Evaluating aggravating and mitigating circumstances facilitate determining just sentences. Disregarding the crucial role mitigating circumstances play in the process is a bad precedent: it encourages a narrow reading of the law that supports increased (and not necessarily fair) punishment by Courts across the country.
This episode of the 39A podcast discusses the science behind forensic DNA profiling and its scientific and legal practice in India. The conversation further looks at the DNA Technology (Use & Application) Regulation Bill, 2019 and how the current version of the Bill overlooks the issues with the forensic science system currently functioning in India.
Criminal law practitioners from different parts of the country share their experiences on the varied approaches undertaken by each jurisdiction in dealing with the challenges posed by the pandemic and the impact of the transition from physical to online proceedings on access to justice.
In this episode of The 39A Podcast, Professor Vijay Raghavan and Dr. Anup Surendranath discuss the institutional imagination of prisons in India and the manner in which it has interacted with the COVID-19 pandemic. The conversation looks at whether the measures taken by prisons to control the pandemic were at best management strategies and failed to incorporate âright to healthâ perspectives.
In this episode of The 39A Dialogues, Senior Advocate and criminal law practitioner Ms. Nitya Ramakrishnan discusses what sets apart the stringent bail provision under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 and makes it almost impossible for an accused to secure bail once charged for offences of âterrorist activitiesâ and âterrorist organizationâ under the Act. She comments on the decision of the Delhi High Court from June 2021, granting bail to three student activists – Asif Iqbal Tanha, Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita while coming to the finding that that their acts of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 did not meet the standard of a âterrorist actâ as defined under the UAPA. Ms. Ramakrishnan argues that the decision of the Delhi High Court is logically sound and does not come in conflict with the Supreme Courtâs 2019 landmark ruling in Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali.
Henry Shue, ‘Torture in Dreamland: Disposing of the Ticking Bomb‘, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 2006 The most…
The Constitution of India is a document of aspiration. Conceived as what recent scholarship has called a âbreak from the (colonial) pastâ, it is accepted knowledge now that the Indian Constitution aspired to establish a state that aimed to replace colonial authority with a democratic republic and that aimed a state-led revolution against an oppressive social order.
In 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs commissioned the All India Citizens Survey of Police Services (âAICPSâ). It is a nationwide public perception survey aimed to suggest measures to âprovide citizen centric police servicesâ in India. Its scope includes an assessment of the impact of police services on the public, gauging perceptions of safety and suggestions on measures to improve public satisfaction of the police.
In this episode of the 39A Dialogues, commemorating the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, human rights lawyers Babloo Lointongbam (Human Rights Alert, Manipur) and Henri Tiphagne (People’s Watch, Tamil Nadu) share their experiences of working, supporting and building relationships with victims of torture.
Soon after the controversial arrest of environmental activist Disha Ravi by the Delhi Police, her lawyers approached the Delhi High Court in a writ petition, alleging that the police had leaked her Whatsapp conversations to the media in a mala fide act. Before the single bench, the police took the stand that they had shared no information with any media house. The impugned articles and videos of the various channels however claimed to the contrary, as the court observed. By its order dated 19th February 2021, the court issued a set of interim directions to the police and to the respondent media houses, holding them accountable to their own respective professional standards. Pertinently, the court also made an observation that âa journalist cannot be asked to reveal the sourceâ.