Hamlet of Law

Explore the intriguing journey of Justice Tharani Vemuganti, who achieved the bench at an early stage. Listen to this episode of The Hamlet of Law wherein she delves into her compelling story, challenges faced, and insights on the legal system. An episode of ambition, resilience, and navigating challenges in the courtroom.

Delhi has a Lieutenant Governor instead of a Governor or Administrator like other States and UTs and despite being one of the most populous territories in the world, the franchise rights of Delhi’s citizens are insignificant vis-a-vis fellow citizens of other states in India for significant control over Delhi’s administration vests with the Union Cabinet and not with elected Delhi govt. With murky power borders, Union govt. and Delhi govt. were always at loggerheads until recently when the SC delineated borders through a constitution bench. This episode entails detailed administrative history of Delhi, reasons for assigning limited sovereignty to Delhi as a state and comprehensive analysis of arguments made by both Delhi govt. and Union govt. and the judgment delivered by the constitution bench.

Find out the events surrounding the homicide of 2 Indian fishermen in India’s contiguous zone by 2 Italian marines, who, to make the incident controversial, were on official duty. To make things even more controversial, India refused to concede to the much accepted ‘sovereign immunity’ of the marines and charged them for murder. This episode gives a comprehensive account of all the arguments of Harish Salve and ASG in the Supreme Court and also how when Italians left for Italy on bail and refused to return, the SCI detained Italian ambassador within India which lead to a diplomatic row and finally on how this incident became one of the most academically discussed topic in international law.

In 1951, the Nehru government amended the Fundamental Rights of the Constitution just 15 months after enacting the venerated constitution, which Nehru himself heavily supervised while drafting, just to revive Zamindari abolition laws after the High Courts struck them down for violating Fundamental Rights of the citizens. All of this without an elected parliament, hence without a proper representative mandate and with heavy opposition and objections from within and out of the party. So, what prompted the Nehru government to amend the constitution in a flash and how did the SC deal with the validity of the amendment vis-a-vis zamindari abolition reforms by forming the first ever constitution bench in the matter of Shankari Prasad v. UoI? What were the arguments advanced in the case? Give a 'hearing' to find out!