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Based largely on party autonomy and consent, over the past two decades, arbitration has emerged as the top pick for corporations to resolve their disputes. Unlike other forms of adjudication, an arbitral tribunal derives its power from the consent the parties themselves provide. Hence, the question of impleading non-signatories in arbitral proceedings has continued to be a matter of great controversy with tribunals generating several ‘creative’ solutions to implead non-signatories. One such solution created is the Group of Companies doctrine, a theory that allows the impleading of parent companies supposedly on the basis of implicit consent. However, the response to this doctrine has been lukewarm, with some jurisdictions choosing to adopt it while others vehemently opposing it, resulting in challenges with cross-border enforcement of arbitral awards. This paper aims to critically analyse this doctrine and attempts to show that it is irreconcilable with a fundamental principle of arbitration, namely consent. It begins by showing the inconsistent application of this doctrine across jurisdictions and then aims to dispute the claim that the doctrine is merely an extension of the principle of consent. Finally, the paper suggests an alternative route that could replace the Group of Companies Doctrine and act as a means to extend the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction without necessarily diluting the essence and need for consent by instead focusing on the rights and liabilities of the non-signatory with respect to the dispute before the tribunal.

The Babri Masjid– Ram Janmabhoomi dispute is a land ownership dispute which came to life over 134 years ago between two of India’s most numerically-dominant religious communities. A 1045 page long judgement, M. Siddiq v. Mahant Suresh Das (‘Siddiq’) is riddled with socio-political and religious complications, given the centuries-old tension between the two communities. This burdened the Supreme Court to disintegrate these complications and focus on the proprietary rights issues, including, inter alia, Title of Property, Exclusive Possession, and Dispossession of Property, which forms this dispute’s legal framework. In analysing this disintegration, certain visible inconsistencies occur within the legal reasonings used in the judgement with respect to the allocation of the 2.77 acres of land. However, in the process of delivering its verdict that the disputed fragment of land belonged to Bhagwan ShriRam Virajman, the Court reduced the questions of who has title over property to questions of which community’s faith is stronger, and thereby digressed from the legal framework of this dispute. This paper attempts to discover, disclose and discuss these very inconsistencies. It addresses the Supreme Court’s dilemma when resolving the property issues independent from the contemporary socio-religious issues. Finally, it also analyses the implications of the Siddiq Judgement on present and future mandir-masjid disputes in the backdrop of the Places of Worship Act, 1991.

The landmark Puttaswamy judgement has declared the right to privacy as a fundamental right. Such a right will have a significant impact on the construction of provisions that empower law enforcement authorities to undertake searches. In this paper, we exhaustively delineate the jurisprudence in India that relates to the overlap between the power to conduct searches and the right to privacy. Search provisions in India are present in various statutes such as the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The established jurisprudence on privacy prior to Puttaswamy subjected search provisions to a relatively less rigorous standard of legality. In light of the Puttaswamy judgment, we discuss the normative content of the judgement itself, and draw an analysis of the comparative jurisprudence, to recommend the manner in which search provisions should be construed and their legality, analysed. We argue that search provisions are especially vulnerable to a privacy challenge when adequate procedural safeguards are not put in place, and further argue for a rigorous proportionality analysis. Finally, we test some pre-existing search provisions to demonstrate the manner in which Indian courts should determine the validity of searches and search provisions in light of the right to privacy.

This paper aims to provide conceptual tools and arguments, inspired by Norberto Bobbio’s rich legal and political theory, which appear particularly relevant to address today’s issues of democratic legitimacy and accountability of regulatory structures in the context of Indian and European liberal democracies. The analysis thus confronts from a comparative perspective the structures and modes of operation of Indian and European regulatory structures (in terms of competence, functions and means) with the model of constitutional liberal democracies. The intended outcome of such comparison is to highlight the conditions and limits of the compatibility of current regulatory structures and their resultant regulatory powers on the one hand, with the constitutional liberal democratic order on the other. 

From the generally conservative and patriarchal approach of the courts towards pornography, to the paternalistic, welfare legislations enacted to ‘protect’ certain classes of the population, obscenity laws operate in and further churn an obscenity narrative that actively disables sexual autonomy, especially of women and minorities that often face the brunt of these exercises. This article argues that the extant legal regime relating to the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images is weak and non-developed in India, both, in terms of identification as an offence, and availability of remedies. Specifically, this article highlights the roles of certain sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000, that work in tandem to disable appropriate juridical and practical application of provisions that give due regard to privacy and consent concerns in matters concerning non-consensual dissemination of intimate images. Legislature and courts must give due regard to these concerns if they seek to curb the proliferation of cybercrimes online and build a more free and participative digital citizenship. 

The COVID-19 pandemic obligated governments across the world to adopt measures for containing the spread of the virus while preserving socio-economic stability. The Constitution of India, 1950 (‘the Constitution’) vests upon the State governments the exclusive authority on all matters relating to public health. Nevertheless, the Central Government spearheaded the response to the COVID-19 outbreak, invoking the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (‘DM Act’). In this paper, we challenge the authority of the Parliament to regulate biological disasters through the DM Act on the basis that it violates the separation of powers envisaged under the Constitution. Upon a holistic review of all the legislative entries in the Constitution that may confer authority upon the Parliament to legislate on the subject of biological disasters, we conclude that the Parliament did not have the power to legislate upon the said subject. Hence, any matter arising out of biological disasters should be excluded from the scope of the DM Act. However, in the current scenario where both DM Act and the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 (‘ED Act’) apply, we use principles of statutory interpretation to address the conflicting provisions of these two statutes relating to the management of biological disasters. We thereby conclude that the ED Act, which accords primacy to the State governments in tackling a biological disaster, should have been applied instead of the DM Act to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose that the DM Act’s provisions should be reasonably applied to events within the meaning of ‘disaster’ under the statute while leaving out the management of biological disasters, which are specifically covered within the scope of the ED Act. This is based on the principle of ‘generalia specialibus non derogant’ and the rationale that from a constitutional and policy perspective, the State governments are the appropriate authorities to manage biological disasters.

Over the years, the Indian government, as well as the courts, have consistently furthered a pro-arbitration approach in order to establish an efficient dispute resolution mechanism that can improve contract enforcement and the ease of doing business. Emergency arbitration is considered to be one such process that can assist in establishing an effective resolution mechanism. This paper attempts to focus on and understand the modalities of prominent domestic institutional rules which govern the emergency arbitration proceedings. It provides a comparative critique of the domestic rules as against their international counterparts through the identification of certain key features present in the latter. Thereafter, the paper recommends numerous amendments for the domestic institutional framework that can assist in formulating a robust emergency arbitration procedure in India. In conducting this analysis, the paper also analyses the concerns surrounding the recognition and enforcement of emergency arbitration orders, which arguably constitute the backbone of an efficient emergency mechanism. 

This article discusses equity investments of the Asian Development Bank (‘ADB’ or ‘the Bank’) in South Asia, with primary reference to India and Bhutan. It considers ADB’s financing of private sector operations, including equity investments. It also focuses on case studies of equity investments in three commercial banks, namely, Centurion Bank Limited (‘CBL’) and Global Trust Bank Limited (‘GTB’) in India, and Bhutan National Bank (‘BNB’) in Bhutan. The issues and challenges in project implementation are analysed. The salient lessons learned by the Bank in these equity investments are discussed by analysing the Bank’s project completion reports and evaluations. The participation by the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group focused on private sector operations, in its investments in CBL, GTB and BNB is also discussed. The article concludes with lessons learned by the Bank with suggestions on how the Bank can better enhance its participation in equity investment operations in its member countries.

The Rajya Sabha and the Indian judiciary share a functional link so as to maintain a constitutional equilibrium. Both their designs are oddly detailed for a reason, with no feature existing without purpose. The former is tasked with scrutinising and revising the social/moral policy initiatives of the Lok Sabha-executive combine. In parallel and with respect to the same legislative-executive actions, the judiciary has its task in reviewing recondite issues of constitutional compliance/competence. This paper elaborates upon a state of peak crisis when the two constitutional bodies abandon these behavioural responsibilities, albeit, in different ways. The core of Rajya Sabha’s revisionary powers was premised in its unique ‘representativeness’. This exclusivity, and the concomitant powers, have been wrested away from it. Resultantly, it seems to have lost its efficacy as a legislative-executive watchman. In its stead, the judiciary has taken up the additional task of filling up moral vacuities in legislative/executive actions. It is not that this probable deviation was not constitutionally accounted for by the limits on the judiciary’s writ jurisdiction. However, in an act of defiant circumvention, the judiciary has pushed the relevant theoretical/procedural boundaries to nullify that foresight. Emerging moral-judicial doctrines supply this transgression with perceived legitimacy. These parallel yet different aberrations in both the institutions constitute a state of ‘constitutional dysfunctionalism’.