National Law School of India Review

Proud to share that, like every year, NLSIR hosted its annual symposium, this time for Volume 36(2), a special issue on free speech, democracy, and press freedom. Across three sessions and eight papers, we had conversations on free speech, caste, privacy, political deepfakes, protest regulation, and press freedom that pushed us to think harder and ask better questions. Grateful to all our authors, moderators, and everyone who joined us and engaged so thoughtfully. Volume 36(2) will be finalised by June/July, and we are excited to share it soon. #NLSIR #FreeSpeech #LawReview #NLSIU #ConstitutionalLaw

Reminder that this is happening tomorrow! We look forward to your participation :)

The National Law School of India Review is pleased to announce its online symposium for Volume 36(2), themed Free Speech, Democracy, and Press Freedom, to be held on 16 May 2026. The symposium brings together scholars, practitioners, and researchers to reflect on some of the most pressing questions surrounding free speech in contemporary India; from caste and humiliation, to colonial speech regulation, political deepfakes, obscenity law, protest, journalism, and privacy jurisprudence. The symposium will feature three thematic sessions: i. The Social Life of Free Speech With Dr. Anurag Bhaskar and Dr. Ashna Singh Moderated by Dr. Chandrabhan Yadav ii. Colonial Histories and Contemporary Contexts of Free Speech With Akriti Gaur, Dr. Anushka Singh, Abhinav Ravi, and Aravind Sundar Moderated by Dr. Siddharth Narrain iii. Free Speech and Democratic Rights With Manish, Aishwarya Ravikumar, and Vrinda Bhandari Moderated by Vijetha Ravi 📅 Date: 16 May 2026 💻 Mode: Online The symposium is open to students, faculty members, researchers, advocates, journalists, and all interested participants. 📌 RSVP here: [docs.google.com/forms/d/1phkIZ…](docs.google.com/forms/d/1phkIZ…) The registration form will remain open till Friday, 5 PM. The meeting link will be shared with registered participants. We look forward to your participation and to a meaningful set of conversations on free speech and democratic life!

In the sixth article of  our Special Issue, Abhinav Ravi and Aravind Sundar offer a Case Comment on one of the most consequential free speech rulings of recent years. In 'The Constitutional Case Against State-Controlled Fact-Checking: A Case Comment on Kunal Kamra v. Union of India', the authors analyse the Bombay High Court's decision striking down the IT Amendment Rules of 2023, which had established a centralised government fact-checking unit empowered to order the removal of social media content flagged as "fake or false or misleading." The authors argue, grounding their analysis in a political justification of free speech as constitutive of democratic governance, that a centralised state fact-checking mechanism is not merely constitutionally suspect but per se an illegitimate state function. The concepts of 'truth' and 'falsity', they contend, are intrinsically value-laden and interpretive, making state control over their determination fundamentally incompatible with free speech values enshrined in the Indian Constitution. Read the full Case Comment at the link in bio. The full issue is available open-access at the link in bio. #NLSIR #KunalKamra #FactChecking #ITRules #FreeSpeech #ConstitutionalLaw #DigitalRights #BombayHighCourt #OpenAccess

In the fifth  article of our Special Issue, Ashna Singh (National Law School of India University) turns to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 — the only Indian law that explicitly recognises caste-based hate speech as an offence. In 'Lowering of the Lowered: The "Spectacular" Construction of "Humiliation" in the Indian Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989', Singh examines how courts have interpreted the Act's 'public view' requirement under Section 3(1)(r). Drawing on socio-political scholarship on humiliation, she argues that judicial interpretation has created an extra-legislative requirement of 'spectacularity' , reading caste-based harm only through the lens of visible, overt, and collective atrocity, while obscuring more covert and intimate forms of caste injury. This approach, Singh argues, fails the very people the Act was designed to protect: the harm of humiliating speech lies not only in public degradation, but in being made to feel diminished in one's own eyes. Read the full article at the link in bio. #NLSIR #SCSTAct #CasteDiscrimination #HateSpeech #Humiliation #ConstitutionalLaw #CasteAndLaw #IndianLaw #HumanRights

In the fourth of our Special Issue, Anushka Singh (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi) scrutinises India's newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and its implications for political speech. In 'Regression Dressed as Reform: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Shifting Contours of Political Speech', Singh advances three arguments. First, the decolonising narrative behind the deletion of the sedition provision obscures substantive continuities with colonial-era law,  Section 152 BNS refashions rather than removes those structures. Second, the new provision borrows heavily from the UAPA while abandoning the contextual limits that might have enabled a narrower reading of speech offences. Third, through a theoretical examination of speech crimes, Singh argues that the new framework lowers the threshold for criminal liability by presuming uniform harm from political expression — even where causal links to actual harm remain tenuous. The article concludes that India's legal framework has moved toward a 'sovereignty clause' that treats political speech as inherently dangerous,  a regression, not a reform. Read the full article at the link in bio. #NLSIR #BNS #Sedition #PoliticalSpeech #UAPA #ConstitutionalLaw #CriminalLaw #FreeSpeech #IndiaLaw

In the third article of our Special Issue, Manish examines the growing threat that national security law poses to press freedom in India. In 'Protecting Journalism from National Security in Contemporary India', Manish argues that in the absence of statutory protection for the press, the deployment of anti-terror laws against journalists investigating alleged state lapses has become a key instrument of executive dominance, compounded by the Supreme Court's historically minimalist deference to national security claims. The article makes the case that no major doctrinal shift is needed: the Court's own early free speech jurisprudence can be used to narrowly tailor the 'security of the state' exception under Article 19(2) to ensure robust protection for journalists. Manish reads recent decisions such as Anuradha Bhasin and Madhyamam Broadcasting as cautious but meaningful steps toward a proportionality-based review of national security invocations against the media. Read the full article at the link in bio. #NLSIR #PressFreedom #Journalism #NationalSecurity #Article19 #IndianConstitution #FreePress #ConstitutionalLaw

In the second article of our Special Issue, Vrinda Bhandari and Rishab Bailey offer a rigorous empirical assessment of the Supreme Court's landmark privacy judgment, seven years on. In 'Evolution of Privacy Jurisprudence in the Supreme Court of India: Evaluating the Impact of Puttaswamy', the authors examine 53 Supreme Court judgments decided between 2017 and early 2023 to assess how K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India has actually been applied, not merely cited, in subsequent decisions. While Puttaswamy is widely regarded as transformative in recognising privacy as a fundamental right linked to dignity, autonomy, and bodily integrity, the authors find that its constitutional promise has been realised unevenly: significant in some domains, limited in others, and still deeply uncertain in many. Their analysis covers privacy claims in interpersonal relationships, state action, the interface between privacy and the right to information, proportionality review, and constitutional interpretation mapping both what Puttaswamy has changed and what remains unresolved in Indian constitutional law. Read the full article at the link in bio. #NLSIR #Puttaswamy #PrivacyLaw #SupremeCourt #ConstitutionalLaw #FundamentalRights #EmpiricalLegalStudies #IndianLaw

In the first article of our Special Issue, Anurag Bhaskar (Jindal Global Law School) advances an anti-caste perspective on freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution. In 'The Social Life of Free Speech: Who Gets to Speak and Express?', Bhaskar argues that free speech cannot be understood as a purely individual right against the State, it is a socially embedded phenomenon shaped by historical inequalities and prevailing power structures. The article maps four categories of barriers that prevent oppressed-caste communities from freely exercising their speech: social policing and stigmatisation; physical violence and social boycotts; legal restrictions that suppress anti-caste voices; and epistemic barriers reinforced by academia and media. Drawing on anti-caste literature, art, and social movements, Bhaskar calls for a paradigm shift in Indian constitutional law, one that locates free speech within the broader struggle for liberty, equality, fraternity, dignity, and democratic inclusion. Read the full article at the link in bio. #NLSIR #FreeSpeech #Article19 #ConstitutionalLaw #IndianConstitution #CasteAndLaw #LegalScholarship

We are pleased to announce the release of NLSIR Volume 36, Issue 2 (2025) — a Special Issue on Democracy, Free Expression, and Press Censorship. At a moment when the boundaries of permissible speech are being contested across courtrooms, legislatures, and public squares, this issue brings together five articles and a case comment that interrogate the foundations, limits, and lived realities of free expression in India. From caste and the right to speak, to national security and the press, to the criminalisation of political dissent and the architecture of fact-checking, our contributors engage with some of the most urgent constitutional questions of our time. We are grateful to our authors, editorial board, and reviewers for making this issue possible. Read, engage, and share widely. Link in bio. #NLSIR #FreeExpression #PressFreedom #ConstitutionalLaw #Democracy #IndianConstitution #LawReview #NLSBengaluru #LegalScholarship #OpenAccess

NLSIR is delighted to have hosted a Panel Discussion on 13 April 2026 on the Supreme Court's landmark judgment in Tiger Global which has fundamentally reshaped the landscape of international tax law in India. The discussion brought together a distinguished panel to unpack the tensions at the heart of the judgment: from the conclusiveness of Tax Residency Certificates and the conditions under which treaty benefits can be claimed, to the scope of GAAR, the parallel operation of judicial anti-avoidance rules, and the contentious observations on indirect transfer provisions and unilateral override of DTAAs. The conversation was led by Ms. Bijal Ajinkya (Partner, Khaitan & Co) and Mr. Anuraag Bukkapatnam (Associate, Khaitan & Co ), and was moderated by Dr. Ashrita Prasad Kotha (Associate Professor of Law, National Law School of India University). We are grateful to our speakers for a rich and nuanced discussion on one of the most consequential tax rulings of recent years. @KhaitanCo #NLSIR #TigerGlobal #TaxLaw #InternationalTax #SupremeCourt #GAAR #DTAA #NLS #PanelDiscussion #KhaitanAndCo

Deepika MG’s article, latest in the Beyond the Gig Special Series, argues that India’s gig economy exhibits clear features of market failure—such as information asymmetry, monopsony power, and lack of social protection—leading to inefficient and inequitable outcomes for workers. It critiques existing regulatory frameworks, especially labour codes, for treating gig workers as part of the unorganised sector and limiting protections largely to welfare schemes. Read the piece through the link in our bio!

In the latest #BeyondTheGig piece for NLSIR, Sumukhi Subramanian explores how gig platforms in India leverage "algorithmic lock-in" to dominate labor markets. From oligopsonistic power to the gaps in the Draft Digital Competition Bill, this is a must-read on why our current laws might be missing the bigger picture of worker mobility. Read the piece through the link in our bio!

The gig economy promises flexibility, but reproduces inequality. In the first piece of 'Beyond the Gig,' Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi map the critical gender gaps in platform work and chart a policy path forward. Read now via the link in bio!

Gig workers keep India moving, but the law is still catching up. With 4 new labour codes now in force, NLSIR Online launches 'Beyond the Gig: Reimagining Work in the Platform Age' - interrogating the gaps, the failures, and the way forward. Stay tuned. (Image credits - Frontline, The Times of India, and The Hindu)

This piece critiques the marital rape exception in Indian law, and argues that this colonial-era loophole survives despite modern constitutional protections for bodily autonomy and dignity. Beyond criminal statutes, the source identifies a sex-consent matrix in family law that views marriage as a site of sexual entitlement rather than a relationship of equals. Consequently, the authors advocate for a dual reform approach that involves striking down the legal exception and restructuring marriage laws to prioritize continuous consent.

In the latest post on NLSIR Online @JwalikaBalaji and @prakhar_mandar write about "Challenging the Marital-Consent Fiction: India's Fragmented Response to the Marital Rape Exception" forum.nls.ac.in/nlsir-online-b…

NLSIR is delighted to host a Book Talk on A Historical Introduction to Indian Contract Law (Routledge) by Dr. Shivprasad Swaminathan, Dean, Shiv Nadar School of Law. He will be joined by Prof. (Dr.) Nigam Nuggehalli (Registrar-in-Charge & Professor of Law, NLSIU) and Mr. Mihir Naniwadekar (Advocate, Supreme Court of India & Bombay High Court), with the discussion moderated by Mr. Kaustav Saha (Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU). 📍 New Academic Block (NAB) 101, NLS Campus 🗓 4 March 2026 | ⏰ 5:00 PM The conversation will explore foundational questions in contract law, including privity, undue influence, unjust enrichment, damages, and stipulated sums.