The foundation of a free, fair, and inclusive electoral system in India is a reliable electoral roll. The continued presence of deceased persons, duplicate entries, or other ineligible persons on electoral rolls may affect the integrity of elections. On the other hand, if the names of eligible citizens are erroneously deleted during the process of purification of electoral rolls due to faulty verification, documentary discrepancies, inadequate notice, or ineffective grievance redressal, citizens’ democratic participation may be adversely affected. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is an important example of this dual challenge. The present research paper examines the powers, procedural obligations, and voter rights of the Election Commission under Articles 324, 326, and 329 of the Constitution of India, the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The empirical basis of this study comprises the SIR conducted in Bihar in 2025 and the revision process and related judicial proceedings conducted in West Bengal during 2025–2026. According to official data published by the Election Commission and the Government of India, approximately 7.89 crore electors were registered in Bihar on 24 June 2025, whereas approximately 7.24 crore electors were included in the draft electoral roll published on 1 August 2025. The final electoral roll published on 30 September 2025 recorded approximately 7.42 crore electors. In West Bengal, 7,66,37,529 electors were registered as of 27 October 2025, whereas the draft electoral roll published on 16 December 2025 recorded 7,08,16,630 electors. The press release issued by the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal on 28 February 2026 reported a total of 6,44,52,609 electors in the final roll. The differences among these figures must be understood in the context of the respective stages of revision, claims, objections, and cases pending adjudication. The validity of the Bihar SIR was upheld by the Supreme Court on 27 May 2026 in Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India. In West Bengal, by contrast, separate judicial and administrative questions emerged concerning the implementation of the process, the large number of cases pending adjudication, the workload of appellate tribunals, and the functionality of the digital portal. According to reports published in September 2026 concerning information submitted by the Election Commission to the Supreme Court, approximately 38.20 lakh appeals relating to the West Bengal SIR had been filed, of which approximately 1.02 lakh had been disposed of. Reports published in October 2026 also indicated that certain tribunals had raised concerns regarding the issuance of notices, the conduct of hearings, and the restoration of names due to difficulties associated with the digital portal. Throughout this administrative process, and during the functioning of the Election Commission under the leadership of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, a prominent debate also emerged concerning the relationship between the Commission’s decisions and the alleged political interests and support of the current Modi Government at the Centre. Opposition leaders and parties—including Rahul Gandhi, Sanjay Singh, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, and the Kakroach Janata Party (KJP)—staged strong protests against these revision exercises and levelled serious allegations that the Election Commission was working in favour of the ruling party. In contrast, the Modi Government at the Centre and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) openly defended Gyanesh Kumar and the actions of the Election Commission, describing the exercise as a necessary measure to ensure electoral integrity. At the same time, a substantial section of the media, commonly referred to in public discourse as “Godi Media,” consistently adopted a position justifying and defending the actions of the Government and the Election Commission amid these controversies. The research examines these developments on the basis of official records of the Election Commission, judicial orders, political responses, and credible reports, classifying them according to different levels of evidentiary reliability. The central argument of the study is that electoral roll accuracy and the inclusion of eligible citizens are not mutually contradictory objectives. Achieving both requires transparent procedures, reliable verification, reasoned decisions, time-bound appeals, independent review, and publicly verifiable data.
The Governor's power over State Bills under Articles 200 and 201 of the Constitution of India has become one of the most contested sites of Indian federalism. In State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu (2025), a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court read timelines into Article 200 and, invoking Article 142, declared ten Bills to have received deemed assent. Months later, a five-judge Bench answering a Presidential Reference under Article 143 rejected both judicially fixed timelines and deemed assent. It held that the Governor has only three options, may exercise discretion in choosing among them, and is answerable only to a 'limited mandamus' for prolonged, unexplained and indefinite inaction. This article argues that the Reference, read carefully, does not restore unfettered gubernatorial discretion. By foreclosing the pocket veto and confirming that inaction is justiciable, it accepts the premise that the Governor's power is held in trust for the constitutional scheme. Drawing on constitutional morality, the federal structure recognised in S.R. Bommai, and the Constituent Assembly's understanding of the office, the article proposes a framework of 'duty-bound discretion' resting on four obligations: to decide, to give reasons, to act in good faith, and to act within reasonable time. It contends that this framework fills the space the Reference left open, gives content to the undefined limited mandamus, and points towards institutional reform, including a constitutional amendment prescribing outer time limits, as the legitimate path to the certainty the Court declined to supply.
The growing use of digital platforms has made the collection and processing of personal data a part of everyday life. While consent is often treated as the primary means of protecting individual privacy, the reality is more complicated. Lengthy privacy policies, limited alternatives and unequal bargaining power can make it difficult for individuals to understand what they are agreeing to or to exercise genuine control over their personal information. This article examines the consent framework under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, in light of the constitutional recognition of privacy by the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India. It argues that consent remains important but cannot, on its own, provide adequate protection in a digital environment where individuals may lack the information or practical freedom needed to make informed choices. The article therefore emphasises the need for clear privacy notices, responsible data processing, accessible grievance redressal and stronger institutional accountability. It concludes that meaningful data protection requires more than obtaining an individual's agreement; it requires a framework in which organisations are held responsible for how personal data is collected, used and protected.
India's 2025 Standard Operating Procedure for non-consensual intimate imagery directs significant social media intermediaries to detect recurring content through hashes and, where onboarded, to communicate collated hashes to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre. The February 2026 amendment reduces the complaint-based removal period to two hours, while Rule 3(1)(g) separately requires preservation of removed information and associated records for 180 days. These measures create a discrete evidentiary problem. A content match may justify renewed removal yet provides no standalone account of the particular upload, the responsible account or the system that produced an evidentiary output. Through doctrinal analysis of the IT Rules, the 2025 NCII SOP, the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam and the decisions in X v Union of India and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar, this article identifies a provenance gap between the reusable detection fingerprint and the individual dissemination incident. It proposes a two-record protocol linking a restricted prevention identifier to a separately preserved, event-specific record of each removal, with source-system information, integrity data and a lawful export pathway supporting Section 63 certification. The analysis distinguishes existing duties from proposed implementation specifications and confines its claims to what public legal materials establish. The resulting approach maintains rapid protection while preventing evidence of similarity from being mistaken for proof of personal attribution.
Greenwashing occurs when financial products, companies, or institutions make misleading claims about their environmental sustainability. As more capital flows into assets labelled "sustainable," misleading claims have been sending that money to the wrong places, which reduces investor trust and weakens the climate goals that sustainable finance is meant to support. This article examines whether international treaties can effectively prevent false sustainability claims. It argues that the existing treaties, led by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, set general duties for the states on the matter relating to climate action and transparency. However, these treaties do not establish direct rules for private financial entities. Therefore, the treaties work indirectly through national laws, regional regulations, and soft-law standards such as the IFRS sustainability disclosure standards and the guidance of the International Organization of Securities Commissions. By analysing legal aspects and comparing enforcement in the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, the article highlights three key issues: There is no universally accepted definition of sustainable finance, enforcement varies across countries and remains inconsistent, and cooperation between regulators across borders is limited. It concludes that a new global treaty on this issue is unlikely in the near term. A more realistic approach is to build on existing treaty principles by recognizing each other's disclosure standards, strengthening regulator cooperation, and applying the international legal duties of due diligence and good faith.
The prostitution is not just current fire but it emerged from our historical roots. Prostitution is not just about sexual activity but activating the exponent of humiliation, mental cruelty and lowered self esteem. Irrespective of its negatives, it's thriving faster than the speed of light. The Human Trafficking Act claims to protect women from being trafficked, but are women safe enough? Is the act implemented with the right direction? The response of this question lies with the practices going under the noses of legislators, judiciary and law protectors. The researcher requests to consider sex workers under the category of profession marking how it is thriving in metropolitan cities. The researcher carries out the study about Sonagachi, an area infamous for the trade of girls for prostitution. The researcher in this manuscript pleads to make provisions for protection of sex workers and fights to grant them rights and protection. Legalisation of prostitution is a necessary evil as it will support the de-stigmatisation of sex workers in the future of India which will safeguard the dignity of women from sexual crimes.
