Governance Reform

This submission responds to the call for inputs by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers on principles governing judicial appointments. Focusing on India’s higher judiciary, it examines the constitutional and institutional framework for judicial appointments, the role of the collegium and executive, and the challenges due to the opacity, lack of objective criteria, and limited accountability in the appointments process.

The amendments made to the Representation of the People Act 1951 and other laws which provide for electoral bonds, provide complete anonymity to political donors. However, the requirement all over the world on this issue on the other hand has been the diametrical opposite.

In this article published by The Wire, Ritambhara Singh and Mihir Rajamane question the Government of India for not implementing the Right to Education Act 2009 and National Education Policy 2020 in the wake of current pandemic.

In this blog post, Thulasi K. Raj argues that COVID-19 has made the crisis in Indian democracy apparent.

With the recent event of the US Capitol Hill Siege, the question of corporate criminal liability has yet again come to the fore. Though the basic intent of the communication technology platforms remains communication, businesses and states are using it to evoke feelings of anger, hate and certain instances of violence. In this article, Ms Almas Shaikh, Research Associate at Centre for Law and Policy Research discusses the need for corporate criminal liability to stop human rights violations and ensure the development of technology in a responsible manner.

Mathew Idiculla talks to host Pavan Srinath about how Indian cities need a new deal in the 2020s, with fresh imagination. Mathew explores the place of city governments in constitutional and legal regimes across the world, and how they are treated within India.

In this paper published by the Journal of Indian Law and Society, Dr Sudhir Krishnaswamy & Varshan Mahadeva Aithala made an effort to answer the performance of the commercial courts set up under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 using quantitative and qualitative methods, nearly four years after the 2015 Act was introduced. As per the research findings, the authors have reached to a conclusion that the objective of speedy and effective justice for commercial matters has not been achieved.

This paper examines the idea of the “Right to the City” as a theoretical concept, and it’s emergence in international law and social movements and explores how it may be realized as a legal and political claim in India.

The study titled ‘Reimaging Bail Decision Making’ looks at bail decision making in trial courts in three districts in Karnataka – Bengaluru, Dharwad and Tumakuru. The research focuses on the courts, which are the primary site at which decisions on granting bail are made, to understand what guides the grant or non-grant of bail and what are the factors which decide whether bail is likely to be granted or not. These include the statutory basis for the offence, the nature of offence, its classification as bailable or non-bailable, the punishment prescribed and effective legal representation by lawyers.

Mathew Idiculla, Rajendran Narayanan and Amit Basole analyse what an urban employment guarantee might look like. They argue that it would not only improve worker incomes, but also have a multiplier effect on the economy.

Centre for Law and Policy Research Consultant Mathew Idiculla writes on local government elections in Rajasthan for The Hindu. He discusses the minimum educational qualification criteria in Rajasthan’s local body polls.

The State Election Commissions of Maharashtra and Haryana recently ruled that if the NOTA option receives the…

Mathew Idicualla writes an essay in The Caravan on urban governance issues in India.

Last week, Paul Romer (along with William Nordhaus) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on “endogenous growth theory”. Interestingly, Romer has also been championing the creation of Charter Cities – new cities with distinct laws that seek to attract investment and economic growth. In this op-ed, Mathew Idiculla critically examine the motivations and the realities of such an idea in the Indian context.

In this article published in the Hindu Business Line, Mathew Idiculla, Research Consultant at CLPR reviews James Crabtree’s book: The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age.

Perceptive and detailed, James Crabtree’s book advances a familiar argument about the story of India’s uneven growth.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Managing Trustee at CLPR, writes LiveMint on the Karnataka Elections 2018. He analyzes two elements of the campaign strategy. Firstly, he argues that Congress’s choice of Kannada linguistic nationalism as a campaign frame did not fare well against the cultural and religious national sentiment. Secondly the double-layered campaign structure of the BJP helped them secure the highest seats – leaders from centre and state and the grassroots political workers carried out a well designed campaign strategy.

Mathew Idiculla, Research Consultant at CLPR, provides his opinion on the Karnataka Elections 2018. He argues that there was no visible anti-incumbency against the Siddaramaiah government. However anti-incumbency operated against specific Congress MLA’s. This compounded with the efforts of Modi-Shah-Yedurappa could explain BJP securing highest number of seats.

Mathew Idiculla’s op-ed titled ‘Federalism and fariness’ appeared in The Hindu on 3rd April 2018. In this article, in the context of South Indian States’ demand to rethink federalism, Mathew analyses these demands by making constitutional and historical arguments.

Karnataka State elections are scheduled for the 2nd week of May 2018. Matthew Idiculla of CLPR writes in The Print, that since 2017 Mr.Siddaramaiah has started fashioning a campaign based on the “Karnataka Model of Development”. This model leverages the halo effect created by putting forward development policies and employs the communication power of Twitter to promote “#NavaKarnataka2025”.

As the High Court of Karnataka adjudicates whether the BDA or the MPC should have the power to make the Master Plan, this CLPR Briefing Note authored by Sudhir Krishnaswamy and Mathew Idiculla examines the constitutional and legal framework for urban planning and clarifies the roles of the MPC, the BDA and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in planning for Bengaluru. It argues that as per the 74th Constitutional Amendment, it is the elected urban local body like the BBMP which is primarily vested with the task of urban planning while the MPC is tasked with responsibility to prepare a metropolitan-level development plan which integrates the plans prepared by the various elected local bodies in the metropolitan area.

On Jan 21st the President Ram Nath Kovind approved the recommendation of the Election Commission to disqualify 20 MLAs of AAP, as it was deemed that they were holding offices of profit. Matthew Idiculla details out the actions that led to this order. In this op-ed in The Hindu, he also looks at the history of and the reason for this practice and delves into why this practice has continued to flourish in the Indian legislative system.

In the second article on the Draft Revised Master Plan 2031, published in The Hindu, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Champaka Rajagopalan and Matthew Idiculla highlight the lack of ownership (of the Plan) felt at the local level. They attribute this lack of engagement to the outsourcing of the plan to a private entity (this was done for the previous plan as well) which might have brought in expertise lacking in the BDA, but also led to a disregard for the diversity and local history of Bengaluru. Further complicating the possibility of a successful outcome – the implementation of a plan that creates an economically, socially and environmentally friendly urban living space – is the estrangement of the BDA from the communities it is restructuring. They note that the proposal put forward by the BBMP Restructuring Committee 2017 has unfortunately not been evaluated in the context of moving away from the supply-based planning that is currently being followed.

Can 21st century Bengaluru reject the principles of new urbanism with dense, mixed neighbourhoods that promote public transport and walkability to reduce environmental and resource costs and yet be a liveable, affordable and ecologically smart city? The question that Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Mathew Idiculla and Champaka Rajagopal have about Bangalore Development Authority’s (BDA) draft Revised Master Plan 2031 (RMP 2031).

The Vision Plan, 1 of the 6 documents that make up the draft RMP 2031, outlines a strategy to accommodate a projected population of 24.7 million that, the authors posit, is bound to encourage urban sprawl. The restriction of development in the city core combined with intensive development at the periphery is the antithetic to creating an urban environment that is economically, socially and ecologically progressive.

This newspaper article by Matthew Idiculla tracks the key arguments on the ‘Akrama Sakrama’ matter that have been made by the petitioners up till now before the Karnataka High Court.

On June 16th 2016, CLPR was invited to appear before a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) formed to discuss the Enforcement of Security Interest and Recovery of Debts Laws and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment) Bill 2016. This bill sought to amend four laws: (i) Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (SARFAESI), (ii) Recovery of Debts due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993 (RDDBFI), (iii) Indian Stamp Act, 1899 and (iv) Depositories Act, 1996. The primary aim of the bill was to simplify the procedure involved in the recovery of debt owed to banks and other financial institutions. CLPR limited itself to the proposed amendments to the RDDBFI in its submissions before the JPC.

Jayna Kothari presented CLPR’s submissions before the JPC.

This report was a response to a pre-consultation paper released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the relationship between net neutrality and quality of internet service. The report also considers the issue of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls and whether they are a threat to national security or privacy.

Jayna Kothari and Aparna Ravi recommend that political parties be classified as ‘public authorities’ so as to be brought within the purview of the RTI Act.

Sudhir Krishnasway’s piece on the current crisis in the Karnataka Lokaayukta appeared in The Hindu on August 15, 2015. In the article, he delved into the the root of the Karnataka Lokayukta crisis: the process of appointment and removal of the Lokayukta.

The op-ed criticizes the Union Government’s decision to put a hold on the amendments to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008 which sought to increase the size of health warnings from the current 40% to 85% of the packets’ surface area.

This article analyses the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Act, 2012 which established the State and District Police Complaints Authority (“PCA”). It notes that the PCA is incapable of curbing police misconduct.

The Novartis case was a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court on the question of the evergreening of patents. This article examines the judgment and notes that the Supreme Court had taken a vital step in ensuring that life saving medication is freely and cheaply available to the public.

Dharmendra Chatur published a review in the Computer and Telecommunications Law Review (C.T.L.R. 2012, 18(8), 240-245, available on Westlaw) of two sets of regulations on telecom consumer protection issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in 2012. The review titled ‘Regulation of consumer protection in Indian telecommunications sector: two steps forward?’ assesses if these regulation effectively served their statutory purpose in securing effective protection given the pace at which telecom technology and access is growing in India.

This volume on Access to Knowledge and Traditional Protection features articles by four contributors on contemporary issues in the domain of intellectual property, development policy and associated innovation in India. The authors adopt an interdisciplinary approach and closely examine Intellectual Property policy and its impact on access to knowledge.

In the volume, Sudhir looks at issues through the prism of knowledge management. He traces the emergence of traditional knowledge policy and the scope for implementing related legislation. He invokes and elaborates on the ‘Offensive’ and ‘Defensive’ approaches to protect traditional knowledge.