The Leaflet

LEADER OF OPPOSITION in the Rajya Sabha and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge expressed his deep anguish on August 13, two days before the 80th Independence Day celebrations, that he was made to “feel the sting of untouchability.” These painful utterances were made by him after a “purification” ritual was performed allegedly by some BJP people at the venue in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani where he addressed a public meeting on August 8.

The first part of the essay series can be read here. A Tribunal in Search of Legitimacy THE CONCERNS surrounding the Sheikh Hasina proceedings cannot be examined in isolation from the institutional history of the International Crimes Tribunal. The Tribunal’s repeated brushes with questions of judicial independence, procedural fairness and political influence have created a credibility deficit that now bears directly upon the Hasina prosecution.

THE SUPREME COURT today declined to review the core reasoning of its May 2025 judgment mandating prior legal practice for entry into judicial service, but substantially eased the requirement itself. It replaced the three-year practice mandate with a one-year requirement, to be followed by a year of institutional training and another year of structured clerkship. A Bench of Chief Justice of India (‘CJI’) Surya Kant, Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice K.

Justice K. Chandru is a retired judge of the Madras High Court

THE SUPREME COURT has constituted a High-Powered Committee (‘HPC’) headed by former Supreme Court judge R. Subhash Reddy to inquire into the allegations of use of excessive force and violence by Delhi Police against the protesting students at Jantar Mantar last month.

THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT, 2005 (‘PWDVA’) has crossed two decades and it is time to evaluate the effect of the Act. The Supreme Court in its judgment in Salem Advocate Bar Association (2005) referred to the suggestion made by the Constitution Review Committee with regard to analysing the judicial impact of a legislation and also gave a consequential direction in respect of the two legislations for which extensive amendments were made by the Union of India.

This is the first of a two-part series raising substantial concerns regarding whether Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal, which convicted and sentenced Sheikh Hasina to death, has complied with internationally recognised fair trial standards. “I may be killed. I may be arrested. I may be sent to prison… I am fully aware of my fate.

THE SUPREME COURT today continued hearing Abeda Salim Tadvi v. Union of India, with Solicitor General Tushar Mehta telling the Bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana that the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 remain under reconsideration by the Centre.

TODAY THE NINE-JUDGE BENCH, while deciding the reference concerning the interpretation of industry, under Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, by 5:4 majority recognised that while the essential framework of the triple test laid down in Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board v. R. Rajappa (1978) stood the test of time, certain aspects of the triple test and the accompanying guidelines were capable of further refinement.

FOR SEVERAL DECADES, software protection has rested on a fairly stable premise: source code is where the value lives, and copyright doctrine, by protecting expression while leaving function in the public domain, strikes a workable balance between rewarding creators and preserving competitive freedom.