Law Minus Law

The question for consideration herein is that whether a woman can be an accused under Section 354, IPC? “ 354. Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty.— Whoever assaults or uses criminal force to any woman, intending to outrage or knowing it to be likely that he will thereby outrage her modesty , shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.” (emphasis supplied) Whether the word “he” in Sec. 354, IPC has to be interpreted so as to include male(s) as well as female(s)? For the answer to this question, we may refer to the following provisions: Section 8 of IPC: The pronoun “he” and its derivatives are used of any person, whether male or female. In the case of Girdhar Gopal v. State 1 it is held that:- The pronoun “he” in the expression “or knowingly it to be likely that he will thereby outrage her modesty” in Section 354 must be understood, according to th...

Abstract The Republic of India, world's largest democracy, witnessed the elections to the 17th Lok Sabha recently.  The Elections in India are conducted  by the Election Commission of India. This body is responsible  for the conducting of a fair and smooth election process. Also it is entrusted with the supervision of the State Election Commissions. In this General Election, the Election Commission, in an unprecedented move invoked article 324 in West Bengal after reports of major violence. Article 324 of the Indian Constitution vests the power of “superintendence, direction and control” of elections to the Election Commission of India. The Election Commission which is a Constitutional body is responsible for conducting elections to the parliament and state legislatures. Let us take an in sight into the incident and the legal aspect of this incident.  What made Election Commission to invoke article 324? There are number of cases of money power and muscle p...

The Indian Arms Act was enacted in 1959 to consolidate and amend all laws relating to use of arms, their licensing and illegal use. It lays down the procedure which is to be followed in case of illegal licensing, manufacturing, production, trade and use of arms and ammunitions, further leading to penalties and punishments for the same. India has a varying demography and in some or the other parts of the country, several festivals and functions are abundant all throughout the year. These festivities often witness incidents which are often not conducive to the human environment. One such act which qualifies the definition is- ‘Celebratory Firing’. WHAT IS CELEBRATORY FIRING? Celebratory Firing implies firing of arms in the air to celebrate. It is also called Aerial Firing or Celebratory Gunfire. Common occasions of celebratory firing include weddings, festivals (Eid, Diwali, etc.), New Years eve, election success of political parties, etc. This has resulted in deaths and ...

Introduction A right that is had by a person or by a company to have absolute rights to utilize its own plans, ideas, or other intangible advantages without the worry of competitions, at least for specific period of time. Some of the rights can include copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets. The reasoning for intellectual property is to encourage the business without the apprehension of other competitors of stealing their idea or take the credit of it. The need for a total data protection scheme has been finally recognized by the authorities of India and the bill has been able to seize most of the concerns and scrutiny around data privacy and data protection in India. Basically data protection can be defined as the set of privacy laws, policies and procedures that focuses to reduce the infringement into one’s privacy and dissemination of personal data. There is a drastic change to privacy and data protection related issues in past few years. Data has now been considered...

Abstract As the world’s largest democracy gears up for a season of elections, including the 2019 General Election, there is an urgent need to examine the integrity of the electoral process. Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are ‘black boxes’ in which it is impossible for voters to verify whether their votes have been recorded correctly, and counting mistakes and frauds are undetectable and unchallengeable. The ‘voter verified paper audit trail’ (VVPAT) is an additional verifiable record of every vote cast that allows for a partial or total recount independent of the EVM’s electronic count. It is a critical safeguard that can help detect counting mistakes and frauds that would otherwise go undetected. The success of the VVPAT audit, however, depends on a proper, statistically acceptable, and administratively viable sample plan. The article will give a brief description about the issues involving regarding EVM and VVPAT in Indian general elections. Introduction  India is th...