Jai Brunner

Alumni

Jai Brunner received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 2016. His focus areas were Political Philosophy and Ethics. He graduated with General Honors.

Previously, he worked as an Academic Advisor for Crimson Education. He developed a service curriculum for secondary school students applying to US and UK universities.

His interests lie in social contract theory, constitutional law and the administration of the Supreme Court of India.

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?