Jai Brunner

Alumni

Jai Brunner is now an Assistant Professor at the National Law School, Bangalore. After his time at CLPR, he pursued an LLM from the University of Cambridge, where he received the Singhvi Trinity Scholarship.

At NLS, Jai teaches Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence. His research interests lie in applying principles from legal theory to make sense of the Indian Supreme Court’s judgments.

Blog

Limits on reservation?

July 24, 2020

Last week, the Supreme Court resumed hearing the Maratha Reservation case. Justice Nageswara Rao’s three-judge Bench is deciding whether Maharashtra can extend reservations in education and public employment to the Maratha community. As Sr. Adv. Arvind Datar stressed in the last hearing, the central issue revolves around the 50% ceiling on reservations set by the Supreme Court back in 1992 in Indra Sawhney. Was Maharashtra justified in surpassing the ceiling by over 20%?

Mitigating against the Death Penalty

April 27, 2020

In 2019, the Court developed important new guidelines for ensuring fair trials and sentencing in death penalty cases. In ‘Anokhilal’, the Court was grappling with whether the accused had adequate legal representation during his original trial. In ‘Accused X’, the Court was deciding whether to overturn a death sentence on the ground that the accused suffered from post-conviction mental illness.

Sex and gender stereotypes in the Armed Forces

March 2, 2020

On 17 February, the Supreme Court guaranteed women in the Armed Forces (AF) the right to permanent commission (PC) in ‘The Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya’. Upholding a 2010 Delhi High Court judgment, the Court held that the State should provide equal opportunities to both women and men for lifelong service in the Armed Forces. Does the judgment carry any significance beyond the sphere of the Armed Forces?