The Writer, the Reader and the State: Literary Censorship in India by Mini Chandran, New Delhi, California, London and Singapore: Sage Publications, 2017; pp xxxv + 191, `695.
The Supreme Court’s judgment in the Puttaswamy case has been hailed for the position of law that it espouses: that the Constitution recognises a fundamental right to privacy. But, its legacy will depend on how future benches apply its findings. One of the cases where the verdict is likely to make an impact is a case concerning the validity of a Maharashtra law that virtually bans the consumption of beef in the state.
Indian jurisprudence is at a place today where we are neither sure of the deterrent effect of the death penalty nor as to when it ought to be awarded. Whichever way one wants to look at it, the death penalty serves no reasonable penological purpose. The only objective that it seems to fulfil is the aberrant sense of catharsis that it offers to a public baying for blood. Perhaps, the Law Commission’s new report will serve to provide the research for a fresh constitutional challenge. And perhaps the Supreme Court will, on this occasion, play its true role as a counter-majoritarian institution.
