Shailesh Kumar

Royal Holloway, University of London | RHUL · Department of Law and Criminology

This chapter investigates the historical and sociological aspects of childhood, child delinquency, and the social reaction and state response towards children in conflict with the law (CCL) in India. Beginning from the ancient period to the present times, I trace how various social systems have shaped childhood. I analyse how different social, econ...

This chapter is an abolitionist critique of penal ‘reform’ in India, wherein I suggest a reinterpretation of ‘reform’ not as an extension but rather a process of replacement, dismantling and elimination of the existing penal structures. Tracing the presence of principle of non-violence (ahimsa) as an instrument of response to violence (himsa) and i...

The conception of juvenile justice has its ontological root in the internationalisation of childhood and construction of children as a distinct social class. The Euro-centric vision of children as rights-possessors that informed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (1989) transformed the epistemology of juvenile justice. I...

The neutrality of the art and architecture of courtrooms and courthouses has dominated the public perception in the Indian context. The courtroom design and the visual artistic elements present within these judicial places have very often been considered to be insignificant to the notions of law and justice that they reflect. As art and architectur...

Stakeholder training has been considered essential to tackle the problem of poor engagement with child sexual abuse (‘CSA’) victims in the pre-trial and trial stages of the criminal process. Be it stakeholder attitudes and behaviour towards the CSA victims and the accused involved in CSA cases or stakeholders’ procedural practices, more and improve...

This thesis is an empirical socio-legal work examining the experiences and perceptions of key stakeholders of the reforms under the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act 2012 in India. It is special legislation dealing with cases of sexual offences against children, i.e., people under 18 years of age. The goals of the law are spee...

This paper takes up one of the most perplexing questions of our time that how should the Indian Republic deal with the situation of creating a public domain of personal laws, particularly for Muslims. In personal laws, personal is mere verbatim. Personal Laws are a product of the larger social framework of society, and accordingly, it develops cust...

Environment and ‘development’ have arguably stood against each other, and with ample support of the corporate frenzy of the State, the scale of ‘development’ has outweighed the scale of conservation of environment quite often. But, in the Indian context, the application of Public Trust Doctrine (PTD) along with other doctrines governing the environ...

The Indian legal literature is full of research works on the snail pace of the disposal rate of cases in the Indian courts. Though, there had been many tools suggested and implemented to take care of this problem, but to no avail. One such tool is the system of ‘plea bargaining’ which got entry in the Indian criminal justice system in 2005 through...

In a conservative Indian society, still very much dominated by the patriarchal values, live-in relationship, the practice of two opposite sexes living together under one roof, without marriage on a permanent or long term basis in a sexually and/or emotionally intimate relationship, raises many eyebrows. When such practice got infused in the Indian...