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In India, where its companies, including the listed ones, face a ‘Type 2’ agency problem of corporate governance, the honorary position of Chairman Emeritus created by a company has far greater potential to influence the company and its governance than hitherto understood. However, unfortunately and interestingly, there is no provision in India under corporate law or other related areas of law to formally regulate this post. This creates a legal lacuna, a loophole which is prone to be misused by the Chairman Emeritus or a company’s promoters or its controlling shareholders against the interests of its minority shareholders and/or other stakeholders. Further, in the absence of legal regulations with respect to the position of Chairman Emeritus, the existing provisions under corporate law may also turn ineffective in certain instances, in keeping a check on the aggravation of the Type 2 agency problems in Indian companies. This is because the berth of Chairman Emeritus, in absence of direct legal regulations governing this designation, may be used to allow the Chairman Emeritus and other persons/groups/entities in the company to do indirectly what they may not have done directly under law. Hence, we suggest that we should regulate the burgeoning post of Chairman Emeritus. Further, we touch upon the ways in which such regulations can be introduced.

The NUJS Law Review has sought to serve the purpose of endorsing analytical legal scholarship. As the Indian legal system witnesses periodic changes, through myriad statutory progressions and judicial innovations, the need for the simultaneous evolution of legal scholarship becomes pronounced. Noticeably, in recent times, contributions in legal literature have been playing a seminal role in aiding the development of legal positions in the Indian context. Our endeavour has been to constantly put forth original argumentation on issues of importance. Creative thought accompanied by intense interdisciplinary scrutiny have aided the efforts of our contributing authors to continuously put forth multifaceted works, highlighting the layered nature of legal issues requiring the attention of the discerning reader. This issue seeks to bring together in-depth research and diverse perspectives on key legal issues.

The process of liberalisation and globalisation necessitated intensive cooperation among different countries, regionns and economies. Regional blocks started emerging towards the end of the twentieth century, to facilitate cross-border trade and development. While most of these integrations are based on the geographical proximity, BRICS stands distinct by covering five States – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which are located in different continents. BRICS integration is amongst those new economies that are fast growing and are having huge potentiality to take lead at the global level. Although much was expected from BRICS in the governance of global affairs, the success of it is subject to debate. Hence, a book to explore the status of BRICS in terms of different aspects of cooperation attains significance.

This paper maps the current landscape of the nature and scale of the use of digital media in India through relationship typologies between citizens, intermediaries and the State. These typologies help explain the gamut of functions, both private and public in nature, which the internet has enabled in India. The implications of these typologies are sought to be understood in the broader context of judicial developments vis-à-vis the right to privacy. This study is undertaken with the acknowledgement that the State’s emerging role in large scale data collection and identity verification through projects like ‘Aadhaar’ indicates that as we navigate the terrains of data privacy, the Indian State itself is not a disinterested regulator on the issue of privacy. The Supreme Court’s recent recognition of the right to privacy as a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution provides for an expanded terrain to develop taxonomy of privacy violations. This necessitates the adoption of a rigorous standard of review by referencing ideas of human dignity and democracy embedded within the conception of constitutional morality.

Over the course of history, personhood has been granted to various entities such as corporations, deities, ships, animals, etc. It has been noted by various scholars that such instances of attribution of personhood have been largely arbitrary. The latest addition to the list of entities that have been granted personhood is a river. The primary justification for this has been the need for effective conservation of these rivers, which are deemed to be of immense significance and value to the local population in the countries, and which have resorted to the grant of personhood for the protection of these rivers. However, on closely examining such a grant of personhood to the Ganga and Yamuna in India, it may be noted that such arbitrary attribution of personhood achieves nothing but the creation of an avenue for the State to divest itself of its duties of preservation and conservation of these rivers. This paper attempts to highlight the fallacies associated with the theory of personhood in light of the recent grant of legal personhood to the Ganga and the Yamuna. It also highlights the practical difficulties associated with taking this step in the Indian context as opposed to the attribution of rights or legal personality to rivers in other jurisdictions. Lastly, the paper provides an alternative, duty-based approach for the protection of the said rivers.

Despite more than half of India’s convict population serving the sentence of life imprisonment, there exists little critical writing or scholarly debate about this punishment. Following the decision by a constitution bench of the Supreme Court in 2015 in Union of India v. V. Sriharan & Ors., and the Criminal Law Amendment Acts of 2013 and 2018, life imprisonment has acquired a new-found texture of harshness which leaves little room for shortening of sentences otherwise provided for in law. This article begins problematising life imprisonment since it is expected that its use will be more rather than less frequent in view of these legal developments. Apart from discussing recent developments in life imprisonment, this article examines life imprisonment in a historical context, surveys the development of prisons in India and maps the mutation of the punishment of transportation into life imprisonment. The article claims that while life imprisonment existed alongside transportation, Indian prisons were not designed to house large numbers of life convicts. The transition from transportation to life imprisonment was unsupported by a robust legislative framework which necessitated a complex but unsatisfactory patchwork of judicial pronouncements and executive orders to overcome legislative lacunae. Such arrangements have made the punishment highly susceptible to arbitrariness. It is apprehended that increased reliance on life imprisonment may only serve to exacerbate existing problems of the criminal justice system, rather than finding sustainable solutions.

The modern form of cryptography has pervaded nearly all levels of everyday technological use. It is used to secure online commercial transactions, ATM transactions, all modern technological devices like mobile phones and laptops, and instant messaging applications like WhatsApp. Though encryption provides a zone of privacy to users, it also presents the challenge of “going dark” before law enforcement agencies. Recently, there has been a growing debate in countries like the United States and India, to regulate the use of encryption so that the law enforcement agencies can have access to the encrypted data. However, the governments have not been able to figure out the modalities to do so. Since encryption is the most potent tool at the disposal of an individual to protect his or her privacy, any government policy which seeks to regulate its use must also take into consideration its potential impact on the privacy of citizens. This paper argues that a greater focus must be laid on adopting stronger encryption standards rather than weakening them. Empirical facts also prove that the binary of ‘privacy versus security’ is fallacious because the gains accrued from using strong cryptography easily outweigh the losses.

The present has begun to be revolutionised with the advent of 3D printing – technologically as well as socially. We are steadily gravitating away from the two-dimensional world of printing to a world of marvel, where 3D printed drugs, food products, hardware and even biological organs are no longer things of mere imagination. However, great innovation is accompanied by equally great regulatory challenges and debate. Printing with biological and non-biological materials results in a spectrum of policy challenges when compared to traditional ink-jet printing. For instance, the ambit of the existing legal framework governing organs and tissues in India is restricted to transplantation from another human being. Further, the legal framework on medical devices and drugs do not contemplate the possibility of additively manufactured devices and drugs.  Additionally, 3D printing also throws the conventional province of patent law into disarray since it does not provide any clarity on whether the infringement will be assessed based on the CAD file or the 3D printed product.  Likewise, the ease with which these products are manufactured turns the chain of product manufacturing into a complex web consisting of several potential defaulters. This paper strives to highlight some of these regulatory concerns and offers a framework wherein challenges will be translated into solutions, thus, balancing regulation with innovation.

The NUJS Law Review was uniquely founded as a wholly student-run journal, with the objective of familiarising students with the opportunities and responsibilities associated with the production of cutting-edge legal scholarship. The ethos of academic excellence instituted by Professor M. P. Singh has continually guided the editorial boards’ ventures into new avenues of creation and dissemination of knowledge. The Review has sought to stride forth in expanding the frontiers of how the law is envisaged to operate, and what its immense potential could be, in a rapidly evolving society grappling with complex interdisciplinary questions of power, politics, technology, and the law…

This paper argues that the Supreme Court of India has been sceptical about reservation in promotion since the State began making promotion policies in employment. The reasoning provided by the Court during the period from 1960s leading to the Indra Sawhney decision will reflect that the opinions of judges were premised on ‘what would be’ the effect of reservation in promotion or ‘what ought to be’ the contours of reservation as opposed to what is provided for in the Constitution. Subsequently, with introduction of more explicit amendments in the Constitution regarding promotion, the Supreme Court has only expanded its scope of judicial review. Invoking a rigorous form of judicial review akin to the strict scrutiny principle, the Supreme Court has since, struck down reservation policies for promotion on the ground of non-fulfilment of ‘objective’ prerequisites including proof of backwardness, under-representation of communities in services and administrative efficiencies. These prerequisites were actually and only meant to be for the subjective satisfaction of the State. However, the aggravated level of judicial review on this issue has resulted in the turning of Article 16(4-A) into a hollow promise which merely exists in the text of the Constitution of India.