Who is responsible for people shitting and urinating in public? This question shaped the fate of millions of slum dwellers in the capital, New Delhi. This episode of The Longest Constitution looks at how nuisance laws were interpreted until the 1990s as actions and objects, not people themselves. The absence of public infrastructures, such as housing and sanitation was seen as a governance failure, not a responsibility of slum dwellers. We also look at ‘contempt of court’ as one of the reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) and what makes it unreasonable. As well as the constitutional balance between the judiciary and parliament. Tune in!

On slum dwellers in New Delhi

1. Ghertner, Ashner, T., 2015, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class CIty Making in Delhi (Oxford University Press)

2. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

3. https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/56090b3de4b01497111742d7

On judicial independence:

1. Sengupta, Arghya and Ritwika Sharma, 2018, Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence (Delhi: OUP)

2. Krishna, Justice B. N (retd.) 2016, “Judicial Independence”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (OUP: New Delhi).

Contempt of Court

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP). Chapter 9.

2. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/371149/

3. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/india0516.pdf

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