University Library, University of North Bengal

Season’s Greetings!

I am glad to announce the publication of the Vol. 13 No. 02 issue of the Indian Journal of Law and Justice. The Indian Journal of Law and Justice has come a long way in the last one decade from being a national law journal to being an internationally acclaimed journal and from being a mere print version to having a website of its own, namely ijlj.nbu.ac.in. I also announce the indexing of the journal with SCOPUS along with the HeinOnline. Innumerable scholars, academicians and professionals from the field of law as well as other social sciences sector have been relying on this journal for their scholarly publications and have played a pivotal role in their early career success. I along with my highly efficient editorial team pledge to building on the legacy of this journal. With the dawn of the New Year, a few changes in the submission process are expected. We are making an endeavour for online submissions of articles and research papers to improve and expedite peer review. We, as a team, shall continue to remain committed to making it a forum that welcomes scholarship from a diverse and global group of authors, whose ideas are at the cutting edge of law and policy research.

The current issue opens with the issue of judicial oversight on administrative contracts in Jordan authored by Dr. Tareq al Billeh, which highlights the need for the administrative judiciary in Jordan to retreat from its jurisprudence, which states that the jurisdiction of the administrative judiciary has been mentioned exclusively, as these jurisdictions do not include disputes related to contracts of all kinds, including administrative contracts.

The conflict between hate speech and free speech has been taking the centre stage and the issue of cyber hate by drawing a comparison between Malaysia and India has been eruditely presented by Nadia Nabila Mohd Saufi, Saslina Kamaruddin and Niteesh Kumar Upadhyay.  On a similar note, S.M. Amir Ali has examined the enabling role played by the judiciary in enriching and deepening the free speech jurisprudence when faced with cases of sedition. The author attempts to trace the genealogy of the sedition law, along with shedding light on the background in which it was enacted in colonial India.

Manual Scavenging remains to date the social evil that has been an obstacle in the road of “India Shining”. Dr. Namita Singh Malik and Dr. Smita Gupta paper on manual scavenging delves into legal institutional mechanisms available in South Asian  countries to address the problem of manual scavengers. It also proposes workable solutions to put an end to this obnoxious prevalent practise. Vatsala Mishra and Mayank Singh’s note on Municipal Solid Waste Management traces lacunae of Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and questions the insufficiency and the incompetency.

Dr. Sanjay Prakash Srivastav’s “Functioning of Indian Courts and Litigants’ Right to Justice” attempts to unearth what forces are obstructing, or working as a barrier in achieving the goal set by preamble of the Indian Constitution and preventing implementation of statutory obligations relating to speedy justice.

Protection of traditional knowledge with respect to Geographic Indications and The Protection of Traditional Knowledge Bill, 2022 by Dr. Shambhu Prasad Chakrabarty Abhisekh Rodricks and Legal Regimes of Changing Space Security by Jinia Kundu and Dr. Bhavani Prasad Panda delve into unique areas of legal regime in India and abroad.

Special mention of papers on Recognising the Social and Cultural Rights of the Climate Refugees in Sundarban Delta by Mrinalini Banerjee and Dr. S. Shanthakumar and Damming the Rivers Of North Bengal by Soumya Pratik Dutta and Madhumita Dhar Sarkar are due here as they raise the climate change and legal issues with reference to climate refugees and river biodiversity. Also, Siddharth Singh’s paper on “Common but Differentiated Responsibilities” principle of climate change regime highlights the needs for appropriate application of the principle of CBDR to address the concerns of vulnerable countries that are regularly struggling with the threats of climate emergency.

Gyandeep Chaudhury’s research paper on Artificial Intelligence and Copyright/Authorship dilemma raises concerns over inclusion and amendment of Copyright laws to include AI. Akshay Baburao Yadav and Shivanjali Mane’s paper deals with the constitutional right of online streaming of court proceedings and the issues thereto. The paper on cyberspace based cross-border terrorism by Veerendra Mohan, examined efficacy of extant laws to deal with this contemporary form of terror.

Amrita Singh and Dr. Ravi Kant Verma’s commentary on the Triple Talaq verdict of the Supreme Court of India in Shayara Bano case traces the jurisprudence evolved by Indian courts vis-à-vis personal laws and therefore the right to spiritual freedom.

This issue contains two book reviews handled deftly and concisely by two young reviewers.

I thank all contributors for their submissions to this edition and their cooperation with the editorial team during the production phase. I express my gratitude again to the entire Editorial Team whose commitment and perseverance made this publication possible.

Suggestions and opinions for the improvement of the journal is solicited.

With Best Wishes