Access to justice is a constitutional commitment that extends beyond the formal availability of courts and legal remedies. In India, Article 39A of the Constitution requires the State to secure equal justice and provide free legal aid so that opportunities for securing justice are not denied because of economic or other disabilities. The enactment of the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987 institutionalised this commitment through the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), State Legal Services Authorities, District Legal Services Authorities and Taluk Legal Services Committees. However, the expansion of institutional mechanisms does not necessarily establish that legal aid has translated into substantive justice. This paper empirically assesses the performance and limitations of India's legal-services framework through secondary analysis of official data published by NALSA for 2024–25 and 2025–26, including beneficiary statistics, legal-awareness programmes and Lok Adalat outcomes. The study finds significant institutional reach, with more than 1.65 million persons receiving legal services in 2024–25 and more than 2 million in 2025–26. Legal-awareness initiatives also reached over 37.2 million persons in 2024–25[1]. And data collected by the researcher shows considerable inter-state variation and continuing concentration of beneficiaries among particular vulnerable groups. And the researcher is of the view point that we can not take numerical expansion as the expression of substantive access to justice. For effective and actual legal empowerment we need competent representation, timely intervention, institutional accountability and meaningful participation of beneficiaries.
[1] National Legal Services Authority, ‘Awareness Camps/Programmes, April 2024 to March 2025’ (NALSA 2025).
Reproductive violence often manifests in forms that leave no visible scars, yet its psychological consequences are profound and enduring. This paper examines the notion of “invisible injuries” arising from coercive and abusive practices that undermine reproductive autonomy, including forced pregnancy, denial of contraception or abortion, and reproductive control within intimate relationships. While legal discourse has traditionally focused on physical harm, the psychological dimensions of such violations remain inadequately addressed. The study argues that reproductive violence produces deep emotional and cognitive impacts, including trauma, chronic anxiety, depression, and diminished sense of self-worth. These harms are exacerbated by social stigma, lack of institutional support, and barriers to accessing mental health care. By situating reproductive violence within both public health and human rights frameworks, the paper highlights the need to recognise psychological injury as a central component of legal harm. Further, the paper critically evaluates existing legal protections and judicial approaches, noting their limited engagement with non-physical forms of suffering. It calls for a more nuanced understanding of harm that integrates mental health considerations into legal standards, evidentiary practices, and remedies. Special attention is given to the experiences of vulnerable populations, for whom structural inequalities intensify both exposure to violence and its psychological aftermath. The paper concludes that addressing invisible injuries requires a shift in legal and policy approaches—one that acknowledges reproductive violence as a multifaceted harm affecting both body and mind. Strengthening trauma-informed legal processes and expanding access to psychological support are essential steps towards meaningful justice and protection.
This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the conceptual, historical, and procedural frameworks Examining the basis of the right to a clean and healthy environment helps in an increased understanding of the nature of the right which in turn will further the job of devising effective strategies and policies to meet the interests of the environment and make the right a reality. This paper examines four strategies: Firstly protect environment rights by declaring it to be a right. This would protect it from mutilation at the hands of political processes, and thus would be a safer option, but its dimensions have not yet been crystallized. Secondly, it can be protected by making it part and parcel of human rights. Thirdly, the Interest Theory suggests that the interest of the environment must be protected for its own sake by creating such an interest. Fourthly, the notion of Intergenerational Responsibility which establishes that the present generation has an obligation/duty to preserve and protect the environment for a correlative similar right which the future generation enjoys. The article also examines the conflict between environment protection and developmental needs of humanity. Indian courts have referred to traditional Indian philosophy of ‘Dharma’ and have tried to adopt a balancing approach by integrating environment values with developmental values. Any theory that does not resolve the above conflict would clearly be insufficient.
The rapid expansion of online real-money gaming in India has generated a sharp constitutional collision between the State’s power to prohibit activities harmful to public health, order and morality, and residual claims of economic liberty under Article 19(1)(g) and personal autonomy under Article 21. This paper examines that collision after two decisive 2025–26 developments: the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, which imposes a pan-India prohibition on all “online money games” irrespective of skill or chance, and the Supreme Court’s judgment in State of Tamil Nadu v. Junglee Games India Pvt. Ltd., which held that the introduction of monetary stakes converts an activity into betting and gambling under Entry 34 of List II, renders it res extra commercium, and strips it of Article 19(1)(g) protection. The paper argues that the legislative and judicial displacement of the classical skill–chance distinction, anchored in R.M.D. Chamarbaugwala (1957) and subsequent High Court jurisprudence, has produced a uniform prohibition of unprecedented breadth. It examines three interlocking tensions: federal competence arising from Parliament’s occupation of a traditionally State field; proportionality and arbitrariness challenges under Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) now pending in Head Digital Works Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India; and the normative implications of characterising every smartphone as a “virtual common gambling house.” While the regulatory response rests on legitimate and documented concerns of addiction, financial ruin and money-laundering, its categorical character leaves unresolved questions of overbreadth, legislative competence and the outer limits of economic liberty in the digital economy.
The principal of non-refoulment is a key principle under international human rights and proposes for non-deportation of any individual where they might face inhumane treatment or irreparable harm. The migrants in such situations undergo a triple syndrome wherein they are vulnerable and are at risk of facing harm from their native country, non-state entities faced while escaping native country and harm face in destination country. While some nations around the world have adopted this principle, most nations fear that providing refuge to immigrants might lead to breach in their national security. While that may be a valid concern, most nations use this threat as a way of avoiding the infiltration of immigrants in their nation’s population or choose to discriminate between immigrants from different countries based on their nationality, religion, race, etc. The author has delved into the harm faced by immigrants, international frameworks against the same and the security paradigm set up by countries to move their own political agenda. The author has analysed the paper from both a global and an Indian perspective and has further analysed the Indian government and judiciary’s difference of treatment to Rohingyas from Myanmar and refugees fleeing from Afghanistan and has provided for factors involved in formation of a uniform security paradigm.
With the change of societal structure , a new concept has emerged that can be called as LIVE -IN -RELATIONSHIP . Although this concept is prevalent in western countries. But in regard to INDIA it has emerged so my article is related to maintenance in criminal law with special women who LIVE-IN -RELATIONSHIPS . Firstly I have discussed some historical aspects of women and then the general meaning of the term maintenance. Later on provide a certain brief of the criminal code and grounds for refusal to grant maintenance . In criminal law the term married is used so my article is focused on the position of women in LIVE -IN - RELATIONSHIP. And further discussed whether the provision of maintenance in regard with live-in relationship and judicial interpretation in determining the position of women in live -in -relationship , further discussed some landmark cases which provide the scope to live -in -relationship in India. and the lastly discussed about the overview position of women in regard to maintenance in india
