Kaustubh R. Mone's Blog

Birthright Citizenship in the US: possible legal arguments for and against

President Donald Trump's Executive Order cancelling Birthright Citizenship has taken the immigrant community by storm here in the US, where your favorite dormant lawyer currently reposes. Naturally, this development revokes TDL's dormancy temporarily...

The EO, issued within hours of President Trump taking the oath of office, states that the US Government shall not issue documents recognizing US citizenship to a person born in the US after 19th Feb 2025 if:

(1) the person's mother was unlawfully p...

Resuetude?

Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 is straight out of a Zombie movie. It just refuses to die, though it quite certainly isn't alive. Killed 5 years ago by Chelameshwar and Rohintan Nariman, JJ, in the Shreya Singhal case in the Supreme Court, it appears that FIRs are still being filed under its provisions.

Let's remind ourselves at the outset what those provisions, added in 2008, state:

Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,-

(a) any inform...

Prime Ministerial Incapacitation: A Constitutional Perspective

Covid-19 has begun infecting the Westminster Constitutional System now, with the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson coming down with it, leaving him incapacitated and confined to St. Thomas' Hospital's ICU on 7th April. Since he had tested positive for the virus back on 26th March, he had considerable time on his hands to set in place his interim succession, with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab notified as next in line, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak to follow him. There's no imm...

Impeachment by Secret Ballot?

Donald Trump's Impeachment hearings have begun at a TV channel near you, and based on the evidence already available in the public domain, it appears that the US House of Representatives is very much likely to impeach the 45th President. That would make him the 3rd of that select group to have faced this ignominy - Andrew Johnson, who took over at the helm after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, being the first back in 1868; Bill Clinton being the 2nd, in 1998. (Richard Nixon resigned in August ...

Certification of Money Bills - II: The Aadhaar Judgment Perspective

Back in February 2017, TDL dealt with Money Bills, their certification as such by the Speaker, and whether said certification could be challenged in Court ("Certification of Money Bills"). Now, with a Constitution Bench having ruled on this in the Aadhaar matter, it is time to update our understanding of this concept.

We will, of course, not deal with the crux of the Aadhaar judgment here. Everyone will have surely, by now, read all about what was upheld and what was struck down therein, and th...

Legal implications of Governor's Remission to Rajiv's assassins

As you can see, The Dormant Lawyer has been luxuriating in inactivity, and proud of it too. But as you are aware, long-suffering reader, every once in a while something does catch TDL's eye, causing him to emit a snort and reach for the old laptop. The Tamil Nadu cabinet's recommendation to Governor Purohit to remit the life imprisonment of all the seven convicts in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination case to time already served is one such snort-inducing laptop-reaching eye-catcher.
First of all,...

Spicy IP

My favourite Intellectual Property portal has recently launched a "Basic Case Law Series". The first post in there pretty much says it all about the purposes of venturing out on that endeavour, and until TDL finds a topic that piques his interest, this should preclude my followers from feeling deprived in the interim...

Bankruptcy Code passes its first brush with the SC with flying colours

The Supreme Court has recently been as busy with landmark decisions as our blog hasn't, rattling out a steady stream of must-read judgments. My billions of followers must have been wondering what my take is on the triple-talaq and right to privacy decisions, but I'm really not going to write anything about those two. TDL is frankly a touch embarrassed that it took this long for our judiciary to arrive at those conclusions, so let's just leave it at that.
The SC's latest significant decisio...

Protection of We Men - II

Order withdrawn! Well, that was quick! Many, many thanks to Adv. Jayna Kothari.

Protection of We Men From Domestic Violence

I hate to say "I told you so". Actually, no, who am I kidding, I relish saying "I told you so". So I'm smug and tickled to remind you, my billions of followers, that we had spoken earlier in these here pages of the possibility of the extension of the Domestic Violence Act to victims of all sexes. Accordingly, the Karnataka High Court stepped up to the plate last week to instruct a Magistrate to take cognizance of a complaint filed by a Man under the Domestic Violence Act.
Back then we had '...