litigation – N South

Are pre-nuptial agreements enforceable?

If you demand the terms of separation before you marry, people will believe many things of you: that you are cynical, or prudent, or just simply mean. What the world will not accept is that you are a hopeless romantic, swayed only by grand ideals of love. You can claim…

Should Twitter even be picking a fight with the Indian government?

By Ranjeev C DubeyRegulation

While media reports on Twitter losing its “intermediary status” may have misled some readers, it is increasingly clear that the government is determined to bring all social media to heel. To this end, the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines etc) Rules, 2021, compel “significant social media intermediaries” to implement additional…

Can a tenant walk away from their lease liabilities in the times of Covid-19?

By Sagar ChawlaContract Law

In what is undoubtedly the first principle of business life, nothing is worth doing unless it makes commercial sense! In our Covid ravaged times, a lot of tenancies are not making commercial sense anymore! Let me illustrate. You rented a place to run a restaurant. The government locked it down…

Are lawyers obsolete?

By Ranjeev C DubeyLegal Profession

The dynamics of the legal market continue to amaze me. India has lakhs of jobless lawyers sitting around exterminating houseflies in district courts around the country. In any random sample, less than 10% make a living wage. As has always been the case, without a daddy or uncle in the…

Supreme Court is being transformed into a stern headmaster

By Ranjeev C DubeyConstitutional Law

When the Chief Justice of India announced on August 20 that the judges would contribute funds to help relieve Karala from the flood fury, no one protested that the judiciary is the last institution we should expect to make cash contributions to worthy causes. A cursory glance at the Union…

Invisible Elephant in the Court Room

By Ranjeev C DubeyConstitutional Law

If you live long enough, you come to realize that today’s outrageous is next week’s new normal. Like 18 hour power outages, people can get used to almost anything. Eleven years ago, Praveen Babi, the iconic Bollywood heroine of my generation died leaving much of what she owned to charity.…

Self-inflicted Wounds

By Ranjeev C DubeyLegal Profession

When the Supreme Court directed the Government of India to establish a National Disaster Mitigation Fund in May 2016, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley observed that India’s judiciary was destroying its institution structure “step by step, brick by brick”. Who is responsible for this judicial activism is a matter of debate,…

The trouble with privatised justice

By Ranjeev C DubeyArbitration Law

Consider the irony: many lawyers agree that India’s justice machine has all but collapsed but Indians generally believe deeply in Indian courts. Similarly, many lawyers agree that privatised justice (also known as arbitration) has all but collapsed in India but clients generally believe they provide an exciting opportunity to transcend…

Persecuting victims: Justice for the emotionally overblown

By Ranjeev C DubeyCriminal Law

Long before Tarun Tejpal’s legendary libido unfairly dented her credibility; Tehelka’s Shoma Chaudhury devastatingly demolished CBI’s case against Arushi Talwar’s parents back in June 2013. Avirook Sen’s recent book on the subject expands substantially on her critique without necessarily unearthing a great deal of new data. What neither Chaudhury nor…

Law And Living-in

By Ranjeev C DubeyFamily Law

Here’s a confusing contradiction for the connoisseur: Indian courts are very slow to decide anything at all, but they are exceedingly quick to evolve laws to respond to ever-changing social mores. The battle over the rights of homosexuals may not be the best example of this, but in most departments…

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