Civil liberties

Dissents on speech, liberty, privacy, detention and the legal limits of state power.

[ Dissent ]

Dissent is a Symbol: D.Y. Chandrachud's Dissent in Romila Thapar v. Union of India on Bhima Koregaon and the Chilling Effect

On 28 September 2018 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court refused by 2:1 to constitute an SIT into the Bhima Koregaon arrests. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud dissented. A reading of his 41-paragraph opinion on fair investigation, Article 32, and the boundary ...

2026-05-15 · 14 min read

[ Dissent ]

What Khanna saw: the lone dissent that outlived the Court that wrote it

Half a century after ADM Jabalpur, Justice H.R. Khanna's solitary dissent reads less like a counterargument and more like the only judgment that survived. A reconstruction of what he refused to concede, and why his colleagues refused with him.

2026-05-10 · 8 min read

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This page collects Dissent archive entries on Civil liberties. New pieces appear here as the archive expands.

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Civil liberties

Dissent is a Symbol: D.Y. Chandrachud's Dissent in Romila Thapar v. Union of India on Bhima Koregaon and the Chilling Effect

What Khanna saw: the lone dissent that outlived the Court that wrote it

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