The Longest Constitution with Priya Mirza

Are private corporations such as Twitter obliged to uphold constitutional freedoms? And why should they? Who constitutes the ‘community’ in the ‘community standards’ used to regulate online speech? Welcome to the evolving jurisprudence on the balance between private firms, constitutional freedoms and the sovereignty of the state! We look at a 2020 case where Twitter arbitrarily suspended an account of a Supreme Court advocate. Plus, starting this week, we also start on a long trek on the short history of the fundamental rights to property, Article 31 and 19(1)(f) which were repealed in 1978.

Tune in!

On Digital Rights:

1. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/india-it-rules-2021-amendments-social-media-explained-7958000/

2. https://internetfreedom.in/india-75-digital-rights-ka-amrit-mahotsav/

On the Fundamental Right to Property:

1. Wahi, Namrata, 2016, “Property”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (OUP: New Delhi).

On ‘in the interests of public order as a ‘reasonable restriction’:

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP). Chapter 3.

2. https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/modi-v-uttar-pradesh/

You can follow Priya on social media:
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Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )
Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

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A series of tweets by Prashant Bhushan seriously threaten the ‘majesty of the courts’? Well, the courts clearly thought so and charged Bhushan with contempt of court. In a case that illustrates the excessive and arbitrary nature of contempt of court, this episode of The Longest Constitution looks at the 2020 case, where Bhushan was fined Rs. 1 for his tweets. We also wrap up the making of New Delhi in the early 2000s, as one with a greater priority of malls on land meant for forests.

On Contempt of Court:

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP). Chapter 9.

2. ​​https://thewire.in/law/prashant-bhushan-supreme-court-contempt-highlights

3. https://theprint.in/india/photos-of-justice-bobde-astride-a-hunky-harley-davidson-reveal-different-side-to-indias-cji/450849/

4. https://thewire.in/law/mouse-under-the-throne-the-judicial-legacy-of-sharad-a-bobde

5. https://www.scobserver.in/cases/in-re-prashant-bhushan-contempt-petition-against-prashant-bhushan-case-background/

On affordable housing and the right to livelihood:

1. https://www.hlrn.org.in/documents/Indian_Law_and_Policy.htm

2. Ghertner, Ashner, T., 2015, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class CIty Making in Delhi (Oxford University Press).

3. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

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How does one make a world-class city? By image management! And dislocating the poor. Between 1995 and the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi in 2010, the PIL went from being used for the poor, to against the poor. The building of malls and flyovers were prioritized over core municipal concerns: sanitation, health and education. How did this happen? By the judiciary turning into the executive and issuing orders. This episode of The Longest Constitution looks at slum eviction as well as how contempt of court has widened progressively over the years, severely crippling the freedom of expression.

On Sahara and contempt of court:

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP). Chapter 9.

2. https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/book/story/book-review-sahara-the-untold-story-42920-2013-12-05

3. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/158887669/

Slum eviction:

1. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/842898/

2. Ghertner, Ashner, T., 2015, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class CIty Making in Delhi (Oxford University Press).

3. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

Judicial independence:

1. Sengupta, Arghya and Ritwika Sharma, 2018, Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence (Delhi: OUP)

2. Krishna, Justice B. N (retd.) 2016, “Judicial Independence”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (OUP: New Delhi).

3. https://thewire.in/law/aadhaar-verdict-money-bill-rajya-sabha

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

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"Let’s send a woman to jail for a day for speaking her mind?"

That’s what the Supreme Court did when Arundhati Roy protested against the court’s verdict on constructing the Narmada Dam.

So can the courts enforce silence? Unfortunately, yes. While in the USA and the UK, freedom of speech is prized above concerns of lowering the dignity of the court, in India, the courts have broadened the grounds under which a person can be criminally prosecuted on the charge of ‘contempt of court’.

We also look at the shift in the interpretation of slum dwellers' right to life and livelihood, which paved the way for the greatest slum demolition drive in New Delhi.

As well as the invention of the ‘collegium’ by the Supreme Court in 1993.

The Slum Demolition Drive in New Delhi

1. Ghertner, Ashner, T., 2015, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class CIty Making in Delhi (Oxford University Press).

2. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

3. https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/re-arundhati-roy/

On judicial independence:

1. Sengupta, Arghya and Ritwika Sharma, 2018, Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence (Delhi: OUP)

2. Krishna, Justice B. N (retd.) 2016, “Judicial Independence”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (OUP: New Delhi).

On Aadhar

1. https://thewire.in/law/aadhaar-verdict-money-bill-rajya-sabha

On Contempt of Court

1. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/339109/

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

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Who is responsible for people shitting and urinating in public? This question shaped the fate of millions of slum dwellers in the capital, New Delhi. This episode of The Longest Constitution looks at how nuisance laws were interpreted until the 1990s as actions and objects, not people themselves. The absence of public infrastructures, such as housing and sanitation was seen as a governance failure, not a responsibility of slum dwellers. We also look at ‘contempt of court’ as one of the reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) and what makes it unreasonable. As well as the constitutional balance between the judiciary and parliament. Tune in!

On slum dwellers in New Delhi

1. Ghertner, Ashner, T., 2015, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class CIty Making in Delhi (Oxford University Press)

2. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

3. https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/56090b3de4b01497111742d7

On judicial independence:

1. Sengupta, Arghya and Ritwika Sharma, 2018, Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence (Delhi: OUP)

2. Krishna, Justice B. N (retd.) 2016, “Judicial Independence”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (OUP: New Delhi).

Contempt of Court

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP). Chapter 9.

2. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/371149/

3. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/india0516.pdf

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

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Other than you, who can talk about your sex life? A right to privacy means determining the boundaries about what can be spoken about, and what cannot be spoken about. In this episode of The Longest Constitution, we progress with our examination of the evolution of privacy rights and look at a case concerning the actress Shilpa Shetty and her private life. We also look at a ‘reasonable’ restriction’ on our fundamental right to the expression: contempt of court. Finally, a little bit about what makes the Aadhar card a violation of our rights.

On privacy:

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP). Chapter 8.

2. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1222884/

On contempt of court and the Delhi sealing case:

1. Roy, Arundhati, ‘Scandal in the Palace’, Available at: https://www.countercurrents.org/roy250907.htm

2. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

3. https://www.livemint.com/Politics/KCYobHBh0bp2ODK2IiVFYK/MidDay-staff-held-guilty-of-contempt.html

On judicial independence:

1. Sengupta, Arghya and Ritwika Sharma, (2018), Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence (Delhi: OUP)

2. Krishna, Justice B. N (retd.) (2016), “Judicial Independence”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (OUP: New Delhi).

3. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1294854/

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

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What is the balance between privacy rights and freedom of expression? As we mark the progress of privacy rights, we examine an important case which vacated an injunction against the publication of a book, holding the freedom of expression to be greater than that of privacy and observing that questions of defamation can be settled by trial. We also look at why the UIDAI did not consider serious questions of a data leak or how citizens' biometric data is shared. Finally, we look at the darkest dimension of the Delhi sealing case: the profit made by YK Sabharwal’s sons.

Reading material:

On free speech and privacy:

1. Bhatia, Gautam, ‘Death by a thousand cuts: freedom of speech injunctions and the Ramdev Affair’, https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2018/08/07/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-freedom-of-speech-injunctions-and-the-ramdev-affair/#:~:text=In%20Khushwant%20Singh%20v%20Maneka,that%20dealt%20with%20the%20Gandhis.

2. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP)

3. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1203848/

On the Delhi sealing case:

1. Roy, Arundhati, ‘Scandal in the Palace’ https://www.countercurrents.org/roy250907.htm

2. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

On judicial independence:

1. Sengupta, Arghya and Ritwika Sharma, (2018), Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence (Delhi: OUP)

2. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1302865/

On UIDAI:

1. Khera, Reetika, (2019), Dissent on Aadhaar: Big Data meets Big Brother, (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan)

2. Nilekeni, Nandan and Viral Shah (2015), Rebooting India: Realising a Billion Aspirations, (New Delhi: Penguin)

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

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This 75th Independence Day is Amrit alright! But there is plenty of vish slushing around in this Amrit. In this special episode, we mark our independence by looking at the loss of our privacy with the insidious Aadhar card, which started without a statutory law. We also look at how the Supreme Court has transformed into an institution that has obstructed justice, rather than provided access to it, and took a good hard look at the role of the amicus curiae.

On the AADHAR card and privacy:

1. Parker, Ian (2011), “The I.D. Man” Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/the-i-d-man

2. Khera, Reetika, “The Different Ways in Which Aadhaar Infringes on Privacy”, Available at: https://thewire.in/government/privacy-aadhaar-supreme-court

On the PIL:

1. Bhuwania, Anuj, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, Cambridge University Press: New Delhi, Chapter 2.

On Amicus Curiae:

1. Desai Ashok H. and S. Muralidhar, “Public Interest Litigation: Potential and Problems” in B.N. Kirpal et al. eds, Supreme but not Infallible – Essays in Honour of the Supreme Court of India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000). Available at: https://www.ielrc.org/content/a0003.pdf.

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

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Is the word ‘privacy’ in our Constitution? It isn't! Then how did we go from a point where it is not in our constitution to the Puttaswamy judgment (2017) when the Supreme Court unanimously recognised a fundamental right to privacy of every individual guaranteed by the Constitution, within Article 21 in particular and Part III on the whole. We are tracking Indian privacy jurisprudence in this episode of The Longest Constitution as well as looking at how the Supreme Court took on traders and shopkeepers in the MCD sealing case. Plus, a little bit about whether the right to vote is part of our fundamental rights or not.

On privacy:

1. https://www.scobserver.in/journal/right-to-privacy-court-in-review/#:~:text=Kharak%20Singh%20v%20State%20of%20Uttar%20Pradesh&text=Kharak%20Singh%20then%20challenged%20the,of%20life%20and%20personal%20liberty

2. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1306519/

On the MCD sealing case:

1. Bhuwania, Anuj, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, Cambridge University Press: New Delhi, Chapter 2.

On the voting case:

1. Sondhi, Aditya, ‘Elections’, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, OUP: New Delhi

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

Do follow IVM Podcasts on social media.

We are @IVMPodcasts on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram.

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What is the ‘truth’ about ‘us’? Phoolan Devi discovered a movie allegedly based on the ‘truth’ about her, distorted her life completely. This episode of The Longest Constitution progresses in its journey of mapping the constitutional right to privacy. We look at the contest over truth, between Phoolan Devi and Shekhar Kapoor and observe how the Constitution is a living text, interpreted and expanded upon over time. On the question of PIL, we uncover the class conflict in the reshaping of Delhi in the 1990s and take a parting look at electoral bonds.

On Phoolan Devi and privacy:

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, New Delhi: OUP. Chapter 8.

2. http://arundhati-roy.blogspot.com/2004/11/great-indian-rape-trick-i.htmlhttps://thewire.in/politics/bjp-congress-electoral-bonds-2019-20-donations-political-parties

On electoral bonds:

1. https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/electoral-bonds-rti-arun-jaitley-law-ministry_in_5e2eccb1c5b6d6767fd8733f?utm_hp_ref=in-electoral-bonds

2. Sondhi, Aditya, “Elections”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, OUP: New Delhi.

On PIL’s reshaping New Delhi:

1. Baviskar, Amita, 2006, “Rethinking Indian Environmentalism Industrial Pollution in Delhi and Fisheries in Kerala, in (ed), Forging Environmentalism

2. Justice, Livelihood, and Contested Environments, New York: ME Sharpe.

3. Divan, Shyam and Armin Rosencraz, (ed) (2001), Environmental law and policy in India, New Delhi: OUP. Chapter 13.

You can follow Priya on social media:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/fundamentallyp )

Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )

You can listen to this and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

Do follow IVM Podcasts on social media.

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