The Leaflet

SOME OF INDIA’S most consequential health reforms have been led not by doctors, but by lawyers. When Novartis sought a patent over Glivec, the life-saving drug used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia, it was lawyer Anand Grover, representing the Cancer Patients Aid Association, a Mumbai-based cancer advocacy NGO, who successfully challenged the patent before the Supreme Court.

Curator’s Note: This month, we publish the account of a survivor. There are many survivors, but few who are willing to write or speak about their experiences. For that, we are grateful. The PWDVA was itself shaped by the experiences of survivors and women litigants, and these contributions may have a role in informing the agenda going forward. If others would like to send in short pieces about their own experiences, we would be glad to include them in our living archive.

TWO MONTHS AGO, a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in JLT Energy 9 SAS v. Hindustan Clean Energy Limited & Ors. (2026), affirmed the sanctity of long stop dates in Mergers & Acquisitions (‘M&A’) agreements as ‘self-collapsing’ mechanisms, such that if conditions precedent in a share/security purchase agreement are not met or waived by the other party, the agreement stands terminated. The Division Bench confirmed the decision of the Single Judge in O.M.P.(I) (COMM.) 464/2025.

AT A CONVERSATION organised by The Leaflet in December 2024, Justice Gautam Patel asked Professor Upendra Baxi what three things a citizen wants from a judge in the Indian judiciary. Baxi’s answer was simple, “Spine, Spine, Spine!” It is this quality that Professor Amita Dhanda sets out to trace in her biography of Justice M.N. Rao, a man who over the course of his career assumed the varied roles of a Judge, Law Secretary, Senior Advocate, and the Chairperson of the Backward Class Commission.

ON JUNE 23, the Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, before a bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi, argued that linking the Special Intensive Revision (‘SIR’) exercise to food security schemes risked deactivating the ration cards of between 35 lakh to 60 lakh people in the state of West Bengal. The plea challenged the state government orders that linked welfare benefits to exclusions from electoral rolls.

THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (‘ICJ’) rendered its advisory opinion on Right to Strike under ILO Convention No. 87 on May 21, 2026. The Court, by ten votes to four, observed that “the right to strike of workers and their organisations is protected under the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87).” Legally, the opinion augments the right to strike to the status of a human right and customary international law.

ON JUNE 3, 2026, the Supreme Court of India’s Artificial Intelligence Committee released, about thirty-odd pages long, Draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026 (‘Draft Regulations’). These Draft Regulations mark the first in India’s history where the Supreme Court attempts to set rules governing the operation of artificial intelligence (AI) within Indian Courts.

THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA’SDraft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026 (‘Draft Regulations’) are based on five principles: human primacy, transparency, accountability, data protection, and judicial independence.

TWO MONTHS AGO, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 received presidential assent, as it dismantled a decade of hard-won legal recognition for transgender persons in India.

IN AN ELEVEN-PAGE ORDER, the Delhi High Court issued broad directions to takedown the media reports, videos, and social media posts that depicted the participation of the Chief Justice of India (‘CJI’), sitting judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, and Union Ministers in the 2nd International Bar & Bench Badminton Championship held in London on June 7, 2026. A report on the proceedings before Justice Tejas Karia was covered by The Leaflet on June 19. The full report can be read here.