The Law on Police Use of Force Worldwide (www.policinglaw.info) website is an academic review of national regimes governing the use of force by law enforcement officials. Member of the GCLS contributed to this website by preparing profiles of several countries across the world, analyzing the constitutional provisions, treaty adherence, national legislations on use of force, police oversight, and case laws.
The 4th edition of the GNLU Essay Competition centered around the theme “Algorithms, Law & Democracy”, witnessed participation from students from both law and non-law fields.
The panel of judges consisted of:
a) Dr. Naveen Thayyil, Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi as the Chief Evaluator.
b) Mr. Tushar Kale, Advocate, Bombay High Court
c) Mr. Sukarn Singh Maini, Senior Counsel, SLFC.in
d) Adv. Prashant Mali, President, Cyber Law Consulting
The winners of the Competition were awarded internships with L&L Partners, SLFC.in and Tandem Research along with certificates of merit.
The Centre has received the aforementioned research project with Ms. Apoorva Patel (Head of Centre and Assistant Professor) as the Principal Investigator, Dr. Saurabh Anand (Assistant Professor) as Co-Principal Investigator and Ms. Shivani Jadhav (Teaching & Research Associate) as Co-Principal Investigator.
With the objective of simplifying laws and dissemination of legal knowledge, GCLS in collaboration with the organization Saral Kanoon has continuously been working on making handbooks. In the past, GCLS has prepared handbooks on labour laws and Good Samaritan laws. Three handbooks have been prepared this academic year, viz.
a) Complete Guide on Women’s Right: The handbook follows a life cycle approach – starting from the foetal stag to issues of marriage, employment, sexual harassment and even inheritance. Various laws applicable to women and their rights under such laws along with the procedure to avail them are succinctly explained.
b) Complete Guide on Children’s Right: Various laws applicable to children and their rights under such laws along with the procedure to avail them are succinctly explained.
c) Complete Guide on Prisoner’s Right: This handbook specifies various rights available to a prisoner at the time of detention, both at the undertrial stage and after being convicted. It also elucidates provisions for arrest, bail, parole and furlough. In addition to the above, it mentions when and how an inmate can approach Legal Services Authorities, State Human Rights Commission, High Court u/s 482 of CrPC and Women’s Commission by women inmates.
The Center through it Law and Society wing has provided its comments based on extensive doctrinal research on various instances of the Government’s invitation for comments on Draft Bills and Policies such as Draft National Education Policy, 2016, Draft Trafficking Prevention Bill, 2016 and the Mental Health Care Bill, 2013.
Handbooks pertaining to different social welfare legislations that contribute to the simplification of law for the masses are compiled in FAQ format for the benefit of the common man. The Wing made booklets on three areas viz. Good Samaritan Law, Consumer Protection Act and Basic Property Laws.
The Centre conducted a research project on the Fiscal Focus of the Union on Healthcare and Education, critically analyzing the Union Budget allocations with respect to the healthcare and education sectors. The Wing analyzed the budgetary statistics of the Vajpayee government (1998-2004), UPA Government-I (2004-2009), UPA Government-II (2009-2014), and the incumbent NDA government (2014-present) to examine the trend in allocation with respect to these sectors. The report also discussed practices prevalent in other developing countries such as Brazil, South Africa and the importance being attached by them to budgetary allocation in these sectors.
The Centre, in collaboration with the Model Governance Foundation, released a research book on various themes pertaining to law, education, governance, economics, and healthcare, among others.
Ever since independence, India has made piecemeal attempts for ensuring a discrimination free environment with separate legislations for SC/ST, people with disabilities, women and other groups. While these measures have been able to address the issues at a minor scale, the all-pervasive discriminatory behaviour that is imbibed in the social milieu continues to remain unaddressed.
While the Indian Constitution has ensured that an effective remedy is provided against the state in case of arbitrary exercises of power, the same does not adequately address the needs of today. There have been instances where the aggrieved party was unable to bring an action for violation of rights under Part III of the Constitution for the simple reason that the Article 12 restricts the applicability of fundamental rights to the government and its instrumentalities and not against private individuals.
The aim of this study would be threefold i) argue for a civil rights act that would be attracted once any of the Part III rights are infringed by individuals, ii) what India can learn from countries which have adopted such measures like the United States, iii) come up with a draft bill. The J&K Government recently passed an order curbing the use of social media by its employees.
Acid attacks have seen an alarming growth in India over the last decade. Acid attacks are a form of violence against women, where the perpetrator splashes a person or object with acid in order to deface or kill them. In most cases, acid attacks permanently disfigure, debilitate and, eventually, destroy the victim, both physically and psychologically. While many attacks have resulted in slow and painful deaths, in others young women getting disfigured, maimed and confined to homes for life. They continue to battle medical complications as acid trickles into the body and damages internal organs over an extended period of time. The endeavor is to provide solutions for a better life for the victims as not much has been addressed when it comes to the rehabilitation of the victims.
There have been a lot of disappearances in the state of Jammu and Kashmir after the militant uprising in 1990s. Women, whose husbands are missing, are facing a number of problems regarding divorce, maintenance etc. in view of traditional Islamic laws applicable to personal affairs. GCLS aims to carry out empirical research, gather literature from NGOs working in Kashmir and prepare a report on the same which shall be submitted to the government of Jammu & Kashmir.
