated Insolvency Resolution Process (‘CIIRP’), a new resolution track under Chapter IV-A (Sections 58A to 58K) that allows specified financial creditors holding at lea

Introduction A decade-old FIR that ended in acquittal. A matrimonial dispute settled years ago. A criminal proceeding in which a person’s name appeared only incidentally. For the petitioners before the Delhi High Court, these were not archival records but live injuries, reopened by every name-based search. On 29 May 2026, Justice Sachin Datta’s ruling in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav v Union of India answered them, consolidating over thirty-five writ petitions and recognising the rig

Introduction Recently, in Liyakat Ali v State of Himachal Pradesh, the Himachal Pradesh High Court acquitted several accused persons after nearly 15 years of incarceration, terming the prosecution’s failure to conduct a Test Identification Parade (‘TIP’) a ‘serious lapse in investigation’. A TIP is a pre-trial identification procedure in which a witness is asked to identify an accused from among other persons. TIPs are ordinarily conducted at the stage of investigation and s

Introduction On 6 July 2026, the National Company Law Tribunal ('NCLT'), Ahmedabad Bench sanctioned the amalgamation of J.B. Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Limited into Torrent Pharmaceuticals Limited. The scheme finally came into effect on the day of the winding up of J.B. Chemicals, which was two days later, and its brands, plants and distribution network became instantly part of Torrent, turning it into one of the largest branded pharmaceutical businesses in India. The NCLT o

Introduction The rule against bias nemo judex in causa sua (no one can be a judge in their own case) was forged in the crucible of English common law. Today, it is confronted by an existential 21st-century challenge. As Indian regulatory bodies like the Securities & Exchange Board of India (‘SEBI’), the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’), and the newly minted Data Protection Board under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, increasingly rely on a mix of industry e

On 30 January 2026, the Supreme Court of India in Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Government of India and Ors. recognised menstrual health as a constitutionally protected right under the Indian Constitution. This judgment is significant as it marks the first such concrete effort by the Supreme Court towards a constitutionally rooted rights-based approach towards menstrual health This piece analyses the judgment and argues that the strength of the Supreme Court’s approach lies in its dee

The Architecture of Erasure To capture the imagination which the Act sets to project, it is our duty, then, to take time and ask ourselves what the nature of the polity it imagines would be. The Act provides a state that is inherently devoted to legibility. It assumes that citizens should be made intelligible to the state and, in a sense that is defined by the conceptual frame of the state; otherwise, they are not even recognized. This suggestion soaks in the bitter heritage

India’s Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 appears to have absolutely neglected the interests of the people that it is supposedly made for. The Act’s own Statement of Objects and Reasons declares that the law “was and is not to protect each and every class of persons with various gender identities.” An Act, whose title contains the phrase Protection of Rights, announces in its own explanatory text the categories of people it has chosen not to prote

Introduction Recent regulatory interventions, including the amendment concerning Synthetically Generated Information , the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s advisory on unlawful and obscene content , and the evolving understanding of ‘reasonable efforts’ under the intermediary liability framework, reflect a broader shift toward heightened compliance expectations within India’s platform governance regime. While each of these measures has been analysed indi

Introduction Smart speakers have swiftly evolved from being novelty consumer gadgets to becoming a staple in many homes. In fact, as of 2025, there are over 8.4 billion voice assistant devices in use worldwide , which exceeds even the global population. India follows this pattern very closely. Nearly 20.9% of Indian consumers own smart speakers, and the Indian market is expected to reach $14 billion over the next ten years . These numbers suggest that voice assistants have e