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Home / Author / Insiyah Vahanvaty

Insiyah Vahanvaty

Insiyah Vahanvaty

Articles by Insiyah Vahanvaty

The collegium system is flawed but necessary

The Supreme Court collegium recommended multiple elevations to the Court, taking it closer to its now sanctioned strength of 38.

Updated on Jul 2, 2026 01:27 IST

Justice depends on human wisdom, not AI

Courts across India have expressed alarm over AI hallucinations that invent citations that appear entirely authoritative.

Updated on Jun 18, 2026 03:29 IST

Is apex court’s confidence in SIR exercise misplaced?

The Court did not halt the exercise during hearings, allowing it to proceed even as large-scale exclusions were reported close to polling. By the time the final verdict arrived, state elections had already concluded, rendering the challenge fait accompli . (HT Archive)

Updated on Jun 3, 2026 15:23 IST

What AI can do for the judiciary, what it can’t

The Supreme Court recently launched Su Sahay, an AI chatbot linked to the “One Case One Data” initiative aimed at streamlining judicial information. (HT Archive)

Updated on May 20, 2026 14:56 IST

Anchor judicial recusal in institutional design

Courts have repeatedly emphasised that litigants cannot be allowed to “choose their judge,” warning that doing so would undermine judicial independence. (HT Archive)

Updated on May 6, 2026 15:51 IST

The stakes are high in the Sabarimala matter

The Supreme Court is no longer resolving a localised dispute but laying down a meta-framework for how religious practices will be tested across faiths. (HT Archive)

Updated on Apr 22, 2026 15:19 IST

A critique of the judiciary and a disproportionate response

The episode would likely have passed as a minor skirmish had the Court’s response been proportionate. Instead, the Supreme Court responded with unprecedented force. (HT Archive)

Updated on Apr 9, 2026 15:54 IST

Nuanced reading of the right to die with dignity

Modern medicine can prolong dying through ventilators, feeding tubes, and endless interventions long after the person is gone. To insist on continuing such treatment regardless of prognosis or suffering is not the protection of life; it is cruelty. (Shutterstock)

Updated on Mar 25, 2026 15:20 IST

War in West Asia and failure of global order

The US-Israel war against Iran raises a question that should stand at the centre of any serious discussion: Under what legal authority is this war being fought? (AFP)

Updated on Mar 11, 2026 14:57 IST

Indian constitutionalism’s stress test in the digital age

Until the landmark NALSA judgment that recognised a “third gender”, the Supreme Court constantly maintained that the Constitution does not recognise privacy as a fundamental right (HT Archive)

Updated on Feb 25, 2026 14:41 IST

Supreme Court of India: An institution that is both a monument and a mirror

If the rights won in 1950 are to persevere and fairness is to be delivered without undue delay, the Court’s first duty must be to the citizen not the State. (HT Archive)

Updated on Jan 29, 2026 16:05 IST

Judicial course corrections & the need for judicial finality

The Supreme Court is not an ordinary appellate court. Under Article 141, its judgments are binding law. Governments, lower courts, regulators, and citizens act on the principle that when the court speaks, it does so with finality (HT Archive)

Updated on Jan 14, 2026 16:10 IST

Indian jails: Prisoners of the caste system

The Court’s judgment affirms that prisons exist to reform, not humiliate. Yet caste-based hierarchies have survived for generations, a silent nod of institutional complacency, cloaked in bureaucratic plausible deniability. (HT Archive)

Updated on Dec 31, 2025 14:49 IST

From sedition to UAPA: Policing dissent in India

The Supreme Court is examining sedition because it is a colonial-era law at odds with modern constitutional values. At the same time, UAPA hovers over the discussion because its application often blurs into areas that sedition once occupied (HT Archive)

Updated on Dec 17, 2025 16:07 IST

Development and clean air are not binary choices

By allowing retroactive approvals once again, the Supreme Court has effectively signalled that rules can be negotiated after the fact. If violating environmental norms can be regularised later, why not proceed first and negotiate later? (HT Archive)

Updated on Dec 3, 2025 15:40 IST

Revised waqf law raises constitutional red flags

The well-recognised idea of “once a waqf, always a waqf” embodies waqf’s core characteristic: perpetuity. Once a property is dedicated, it cannot be sold, revoked, or absorbed into private ownership. (HT Archive)

Updated on Nov 19, 2025 15:31 IST

Basic structure touchstone for anti-conversion laws

The Constitution guarantees every Indian the right to “freely profess, practise and propagate” religion, yet the State often struggles to distinguish persuasion from coercion. In Stanislaus v. State of MP (1977), the Supreme Court ruled that “propagating” does not include “proselytising”. (HT Archive)

Updated on Nov 5, 2025 15:18 IST

Refugees in India: Rohingya case points to legal vacuum

The Supreme Court must now examine questions that go beyond deportation. Is the principle of non-refoulement, even if not codified in Indian law, binding? Are Rohingya refugees entitled to protection under Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution? (HT Archive)

Updated on Oct 22, 2025 14:56 IST

A resilient judiciary will help realise Viksit Bharat

The Supreme Court is currently grappling with a crushing caseload of over 80,000 cases, with subordinate courts under even greater strain. (HT Archive)

Updated on Oct 8, 2025 14:40 IST

Address inconsistencies in India’s green jurisprudence

Legitimising activity in ecologically sensitive areas risks undermining decades of conservation efforts, as was seen when the Supreme Court lifted a long-standing ban on construction in Madhya Pradesh’s Pachmarhi biosphere. (HT Archive)

Updated on Sep 24, 2025 14:38 IST

How Puttaswamy exorcised the ghost of ADM Jabalpur

To define liberty, the Court had to confront its own past. And no case represented the betrayal of liberty more than ADM Jabalpur . (HT Archive)

Updated on Sep 10, 2025 16:12 IST

The Lal Babu touchstone for the Bihar SIR exercise

ECI, for its part, maintains that it is acting within the bounds of the judgment. But it misreads the precedent. And it has drawn heat from political parties, who warn of a troubling déjà vu in the SIR’s methods. (ANI Photo)

Updated on Aug 28, 2025 15:06 IST

Unfinished business of gender justice in India

In 2012, a 23-year-old woman’s brutal gangrape and fatal assault on a bus in Delhi by six men tore through the nation’s conscience. And this time, the State’s response was swift. (HT Photo)

Updated on Aug 13, 2025 14:47 IST

Courts and the making of transgender rights

NALSA’s true breakthrough lay as much in recognizing a third gender as in affirming the right to self-identify — a radical move even by international standards. (HT Photo)

Updated on Jul 30, 2025 15:27 IST

Bommai judgment draws the line for democracy

The principles of federalism in centre-state relations have returned to the limelight in recent times with the Maharashtra political crisis. (ANI)

Updated on Jul 16, 2025 14:34 IST

How basic structure doctrine protects constitutional rights

In the early decades after independence, as India grappled with urgent demands for land reform, social equity, and economic stability, the pillars of democracy often stood at odds. (HT Photo)

Updated on Jul 2, 2025 14:46 IST

Strong institution or hand? Lessons from Seshan case

TN Seshan, the former chief election commissioner,

Updated on Oct 20, 2024 18:34 IST

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