A Law Student's Contention

Picture Courtesy: Patrika The announcement made by the Home Minister on the floor of Rajya Sabha regarding Article 370 was immediately followed by a torrent of information (much of which was misinformation) which provided little clarity and gave rise to a number of misconceptions. For instance, in the heading of this write-up, there is one such fallacy which too had its inception in furore and frenzy I am talking about. That is the abrogation of Article 370 . Because Article 370 has neither been repealed nor abrogated and it is in its perfect shape. Rather, the government has instead superseded the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954 (Presidential Order of 1954) with the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019 (Presidential Order of 2019) to take away the special status of J&K. The relevance of the Presidential Order of 1954 To understand it better, think of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution as the skeleton of the

Image source: rajyasabha.nic.in On the pivotal day of April 3 rd in 1952, Rajya Sabha was constituted for the first time and ever since the day has been commemorated as Rajya Sabha Day. This year has bee n no different with politicians and constitutional functionaries reminding the nation of the importance of Council of States. What is different this year was that the Attorney General, a day before, was arguing before the Supreme Court that  Finance Act, 2017 has been rightly passed as a Money Bill.  The manner of passage of the Bill in 2017 led to sharp criticism against the government. Commentators went on to accuse the government of turning the constitution on its head to evade Rajya Sabha's scrutiny. To understand the scenario wholly, the position of Money Bill vis-à-vis Rajya Sabha has to be understood first. Under the conventional setup, for any Bill to become an Act, it has to pass through both the Houses of Parliament. In our parliamentary setup, Rajya Sa

Image Courtesy- TeePublic If a close analysis is undertaken of all superhero movies, then a common denominator underlying all plots will be discovered. Every superhero tale has a moral dimension, but it is quintessentially limited to the protagonist. That is to say, the superhero alone has the might of the right with him. Invariably accompanying him is the badness of the villain. Badness in the sense, the values that he stands for and things he fights for. This element is indispensable because goodness is relative. You need to give something worse to the viewer, to which he can compare the alleged good part and arrive at the conclusion which storyteller wants to sell; the superhero was indeed good! This is the cliché tale of every superhero movie and Marvel Entertainment has been no different about it. Start watching Marvel Universe movies starting from Iron Man (2008), Captain America, Thor, Avengers, and all their sequels and you will possibly get my point. But in Avenger

Image Credit: India Today The weather is tense in the political sphere with general elections just months away, also as the momentum builds up the tension is anyway going to rise. In such times of crisis, when the government is facing allegations for wrongfully benefitting an industrialist in a defense deal, analyzing the policy of the government on merit is like pushing oneself towards the vortex of the hurricane as it always entails the danger of being labeled as ‘ bhakta’. But then, of course, such things can always be skirted away from by using sheer objectivity keeping out personal biases, or so any rational mind would believe. This article does not pass any value judgment on capitalism or socialism but highlights the inconsistency in the saying and doing of present government which promised ‘minimum government, maximum governance’, and has been awarded the title of ‘soot boot ki sarkar’. Though our country adopted the policy of ‘liberalization, privatization, and gl

The hearing in the matter related to the entry of the women in Sabarimala Temple is in full swing before the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. Looking at the mood of the court and the past track record, most probable outcome is that that this ancient ‘patriarchal’ practice of exclusion of women between the age of 10 to 50 years will be wiped from the canvas of the history as petitions against such age-old practices are admitted only after Justices are determined to restore the balance into the society by obliterating such unconstitutional and discriminatory practices which often trembles their soul. No one can argue the fact this practice which has been practiced since times immemorial discriminates between men and women. The controversy is that before entering Sabarimala Temple a 41-day penance/ tapasya is to be observed and it is believed that only after enduring these harsh conditions for 41 days continuously, one can feel the splendor of god Ayyappan. This ‘ tapas

A switch was made to democracy from monarchy when kings abandoned the divine duty of serving the people. Without this duty, only the structure of monarch remained as residue, a form without its soul. It was then that broad masses rose up in rebellion to clear away this purposeless post of 'king' and established the aesthetic edifice of Democracy. This process of conclusion of king’s dynasties is not a standalone example, whenever the spirit of the idea has been abandoned such processes have ensued to restore the essence of public service in the leaders by establishing a more efficient system. It may be argued that what happened with King’s in the past is also happening in with the contemporary democratically elected leaders i.e. democracy has lost its essence and its aim of serving the people. Democracy today has become a cliché and is taken synonymous with elections, as soon as elections are concluded the elected representative leaders are nowhere to be found betraying T

Photo Courtesy: The Quint There is a prevailing notion in the society that Judges are people belonging to the elite class of the society and are persons of academic significance divorced from the reality of the society as is often accused by the Executive wing too. The view is not far from reality and is based on logical and reasonable grounds. When just to lay down that ‘Right to Privacy’ is a fundamental right and is an integral part of Article 21, the learned Judges had to write 547 pages of sheer philosophy! not much is left to say against the ‘Academic Judges’ view. These people babble about the idea of justice and liberty as if they are themselves the incarnation of goddess Justitia. The problem is not with their babbling but with their conduct when their own interests are at stake. How they abandon these ideas and make them orphan. Some examples of Judges who after breaking up from reality and practicality also divorced from their ideas about which they bragged about