Indian Journal of Law and Human Behavior

This doctoral research paper conducts a comparative analysis of judicial review across India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, examining how courts ensure governmental actions comply with constitutional limits. The study traces the historical evolution and constitutional foundations in each jurisdiction: India’s explicit constitutional provisions (Articles 13, 32, 131-136, 141- 143, 226-227), the US’s implicit framework derived from Articles III and VI through judicial interpretation, and the UK’s uncodified system rooted in parliamentary sovereignty. Key findings reveal distinct scopes: India’s basic structure doctrine enables review of legislative, executive, and constitutional amendments; US review covers legislation and executive acts but not constitutional amendments; UK review focuses primarily on secondary legislation and administrative actions. The research analyses judicial review’s impact on fundamental rights protection, constitutional governance, and tensions between judicial activism and restraint across different constitutional cultures. It proposes reforms to enhance judicial accountability while maintaining the balance between judicial independence and democratic legitimacy, demonstrating judicial review’s essential yet varied role in constitutional democracies across legal traditions.

Background: Medical negligence cases in India are increasingly adjudicated under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), which provides for summary trial mechanisms. While these forums aim to deliver swift justice, concerns remain about procedural fairness, evidentiary rigor, and the balance between patient rights and practitioner protections. Objective: To critically examine the implications of summary trial verdicts in medical negligence cases under the CPA, highlighting their impact on healthcare accountability, judicial efficiency, and medico-legal safeguards. Methods: A doctrinal analysis of statutory provisions, judicial precedents, and procedural frameworks was conducted. Comparative insights were drawn from consumer forum practices and conventional civil trial processes. Case law examples were reviewed to illustrate recurring patterns and challenges. Results: Findings suggest that summary trials under the CPA expedite resolution but often compromise detailed evidentiary examination. This creates tension between the goals of consumer protection and the principles of natural justice. The study identifies procedural gaps, risks of practitioner vulnerability, and inconsistencies in verdicts across forums. Conclusion: While the CPA’s summary trial model enhances access to justice for patients, it requires recalibration to safeguard medical practitioners against undue liability. Strengthening procedural safeguards, ensuring expert testimony, and harmonizing consumer forum practices with civil jurisprudence are essential for balanced medico-legal accountability.

Background: The intersection of statutory law (“black letter law”) and medical practice (“white coat profession”) in India presents unique challenges. While law emphasizes codified rules and judicial precedent, medicine operates within ethical, clinical, and humanitarian frameworks. The tension between rigid legal interpretation and dynamic medical realities often leads to conflict in accountability, negligence claims, and patient rights. Objective: To critically examine how Indian jurisprudence interacts with medical practice, highlighting areas of convergence, conflict, and reform. The study aims to contextualize medicolegal accountability within India’s healthcare system and propose frameworks for balancing statutory rigidity with clinical discretion. Methods: A doctrinal and analytical approach is adopted, reviewing statutory provisions, case law, and regulatory guidelines. Comparative insights are drawn from international medicolegal frameworks, while Indian case studies illustrate practical implications. The analysis integrates perspectives from medical ethics, patient safety, and legal accountability. Results: Findings reveal systemic gaps in aligning legal standards with medical realities. Courts often rely on black letter law without adequate consideration of clinical complexities, leading to defensive medicine and practitioner vulnerability. Conversely, medical professionals sometimes underappreciate statutory obligations, resulting in breaches of patient rights. Emerging jurisprudence shows gradual movement toward harmonization, but inconsistencies remain. Conclusion: A balanced medicolegal framework in India requires judicial sensitivity to medical realities, statutory reforms to protect both patients and practitioners, and institutional mechanisms for compliance. Bridging law and medicine is essential to ensure justice, accountability, and compassionate care.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 of India represents a transformative vision aimed at creating an inclusive, equitable, and globally competitive education system. Central to this vision is the integration of Human Rights Education (HRE) across all levels of schooling to foster a generation of ethically responsible, socially conscious, and constitutionally aware citizens. This paper critically examines the incorporation of HRE within the NEP 2020 framework, with a specific focus on secondary education in the state of Uttar Pradesh. It evaluates how India’s constitutional commitments and international legal obligations—particularly under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993), and the UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995–2004)—have shaped national educational reforms. Through a combination of doctrinal and empirical analysis, the study assesses curriculum design, teacher training, institutional readiness, and socio-cultural challenges to effective implementation of HRE in schools. Despite its inclusion in national policy, the research identifies gaps in practice—particularly in resourcepoor and socially stratified regions. The paper argues for a contextualized and rights-based approach to curriculum reform that aligns domestic education systems with international human rights standards. It concludes by offering practical recommendations to strengthen the institutionalization of HRE in India, including policy revisions, educator capacity-building, and inclusive pedagogical strategies. By situating NEP 2020 within both national constitutional values and international legal frameworks, this study contributes to the global discourse on education as a tool for social transformation and legal empowerment.

Background: In 2026, the Supreme Court of India in Harish Rana v Union of India & Ors (2026 INSC 222) applied and substantially elaborated the passive euthanasia framework laid down in Common Cause (2018, 2023), in the concrete setting of a young man in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) maintained on Clinically Assisted Nutrition and Hydration (CANH) via PEG tube at home. Objective: To critically analyse the medicolegal reasoning in Harish Rana, with specific focus on: (i) Classification of CANH as “medical treatment”; (ii) Refinement of the “best interest” test; and (iii) Operationalisation and streamlining of the Common Cause guidelines, including implications for clinicians, hospitals and families. Methods: Doctrinal review of the full judgment text, read against prior Indian precedents (Aruna Shanbaug, Common Cause 2018, Common Cause 2023) and comparative jurisprudence from the UK, USA, EU and other jurisdictions expressly relied upon by the Court; thematic extraction of key medicolegal concepts (dignity, autonomy, authorised omission, futility, best interests) and their application to endoflife decisionmaking. Key findings: The Court held that CANH delivered through PEG constitutes “medical treatment” and its withdrawal, when medically futile and not in the patient’s best interests, falls within constitutionally permissible passive euthanasia rather than unlawful killing. It reaffirmed that Article 21’s right to live with dignity includes a right to die with dignity in cases of terminal illness or PVS where the process of natural death has commenced, and clarified that passive euthanasia is an “authorised omission” consistent with the physician’s duty of care. Drawing on UK and US case law (Airedale, Cruzan, Aintree, WvM and others), it adopted a nuanced “best interest” framework integrating medical futility, absence of any realistic prospect of meaningful recovery, and nonmedical factors such as prior wishes, family perspectives and dignity. The judgment also identified gaps in implementation of Common Cause guidelines, particularly for longterm homebased patients, and issued detailed directions for boards, CMOs and governments to create clearer, safer pathways for withdrawal/withholding of treatment and provision of palliative care. Conclusions: Harish Rana operationalises the abstract principles of Common Cause into a practically usable medicolegal template for withdrawing CANH in PVS, while robustly protecting dignity, autonomy and professional security. For treating doctors and forensic experts, it provides authoritative guidance on classifying CANH, documenting futility, engaging families, and navigating liability risks when discontinuing lifesustaining treatment.