Scipedia: International Journal of Legal Research and Law

Role of Human Rights in the Indian Judicial System

Indian Judicial Forum — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 15:37:13 +0200

Human rights in India derive their force not from a single code but from a constitutional architecture — Part III's fundamental rights, Part IV's directive principles, and an independent judiciary empowered under Articles 32 and 226 to enforce them. This review article examines the role that Indian courts, particularly the Supreme Court, have played in transforming a modest textual guarantee of “protection of life and personal liberty” under Article 21 into an expansive charter covering dignity, privacy, livelihood, health, a clean environment, and protection from custodial abuse. It traces the doctrinal journey from Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) through the era of public interest litigation to contemporary jurisprudence on privacy and sexual autonomy, and situates this judicial trajectory alongside the institutional architecture of the National Human Rights Commission and the State Human Rights Commissions. The article further examines the human rights dimensions of the 2023 overhaul of India's criminal statutes, the persistent challenges of custodial violence, prison overcrowding, and judicial delay, and the emerging frontier of digital-age rights. It concludes that while Indian courts have been remarkably innovative in expanding the substantive content of rights, the realisation of those rights on the ground continues to depend on institutional capacity, executive compliance, and sustained public vigilance.

Recent BNS Changes and the Transformation of the Indian Legal Ecosystem

Indian Judicial Forum — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 19:57:13 +0200

On 1 July 2024, India replaced three foundational statutes of its criminal justice architecture — the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 — with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (“BNS”), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (“BNSS”), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (“BSA”). This article undertakes a comprehensive doctrinal and empirical examination of the BNS and its allied enactments, situating the reform within the broader trajectory of post-colonial legal change in India. It traces the legislative history of the codes, maps their structural reorganisation, and analyses the principal substantive innovations — including the repeal of sedition, the codification of organised crime and terrorism, gender-neutral provisions for offences against the body, the introduction of community service as a sentencing option, and the statutory recognition of electronic and digital evidence. The article further evaluates the first two years of implementation, drawing on government status reports, judicial pronouncements, and academic commentary to assess institutional preparedness, infrastructural constraints, and the emerging jurisprudence of the High Courts and the Supreme Court on transitional and retrospective questions. It concludes that while the new codes represent a genuine attempt at modernisation and victim-centric reform, their long-term success is contingent upon sustained investment in judicial and police capacity, harmonised interpretation across jurisdictions, and continued judicial vigilance in safeguarding constitutional guarantees during the transition.

RECENT SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENTS AND ORDERS ON THE CJP PROTESTS

Indian Judicial Forum — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:16:04 +0200

This article examines the Supreme Court of India’s recent intervention in litigation arising from the 2026 student protests associated with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), with particular attention to the Court’s orders of 28 July, 18 August and 1 September 2026 in Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India and connected proceedings. The litigation raises an unusually dense cluster of constitutional questions: the relationship between Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b); the State’s duty to maintain public order; limits on police crowd-control powers; the use of pellet guns, tear gas, lathis and other force; protection of minors; publication and retention of protesters’ personal data; and the exceptional remedial authority under Article 142. The paper situates the 2026 proceedings within the Supreme Court’s longer jurisprudence on protest, including Himmat Lal K. Shah, Ramlila Maidan Incident, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Anita Thakur and Amit Sahni (Shaheen Bagh). It also engages with recent legal scholarship on Shaheen Bagh, public order and legal mobilisation. The central argument is that the 2026 orders should not be read as creating an unqualified right to protest or as immunising violence. Rather, they deepen an emerging constitutional model in which peaceful dissent receives affirmative protection, State restrictions must remain connected to genuine public-order concerns, police force must be necessary and proportionate, protester data requires constitutional safeguards, and remedial relief may be calibrated to protect the future of young participants without extinguishing accountability for grave criminal conduct. The 18 August order is particularly significant because it constituted a High-Powered Enquiry Committee (HPEC) and identified issues extending beyond individual criminal liability: proportionality of force, use of metallic projectiles, visible identification of police personnel, surveillance, treatment of women protesters, compensation, blanket prohibitory orders, and possible misuse of Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The 1 September order then used Article 142 to quash protest-related FIRs and extend closure to other FIRs concerning the same July incidents, while retaining a carve-out concerning 2,873 persons identified by Delhi Police and directing a pan-India compensation policy for families affected by NEET-UG-related student suicides. The article concludes that the litigation may become a leading contemporary authority on the constitutional governance of protest in the digital-surveillance era, but that its lasting doctrinal value will depend on the HPEC’s findings and the Court’s eventual resolution of the pending constitutional questions.