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Corporate democracy, like its political counterpart, espouses the will of the majority as a key for the decision-making of a company. At the same time, corporate democracy ensures protections for minority members of a company from unfair prejudice caused to their interests. The need to balance the rights of majority and minority members in order to secure collective interests in the company is recognised under §241 of the Companies Act, 2013. §241 empowers the minority shareholders to seek relief from the Tribunal against acts of oppression and mismanagement committed by the majority while conducting the affairs of the company. This right of the minority shareholders, however, is contingent upon the members satisfying the locus standi – a numerical qualification – provided under §244. However, the Act also reserves to the Tribunal a right to grant a waiver of the locus requirement, enabling members not satisfying the numerical requirement to nonetheless make an application to the Tribunal for oppression and mismanagement. This paper delves into the factors that warrant the grant of such a waiver by the Tribunals with a particular emphasis on Cyrus Investments v. Tata Sons, which emerged as pivotal for this jurisprudence.

Is it constitutionally permissible to further constrict the already narrow right to access subsidised food grains by calculating the eligible beneficiaries on the basis of outdated population data? Although, the answer to this query must necessarily be in the negative; unfortunately, this is exactly what has been done through §9 of the NFSA which imposes an artificial restriction, unsupported by any ground level data. Legislatively, over 100 million people will be deprived of this most basic and fundamental of human rights. This article, therefore, seeks to pose a constitutional challenge to §9. Although, the Act has been in vogue for over half a decade, the extremely deleterious consequences of the artificial exclusions imposed by §9, have only exacerbated the heartrending human tragedies that have been wrecked on the most economically precarious due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has, therefore, been  used as a case study to propose some structural reforms to the NFSA. Indisputably, the process of evolving and structuring policies to suit the aspirations of a vast country, is a gargantuan task; the need of the hour is to engage policymakers in a debate to rethink such provisions and guarantee nutrition for one and all.

This article argues that the State enacts legislative violence upon transgender persons by establishing a regulatory framework that is paternalistic, cis-heteronormative and detrimental to transgender persons’ basic identity. The legislative violence inflicted on transgender persons is evident from the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 and Draft Rules, which violate the fundamental rights of transgender persons. Such violence also medicalises transgender identities under the guise of biological determinism. In this article, we critically explore State structures that monitor and survey trans bodies based on exclusionary cis-heteronormative standards, seeking particularly to regulate non-binary and non-traditional gender identities. The nation state itself is built through exclusion of various groups, leading to differential forms of citizenship. In the second part of the article, we explore recent efforts of the State to create citizenship structures hinging on documentary identification, through the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 -– National Register of Indian Citizens nexus. It is reasonable to predict that the majority of transgender persons and gender-variant persons will be excluded from citizenship due to lack of requisite documentation. Although civic citizenship of transgender persons is purportedly based on ‘equality’, the legal citizenship advanced by this nexus, is nothing more than performative citizenship. The legal framework enacted for the ‘protection of rights’ of transgender persons is excessively paternalistic in nature, ignoring the fact that transgender persons mobilise powerfully against the state to resist injustice and reclaim avenues of negotiation. Such resistance and negotiations are seen through protests, policy engagements and invoking of constitutional challenges, opening the door to alternative citizenship structures and changes in political participation.

The idea of the modern-day family is constantly evolving, as is the conception of reproductive rights. While the right to have a family or the right to family life remain largely uncodified in India, these rights find a strong basis in other pre-existing rights. Through an analysis of three assisted reproductive techniques, namely, surrogacy, in-vitro fertilisation, and genetic manipulation, we study the interplay of technology, health, gender, commerce and sexuality and in turn, its implications for public health rights, gender justice, sexual rights, disability rights, child rights, and bioethics. We argue that medical professionals, infertile individuals or couples, children born as a result of assisted reproduction, donors and surrogates across India suffer greatly due to the lack of a legal framework which adequately addresses their needs. These needs, such as protection of bodily autonomy for surrogates and donors, equitable access for commissioning couples or individuals, assurance of legal status for children, among many others, remain unaddressed in both individual and collective capacities. In an attempt to remedy this, we extensively discuss the various ways in which assisted reproduction ought to be regulated. We contextualise the concerns with assisted reproduction to the Indian context and suggest the core principles that should be a part of a national legally binding regulatory framework in the country.

Based on a study of all reported habeas corpus judgments of the Supreme Court in the twenty-year period from 2000 to 2019, this article presents an empirical analysis of the delay in adjudication of habeas corpus petitions in preventive detention cases. Three indicators are used for the study: first, the total time spent between the date of detention order and the date of final disposal by the Supreme Court; second, the time spent at the Supreme Court level alone; and third, the time spent in actual detention till the matter was finally disposed of by the Supreme Court (including an analysis of the extent to which Supreme Court was responsible for the delay). A more sharpened analysis of only ‘successful’ habeas corpus petitions – i.e. the twenty cases where the Supreme Court was the relief-granting court – is also presented. It is suggested that habeas corpus is reduced to a meaningless remedy in many cases.

Dr. Durga Das Basu was an illustrious son of Bengal and a legal scholar of universal eminence. Not only did he rise to be an Hon’ble judge of the High Court of Calcutta, but he also earned international recognition and fame for his monumental writings, especially, but not exclusively, on the Constitution of India which he started producing soon after the commencement of our Constitution in 1950. For his monumental works he was awarded numerous academic degrees and honours. In view of Dr. Basu’s vast universe of law and life, I had difficulty in deciding the theme of my lecture which could be anything different from what he had covered in all details within the legal domain dearest to him viz. constitutional law. In the process of deciding the theme of my lecture, I realised that even though the concept of constitutionalism as an aspect of the Constitution of India, as is noted below, could not escape Dr. Basu’s attention, it had not been discussed in all its details that have partly developed since his departure from the scene.

Volume 13(1) occupies a special place in the lineage of the NUJS Law Review. All the articles featuring in this issue have been published amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This required us to fulfill our editorial responsibilities in the qualified comfort of our homes, under stringent lockdowns stipulated by the Government. For us, the experience of working for the journal remotely has given us an insight as to how the NUJS Law Review, as an institution, transcends the physical precincts of the college campus into something much broader, more ethereal, and perhaps more enduring. This insight holds true not just for the NUJS Law Review, but also for institutions across the legal fraternity, such as courts, tribunals, law firms, and even universities. With the justice delivery system being under heavy duress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these institutions have all transitioned to function remotely in order to eliminate the use of their physical infrastructure. Such a transition has only been possible because of the motivated adoption of internet and technology.