Volume IV Issue III

CRIMINALISING INTIMACY, EXEMPTING IDENTITY: A CONSTITUTIONAL AND EMPIRICAL APPRAISAL OF MANDATORY LIVE-IN REGISTRATION AND THE SCHEDULED TRIBE EXEMPTION UNDER THE UTTARAKHAND UNIFORM CIVIL CODE, WITH LESSONS FROM THE GOA CIVIL CODE

Volume IV Issue III / Aditya Milind Kamble

CRIMINALISING INTIMACY, EXEMPTING IDENTITY: A CONSTITUTIONAL AND EMPIRICAL APPRAISAL OF MANDATORY LIVE-IN REGISTRATION AND THE SCHEDULED TRIBE EXEMPTION UNDER THE UTTARAKHAND UNIFORM CIVIL CODE, WITH LESSONS FROM THE GOA CIVIL CODE Aditya Milind Kamble, BBA LLB, 2nd year, School of Legal Studies and Research, MGM University, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.377 The Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand, 2024, in force since 27 January 2025, is the first post-Independence State civil code in India and the first Indian statute to make registration of live-in relationships compulsory on pain of imprisonment. It also excludes members of Scheduled Tribes, and persons whose customary rights Part XXI of the Constitution protects, from its operation. With Gujarat and Assam now holding Presidential assent for codes on the same template, the Uttarakhand design has become a prototype. This article argues that the Code pursues uniformity through two opposite instruments, coercion for the many and exemption for the few, and that neither withstands constitutional and empirical scrutiny. Drawing on the text of the Code and its amendments, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on autonomy, presumption of marriage, legitimacy and tribal succession, official NCRB and Census data, and the State’s own registration figures, the article reaches four findings. First, penal registration fails the necessity and balancing limbs of proportionality, and the scheme combines negligible uptake with an abnormally high rejection rate. Second, NCRB data do not support the protective rationale, since recorded violence against women concentrates within formally solemnised marriages. Third, the Scheduled Tribe exemption is constitutionally defensible but leaves unaddressed the gender inequality that the Supreme Court flagged in Kamla Neti, Tirith Kumar and Ram Charan. Fourth, the Goa Civil Code, which the Supreme Court praised in Jose Paulo Coutinho, offers a model of managed pluralism, not of criminal enforcement.

POWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMEND CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 368: AN OVERVIEW

Volume IV Issue III / Komal Patel

POWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMEND CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 368: AN OVERVIEW Komal Patel, Ninth Semester Student Pursuing BA-LLB at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar School of Law, Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.376 Article 368 of the Constitution of India empowers Parliament to amend the Constitution by way of addition, variation or repeal. A sustained debate surrounds the question whether this power extends far enough to alter or destroy the structure on which the Constitution rests. This paper critically examines the amending power of Parliament and the tension between parliamentary supremacy and constitutionalism, together with the role of the judiciary in protecting the essential features of the Constitution. The early decisions in Sri Sankari Prasad Singh Deo and Sajjan Singh recognised a broad amending power, while Golaknath denied Parliament the power to abridge fundamental rights. Kesavananda Bharati resolved the conflict through the basic structure doctrine, which Minerva Mills, the NJAC case and Janhit Abhiyan later applied. Adopting the doctrinal method, the paper tests the doctrine against the Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023, which reserves one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha, the State Legislative Assemblies and the Delhi Legislative Assembly for women. The Act came into force on 16 April 2026, but the reservation remains inoperative until delimitation after the next census, and the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-first Amendment) Bill, 2026 failed in the Lok Sabha for want of the special majority. The paper concludes that the amending power is wide but limited, and it proposes procedural reforms to strengthen deliberation on constitutional amendments.

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TRANSPARENCY VERSUS INVESTIGATIVE CONFIDENTIALITY: RETHINKING THE LIMITS OF LIBERIA’S FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT IN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS—LESSONS FROM THE US$19.2 MILLION COCAINE SEIZURE AT ROBERTS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Volume IV Issue III / Ambrues Monboe Nebo

TRANSPARENCY VERSUS INVESTIGATIVE CONFIDENTIALITY: RETHINKING THE LIMITS OF LIBERIA’S FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT IN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS—LESSONS FROM THE US$19.2 MILLION COCAINE SEIZURE AT ROBERTS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Ambrues Monboe Nebo, Ph.D. Student -Security Studies with an emphasis on International Security, Hill-City University, Benin Republic, Adjunct Faculty, Department of Sociology and Criminology & Political Science, University of Liberia, Department of Criminal Justice & Forensic Science Program, African Methodist Episcopal University, Liberia Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.375 This study examines the limits of Liberia’s Freedom of Information Act (2010) in criminal investigations, using the US$19.2 million cocaine seizure at Roberts International Airport as a case study. It is grounded in the transparency–accountability nexus theory, public interest theory, and institutional theory, which collectively explain the interaction between access to information, governance accountability, and the need for investigative confidentiality. The study adopts a qualitative doctrinal legal research design, relying on statutory provisions, policy documents, official reports, and relevant scholarly literature. Findings reveal that Liberia’s legal framework pairs a categorical constitutional guarantee of the public right to be informed (Article 15(c)) with a narrow, justification-based statutory exemption for criminal investigations under the FOI Act of 2010. However, that statutory test governs requests for records held by public bodies and does not reach the unofficial circulation of investigative materials, including CCTV footage and operational records circulated on social media. These disclosures pose risks to evidentiary integrity, chain of custody, fair trial rights, and public confidence in law enforcement institutions. The study further finds that while the FOI Act provides a normative basis for balancing competing interests, it was not designed to regulate digital-era information flows or third-party dissemination of sensitive investigative content, which fall instead to cyber, criminal and contempt law. Reported compliance gaps, including the limited appointment of public information officers, further limit the effectiveness of existing safeguards. The study concludes that Liberia’s FOI regime requires legal and institutional reforms to better align transparency with investigative confidentiality in the digital age. It recommends strengthening digital evidence protection, clarifying exemption procedures, and establishing robust information governance protocols to safeguard both public accountability and criminal justice integrity.

JUDICIAL REVIEW VS. PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE UK AND INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

Volume IV Issue III / Aradhya Gupta

JUDICIAL REVIEW VS. PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE UK AND INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK Aradhya Gupta, Student at Amity Law School, Noida (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.374 Constitutional supremacy and parliamentary sovereignty offer two different answers to a question common to every constitutional democracy: which organ should exercise final control over the making and validity of law? This paper examines how the United Kingdom and India answer that question through the relationship between legislative power and judicial review. The research problem is whether a sovereign Parliament and a constitutionally limited Parliament differ in kind or only in degree when courts review legislative and executive action. The study adopts a doctrinal and comparative method and analyses constitutional and statutory texts and the leading judgments of both jurisdictions, supported by secondary literature. On the UK side, it examines the Diceyan doctrine, the Human Rights Act 1998, R (Factortame Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport, R (Jackson) v Attorney General and the post-Brexit restoration of legislative supremacy. On the Indian side, it examines Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala, Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain, Minerva Mills Ltd v Union of India and SR Bommai v Union of India. The paper finds that the two systems differ in the remedy available against legislation rather than in the presence of legal limits. Indian courts may invalidate statutes, and even constitutional amendments that damage the basic structure, whereas UK courts may only interpret primary legislation compatibly with Convention rights, declare it incompatible or, during EU membership, disapply it. Both systems nonetheless subject executive power to searching review of legality. The paper concludes that the two models are moving towards a shared constitutionalism of legality expressed through different institutional forms. A closing section considers how each model responds to automated decision-making and to emergency governance.

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TAXED AND SURVEILLED BUT NOT REGULATED: MAPPING INDIA’S EMERGENT SUPERVISORY ARCHITECTURE FOR VIRTUAL DIGITAL ASSETS

Volume IV Issue III / Ayush Kumar

TAXED AND SURVEILLED BUT NOT REGULATED: MAPPING INDIA’S EMERGENT SUPERVISORY ARCHITECTURE FOR VIRTUAL DIGITAL ASSETS Ayush Kumar, B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), 2nd Year, Department of Law, Assam University, Silchar (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.373 India has regulated virtual digital assets for five years without ever legislating a framework for them. This paper maps that architecture and asks whether the developments of 2026, a private member’s tokenisation bill, a parliamentary committee report favouring an interim self-regulatory model, and open conflict between the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India, amount to the beginning of a real supervisory regime or another layer of ad hoc improvisation. The paper begins with the Supreme Court’s decision in Internet and Mobile Association of India v. Reserve Bank of India, which struck down the Reserve Bank’s 2018 banking ban on proportionality grounds while leaving its underlying regulatory authority intact, a ruling this paper argues created the permissive vacuum everything since has worked around. It examines how the Finance Act, 2022 filled that vacuum through taxation rather than regulation, defining virtual digital assets for the first time in Indian law solely to impose a flat thirty per cent tax and a one per cent deduction at source, a regime the Income-tax Act, 2025 has carried forward unchanged, and how the March 2023 notification under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act added a second, overlapping layer of control. It examines the WazirX hack of 2024, where the Supreme Court dismissed the victims’, petition as raising a question of policy and recourse came eventually through a scheme of arrangement sanctioned in Singapore rather than through Indian law, as a concrete illustration of what this approach fails to deliver. Turning to 2026, the paper studies the Asset Tokenisation Regulation Bill, SEBI’s proposed multi-regulator model, and the Standing Committee’s thirty sixth report, against the Reserve Bank’s preference for the Digital Rupee over legalisation. The paper argues that taxing and surveilling an asset class without defining it in regulatory terms has produced revenue and compliance data but little investor protection, and that the proposed multi-regulator model’s coordination costs deserve scrutiny before Parliament settles on it. It closes with recommendations drawing on comparative regimes in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Singapore.

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JEEV RAKSHA, JAN RAKSHA: RECONCILING ANIMAL WELFARE, BIODIVERSITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY IN BHARAT’S LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Volume IV Issue III / Suryabhan Sangram Ingle, Rajnandini Hindurao Sankpal and Aashish Sanjay Kulkarni

JEEV RAKSHA, JAN RAKSHA: RECONCILING ANIMAL WELFARE, BIODIVERSITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY IN BHARAT’S LEGAL FRAMEWORK Suryabhan Sangram Ingle, Second Year Student pursuing Three Year Law Course at Government Law College, Mumbai (India) Rajnandini Hindurao Sankpal, First Year Student pursuing Three Year Law Course at ABMSP’s Yashwantrao Chavan Law College, Pune (India) Aashish Sanjay Kulkarni, Second Year Student pursuing Three Year Law Course at MES’s Law College, Pune (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.372 India’s primary anti-cruelty statute, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, retains a penalty structure with a fine as low as ten rupees for a first offence under Section 11. This paper argues that India’s animal welfare crisis and its public safety crisis are two symptoms of the same underlying failure: chronic underenforcement, alongside inadequate penalties. We trace this failure across four registers. First, ordinary cruelty, were street animals face violence with weak deterrence. Second, commercial-scale exploitation, including illegal cattle transport and wildlife poaching for meat, feathers, and body parts. Third, public safety, where dog bites and rabies prompted Supreme Court interventions culminating in the May 2026 ruling emphasising citizens’ safety under Article 21 and lawful, veterinary-supervised responses. Fourth, constitutional balance, where the 2023 Jallikattu verdict shows that welfare reform must sometimes negotiate, rather than override, genuine cultural practice. Through doctrinal research, the paper examines constitutional provisions, legislation, judgments, parliamentary material, scholarship, and reported enforcement incidents. It distinguishes existing law from proposed amendments and treats reported seizures as allegations rather than convictions. These distinctions guide the paper’s assessment of institutional responsibility. Drawing on Article 48’s directive on cattle preservation, Article 48A’s environmental mandate, and Article 51-A(g)’s duty of compassion, we argue that India does not lack the legal concept of animal welfare; it lacks consistently effective implementation. Stronger penalties alone cannot secure humane treatment or safer streets without veterinary capacity, public-health services, and administrative accountability. We conclude with an actionable reform agenda spanning legislative amendment, proportionate penalties for commercial offenders, review of peacock-feather trading exemptions, enforceable municipal accountability under the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, coordinated cruelty and bite-tracking systems, improved wildlife investigations, and sustained citizen and NGO participation, directed throughout at protecting both India’s animals and her citizens.

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GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION AND ITS INFRINGEMENT IN THE METAVERSE: CHALLENGES UNDER INDIAN LAW

Volume IV Issue III / Shruthi Sarang S Kamath

GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION AND ITS INFRINGEMENT IN THE METAVERSE: CHALLENGES UNDER INDIAN LAW Shruthi Sarang S Kamath, Final year B.A.LL.B.(Hons.), Sastra Deemed University, Thanjavur (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.371 Articles 22 to 24 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), concluded on 15 April 1994 and in force from 1 January 1995, created the first comprehensive multilateral minimum standards for the protection of Geographical Indications within the World Trade Organization framework. Multilateral protection of indications of source is older, and rests on the Paris Convention of 1883, the Madrid Agreement of 1891 and the Lisbon Agreement of 1958. Geographical Indications are protected in order to prevent the public from being misled and to restrain unfair trade practices. In India, the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 implements these obligations. A Geographical Indication identifies goods whose quality, reputation or other characteristics are essentially attributable to their geographical origin. The emergence of the Metaverse has created new virtual environments for communication, commerce, entertainment and the creation of digital assets. These developments offer opportunities to promote geographically distinctive Indian products in virtual markets, and they create new challenges for the protection of Geographical Indications (GIs). The increasing use of GI names, indications and representations in virtual goods, digital merchandise and virtual marketplaces raises questions about the applicability and effectiveness of the existing legal framework. This paper examines whether the existing Indian GI framework, particularly Sections 2(1)(e), 2(1)(f) and 22 of the GI Act, 1999, addresses the use and infringement of Geographical Indications in the Metaverse, in the light of India’s obligations under Articles 22 to 24 of TRIPS. It analyses the statutory definitions of “geographical indication” and “goods” and the application of the infringement provisions to emerging forms of virtual use. This research adopts a doctrinal methodology based on an analysis of statutes, judicial decisions, international legal instruments, scholarly literature and other relevant legal materials. The study addresses the interpretation of GI infringement in the Metaverse, cross-border jurisdiction, the identification of infringers and the enforcement of remedies.

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REGULATING REPUTATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE: THE LEGAL REGULATION OF ONLINE DEFAMATION AND DIGITAL EVIDENCE IN JAMMU & KASHMIR

Volume IV Issue III / Sharuv Sharma

REGULATING REPUTATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE: THE LEGAL REGULATION OF ONLINE DEFAMATION AND DIGITAL EVIDENCE IN JAMMU & KASHMIR Sharuv Sharma, Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Law, University of Jammu (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.370 The migration of public discourse to social media has multiplied the occasions on which reputation is injured and has changed the way in which that injury is proved. This paper examines the legal regulation of online defamation and digital evidence in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, a jurisdiction whose legal landscape was reset after 2019, when the Ranbir Penal Code gave way to the Indian Penal Code and, from 1 July 2024, to the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. Using a doctrinal methodology, the paper analyses criminal and civil defamation under section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the intermediary liability regime under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Intermediary Rules, 2021, and the evidentiary framework for electronic records under sections 61 to 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. It argues that three features of the Jammu & Kashmir context deserve particular attention: the territorial difficulty of prosecuting publication that crosses jurisdictions; the tendency of enforcement agencies to approach online speech through the lens of public order rather than reputation; and the heightened need for forensic integrity where internet access has been restricted and anonymity tools are widely used. The paper finds that the formal legal framework is now uniform with the rest of India but that its application is uneven, that the mandatory two-part certificate with hash value raises the evidentiary threshold in ways that investigators and courts are still adapting to, and that proportionality safeguards remain under-developed. It recommends a graduated shift towards civil remedies, a standard operating procedure for digital evidence, district-level forensic capacity, and judicial guidelines on interim takedown orders.

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AI AS AN “ACCUSED”: CAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAVE CRIMINAL LIABILITY?

Volume IV Issue III / Gagan Sankhla and Kanan Yadav

AI AS AN “ACCUSED”: CAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAVE CRIMINAL LIABILITY? Gagan Sankhla, B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), 4th Year, University Institute of Legal Studies, Chandigarh University (India) Kanan Yadav, B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), 4th Year, University Institute of Legal Studies, Chandigarh University (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.369 Artificial intelligence has reshaped contemporary society by assuming cognitive functions that were once performed by human beings alone. As these systems become increasingly autonomous in healthcare, transport, finance and law enforcement, questions of accountability for the harm they occasion have grown more pressing. This paper examines whether criminal liability can attach to an artificial intelligence system, and if not, upon whom it must fall. Criminal liability in the Indian tradition rests upon two elements: the wrongful act (actus reus) and the guilty mind (mens rea). Both elements presuppose a subject capable of consciousness, moral evaluation and choice. An artificial intelligence system possesses none of these attributes, and it is therefore neither a legal person nor a bearer of criminal intention. The paper addresses three questions. First, can an artificial intelligence system be recognised as a person in criminal law? Secondly, if it can, is it capable of satisfying the standards of criminal culpability? Thirdly, do the existing Indian statutes adequately govern harm caused by autonomous systems? The study is doctrinal and comparative. It analyses the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 alongside the regulatory responses of the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom. The paper concludes that Indian law does not treat artificial intelligence as a punishable subject, that the existing cyber-law framework is inadequate to address autonomous decision-making, and that liability must be allocated among developers, deployers and users through targeted statutory amendment rather than through the creation of electronic personhood.

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ENHANCING VICTIM PROTECTION THROUGH THE CRIMINALIZATION OF RAPE IN VIETNAMESE LAW AND SELECTED ASEAN COUNTRIES

Volume IV Issue III / Nguyen Thi Binh and Bui Thi Thuan Anh

ENHANCING VICTIM PROTECTION THROUGH THE CRIMINALIZATION OF RAPE IN VIETNAMESE LAW AND SELECTED ASEAN COUNTRIES Nguyen Thi Binh, PhD, Head of Academic Affairs for the Undergraduate Program, University of Law, Hue University, Hue City, Viet Nam Bui Thi Thuan Anh, PhD, University of Law, Hue University, Hue City, Viet Nam Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.368 Sexual violence presents a continuing challenge for criminal justice systems because the quality of victim protection depends not only on the severity of criminal penalties, but also on how the offence is defined, how consent is assessed, how evidence is collected, how victims are treated throughout proceedings, and whether effective recovery and compensation mechanisms exist. In Viet Nam, the Penal Code 2015, as amended, criminalizes rape, rape of a person under 16 years of age, sexual coercion, sexual coercion of a person from 13 to under 16 years of age, and other sexual offences. Resolution No. 06/2019/NQ-HDTP further explains key concepts and introduces important child-victim safeguards. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese model still separates non-consensual sexual conduct according to enumerated methods of coercion and dependency, while many international standards increasingly place the absence of freely given consent at the center of the definition of rape. Victim-support safeguards are also most developed for persons under 18, leaving a less specialized framework for adult rape victims. This article uses doctrinal analysis, comparative law and secondary-source analysis to examine Viet Nam alongside selected ASEAN comparators, particularly Singapore and the Philippines. It focuses on five connected dimensions: the actus reus and consent element; age-based protection; aggravating circumstances and penalties; procedural safeguards and evidentiary practice; and compensation and support. The comparison shows that Singapore expressly uses lack of consent for its core penetrative sexual offences, while the Philippines combines circumstance-based rape provisions with a statutory-rape threshold of 16 and a dedicated Rape Victim Assistance and Protection Act. The article states the position under the legislation currently in force in each jurisdiction, including the prohibition of the death penalty in the Philippines since 2006. The article argues that stronger victim protection in Viet Nam should proceed through a consent-centered reform of rape law, broader trauma-informed safeguards for adult as well as child victims, clearer evidentiary guidance that avoids stereotypes about resistance, and a dedicated public mechanism for crisis support and victim compensation. These measures would strengthen accountability while preserving the presumption of innocence and the requirement that criminal liability be proved according to law.

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