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The Executive, Shubhankar Dam
The Executive, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
India has a parliamentary system. The President is the head of the Union of India; the Prime Minister is the head of government.1 Along with his or her cabinet, the Prime Minister is responsible to the Lower House of Parliament.2 States have similar arrangements. They are formally headed by Governors. But chief ministers and their cabinets lead the governments. Executive power, ordinarily, is exercised by the Prime Minister, chief ministers and their respective councils of ministers. However, in keeping with India’s Westminster inheritance, such power often vests in the formal heads, and is exercised in their names. This chapter offers …
Presidential Legislation In India: The Law And Practice Of Ordinances, Shubhankar Dam
Presidential Legislation In India: The Law And Practice Of Ordinances, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
India has a parliamentary system. Yet the president has authority to occasionally enact legislation (or ordinances) without involving parliament. This book is a study of ordinances at the national level in India, centred around three themes. First, it tells the story of how an artefact of British constitutional history, over time, became part of India’s legislative system. Second, it offers an empirical account of the ways in which presidents have resorted to ordinances in post-independence India. Third, the book analyses a range of ordinance-related questions, including some that are yet to be judicially adjudicated. In the process, the book explains …
Criminal Wrongs And Constitutional Rights: A View From India, Shubhankar Dam
Criminal Wrongs And Constitutional Rights: A View From India, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
This essay offers an overview of how ideas of constitutionalism, rule of law and fundamental rights contributed to the development of criminal law in India. Various courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, have summoned these broad constitutional concepts to understand, interpret and develop criminal law doctrines. But they are also drawing on these concepts to increasingly address “structural” issues of the criminal justice system - the very apparatus responsible for implementing the doctrines.
What Is Intermediate Legislative Power?, Shubhankar Dam
What Is Intermediate Legislative Power?, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
The President in India’s parliamentary system is authorized to promulgate legislation under Article 123.1 While such legislation, or ‘ordinances’, enjoy the same force and effect as Acts, they are distinct in some ways. First, ordinances lack legislative deliberation: the President promulgates them ‘except when both Houses of Parliament are in session’. Secondly, it depends on the President’s satisfaction that ‘circumstances exist that render it necessary for him to take immediate action’. And they are transient: ordinances cease to operate on the expiry of six weeks from the reassembly of Parliament unless withdrawn earlier or formally enacted into law. Ordinances, then, …
Public Law And Public Resources In India, Shubhankar Dam
Public Law And Public Resources In India, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
No abstract provided.
The Constitutional Right To Education In India: Horizontal Dimensions, Shubhankar Dam
The Constitutional Right To Education In India: Horizontal Dimensions, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
No abstract provided.
Can A Legislative Assembly Function Without An Executive Government Under The Indian Constitution?, Shubhankar Dam
Can A Legislative Assembly Function Without An Executive Government Under The Indian Constitution?, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
Can the Governor dissolve a Legislative Assembly under the Indian Constitution even before convening its first meeting on the ground that no party had adequate mandate to form the government? That was the question posed before the Supreme Court in Rameshwar Prasad. The Court held in the affirmative. For the Court, a Legislative Assembly can be brought into existence only when some members of the Legislature are in a position to form the Executive Government (the Cabinet). This short comment proposes an argument to the contrary. I argue that the Supreme Court's conclusion was made possible by a method of …
Parliamentary Privileges As Façade: Political Reforms And Constitutional Adjudication, Shubhankar Dam
Parliamentary Privileges As Façade: Political Reforms And Constitutional Adjudication, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
Does the Indian Parliament have the power to expel its members under the "powers, privileges and immunities" guaranteed by the Constitution? The Indian Supreme Court was confronted with the question in Raja Ram Pal v. Hon'ble Speaker, Lok Sabha and Others. Powers, privileges and immunities of the Indian Parliament are provided under Article 105. Supposedly based on an interpretation on Article 105(3), Sabharwal C.J., writing for the majority (Thakker J. concurring), concluded that Parliament did have the power to expel and that the same was subject to judicial review. Raveendran J. dissented. The particular privilege of the House of Commons, …
Situating The Core And Structure Of Experience In Constitutional Interpretation: Judicial Reasoning Under The Indian Constitution, Shubhankar Dam
Situating The Core And Structure Of Experience In Constitutional Interpretation: Judicial Reasoning Under The Indian Constitution, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
This article is about texts: texts of legal provisions and texts of judgments. How much does the text of a legal provision tell us about its meaning? How much does a judgment tell us about the reasons for any given meaning of the text? Rather than in the abstract, the article unfolds both these questions in the context of the Indian Constitution. More specifically, it unfolds the questions in the context of an issue of great constitutional importance the Indian Supreme Court was confronted with in B. R. Kapur v. State of Tamil Nadu and Another. Can a person convicted …
Unburdening The Constitution: What Has The Indian Constitution Got To Do With Private Universities, Modernity And Nation States?, Shubhankar Dam
Unburdening The Constitution: What Has The Indian Constitution Got To Do With Private Universities, Modernity And Nation States?, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
This article critically analyses the decision of the Indian Supreme Court in Yashpal and another v. State of Chhattisgarh and others holding the establishment of private universities as unconstitutional. Swayed by the overwhelmingly irresponsible character of the respondent universities, the Supreme Court innovated constitutional arguments to uphold the claims of the petitioners. While intuitively correct in the context of the immediate facts, the judgment, when analysed in the abstract, reveals the self-inflicted harm it has the potential to cause. The judgment is technologically regressive: it fails to account for the emerging trends in education, especially those related to the use …
Vineet Narain V Union Of India: A Court Of Law And Not Justice: Is The Indian Supreme Court Bound By The Indian Constitution, Shubhankar Dam
Vineet Narain V Union Of India: A Court Of Law And Not Justice: Is The Indian Supreme Court Bound By The Indian Constitution, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
The last twenty five years are an “impressive” chronicle of the Indian Supreme Court in action. Its novel functioning has changed the internal dynamics of Indian polity in a manner unknown to constitutional democracies. From an institution entrusted with the task of adjudicating disputes between parties, the Indian Supreme Court has transformed itself into an institution enjoined to promote the ideals of a socio-economic and political justice. Its prior role as an “adjudicator” has undergone a reappraisal. The judges therein are no more adjudicators but activists, energetically contributing to the accomplishment of India's constitutional vision. In this new creation, they …
Lawmaking Beyond Lawmakers: The Little Right And The Great Wrong, Shubhankar Dam
Lawmaking Beyond Lawmakers: The Little Right And The Great Wrong, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
No abstract provided.
Is Indian Democracy Dependent On A Statute?, Shubhankar Dam
Is Indian Democracy Dependent On A Statute?, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
What is the status of a right to vote in the Indian legal system? Is the right a constitutional/fundamental right? Or is it simply a statutory right? Contrary to the decisions of the Supreme Court in the last five decades, this paper argues that the right to vote is a constitutional right: its textual foundation may be located in Article 326. And, in this sense, the Supreme Court has erred in construing the right to vote as a statutory right under the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951. Interpreting the right to vote as a statutory right has larger implications for …
Green Laws For Better Health: The Past That Was And The Future That Maybe - Reflections From The Indian Experience, Shubhankar Dam
Green Laws For Better Health: The Past That Was And The Future That Maybe - Reflections From The Indian Experience, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
No abstract provided.
Strikes Through The Prism Of Duties: Is There A Fundamental Duty To Strike Under The Indian Constitution?, Shubhankar Dam
Strikes Through The Prism Of Duties: Is There A Fundamental Duty To Strike Under The Indian Constitution?, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
Much of the debates on the legality of strikes under the Indian Constitution has been on the issue of a right to strike. This paper argues that the constitutionality of strikes may be analysed through the prism of duties, i.e. fundamental duties under Part IVA of the Constitution. Strikes were an integral part of the ideals that inspired India's national struggle against imperialism. And, in this sense, when article 51A exhorts Indians to cherish and follow the noble ideals that inspired our freedom struggle, it includes a fundamental duty to strike. Invoking the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, the paper argues …