case study law india

Famous Cases under Company Law

Landmark cases under company law, salomon v salomon & co. ltd[1], royal british bank v turquand[2], cyrus investments pvt. ltd. & anr. v. tata sons ltd.& ors[3], tata consultancy services limited v. cyrus investments pvt. ltd.[4], ak bindal vs union of india[5], sri gopal jalan & co. v. calcutta stock exchange association ltd[6], seth mohan lal v. grain chambers ltd[7], shanti prasad jain v. kalinga tubes ltd[8], recent cases under companies act, 2013.

• https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/articles/landmark-judgments-of-corporate-law-13988.asp
• https://www.mondaq.com/india/shareholders/1077784/some-recent-trends-in-oppression-mismanagement-cases-under-the-companies-act-2013
• https://www.studocu.com/in/document/guru-nanak-dev-university/bachelor-of-law/sp-jain-vs-kaliga-ltd-case-law-of-company-law/16610619
• UKHL 1, AC 22
• 6 E&B 327
• 2017 SCC OnLine NCLAT 261
• 2017 SCC Online SC 272
• (2003) 5 SCC 163
• 1964 AIR 250
• 1968 AIR 772
• AIR 1965 SC 1535
• 2021 SCC OnLine NCLAT 123
• Company Appeal (AT) No. 25 of 2018
• Civil Appeal No. 9340 of 2019
• Company Appeal (AT) 389 of 2018
• Company Appeal (AT) 190 of 2019

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• Criminal cases
• Indian rape laws

Most famous and controversial criminal cases in India

The article is written by Ansruta Debnath , a law student of National Law University Odisha. This article briefs various famous and controversial criminal cases in India. 

This article has been published by Sneha Mahawar .

Table of Contents

Introduction

Criminal cases that reach widespread fame generally have a scandalous element in them. On the other hand, some cases are just bizarre while others so horrific, people remain shocked for decades to come. This article enumerates certain famous and hotly debated criminal cases of the country. While this is not an exhaustive list, this author has attempted to include cases that highlight certain important aspects of the nature of the criminal law of India. Thus cases have been included from a wide range of crimes, from the most gruesome murders to shocking rapes, bizarre identity crimes, scandalous scams and even the killing of ‘ghosts’.  

Murder and killings

The tarakeswar affair (1874).

This case, the oldest in this article, involved a public scandal that occurred in 19th century Bengal during British rule. The case was called Queen v. Nobin Chandra Banerjee (1874) and here Nobin Chandra, a government servant was charged with the murder by decapitation of Elokeshi, his wife because of her love affair with the Brahmin head priest, or Mahant of the temple of Tarakeshwar. The Hooghly Sessions Court at Serampore took up the case and during the entire trial, the Court had transformed into a ‘theatre’. The media also contributed heavily to the increasing publicity of the case.

The defence attorney claimed that Nobin Chandra had committed the act in a fit of rage and to ensure that his wife had to belong to him. It was claimed that when Elokeshi confessed about her actions to the defendant, Nobin wanted to protect her and shift her from her parent’s house, over which the Priest had control. But the latter became aware of these plans and his goons prevented the shift from happening, leading to Nobin Chandra killing his wife. Nobin then immediately went to the Police to confess his crimes.

The entire series of events painted Nobin as the victim. The jury eventually acquitted the defendant on the grounds of insanity. But the Sessions judge overturned the judgement on the ground of “disagreement on the native sense of justice”  and sent the case to the Calcutta High Court wherein the defendant was held guilty.

However, Nobin was not the only person under trial. For the general public, Nobin was justified in his actions and the Mahant was the one that was the actual criminal. The Mahant was tried under Section 497 of the newly passed Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Sessions Judge convicted the priest and imposed a punishment of three years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rupees 2,000. On appeal, the conviction was upheld. The public felt that Nobin Chandra was unjustly convicted while the Mahant had gotten away easily. Within three years, due to popular public demand and protests, Nobin Chandra was released from prison.

The murder of ghosts – Ram Bahadur Thapa (1959) 

This was a very peculiar case, called State of Orissa v. Ram Bahadur Thapa (1959) . J.B. Chatterjee of the Chatterjee Bros. firm in Calcutta employed Ram Bahadur Thapa as a servant. They had gone to Rasgovindpur, a village in Orissa’s Balasore district, to buy scrap from an abandoned airport outside of town. The local people considered that area haunted and the same was made known to the visitors. As they drove to the aerodrome late at night, they noticed a flickering light within the premises that seemed to move because of the strong winds. Thapa leapt into action, brandishing his khukri in the direction of the ‘ghosts.’ They turned out to be indigenous Adivasi ladies with a hurricane light who had congregated under a mahua tree to gather flowers. Thapa injured two women and killed another and thus was charged with Section 302 (murder), Section 326 (grievous hurt with dangerous weapons) and Section 324 (hurt with dangerous weapons) of the Penal Code. The Sessions Judge held that the accused committed the acts under a bona fide mistake of fact, thinking that he was attacking ghosts and not human beings and hence acquitted him relying on Section 79 , which talks about acts justified by law or acts which under a mistake of fact is thought to be justified by law. The petitioners challenged this through an appeal to the Supreme Court saying that through extra care and caution, this event could have been averted. But the Court dismissed these arguments and said that Ram Bahadur Thapa had to be accorded the protection of Section 79.

The Nanavati murder case (1959)

This case, K.M. Nanavati v. the State of Maharashtra (1961) is one of the landmark cases in Indian history and marked the end of jury trials in India. K.M. Nanavati was a respected naval officer who killed his wife’s extra-marital lover, Ahuja in 1959. Nanavati, after committing the crime went to the local police and turned himself in. The main point of contention was whether the action of Nanavati was due to grave provocation or it was a pre-mediated murder. The petitioners contended that during a confrontation of Nanavati with Ahuja, the latter stated that he “could not marry every woman he slept with”, which led to Nanavati killing Ahuja. Their arguments were based on the fact that Nanavati committed the murder in the heat of the moment and thus it was a case of culpable homicide, not amounting to murder. ( Exception 1 under Section 300 ). The Respondents contended that Nanavati had, after listening to his wife’s confession, dropped her and their children off to the cinema, gone to his ship to procure a rifle and then gone to visit Ahuja. It was contended that it was clearly implied that Nanavati had the intention to murder Ahuja and there was no sudden provocation. 

The jury of the trial court declared K.M. Nanavati was found not guilty with an 8:1 majority verdict. The verdict, like the Tarakeswar case, reflected the popular sentiment that sympathised with Nanavati. But the Session’s judge overturned the verdict and sent it to the High Court of Bombay wherein the Court held the accused guilty of murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code and sentenced him to life imprisonment. On appeal, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court judgment, saying that Nanavati had plenty of time to calm down and thus it was a case of premeditated murder. However, he was granted parole on grounds of ill health in 1963 and then later pardoned by the Governor of Bombay. The higher judiciary, purely on the touchstone of law, found Nanavati guilty. But beyond the realm of law is the world of morality; was Nanavati morally right in killing a man who had destroyed his marriage and family? The public opinion felt that Nanavati had been wronged, so did the jury, but not the law.

The contract killing of Mrs Vidya Jain (1967)

The case of Narendra Singh Jain is linked to the infamous contract killing of Mrs Vidya Jain in 1973. In this case, the defendant was Dr. N.S. Jain, the personal eye physician of the then-Indian President V.V. Giri, who conspired with his paramour, Chandresh, to hire two persons to murder his forty-five-year-old wife. 

The case involved several failed attempts to kill Mrs. Jain by engagement with various assassins, but the plan eventually got executed on 4 December 1967. The trial court charged all the accused under Section 120-B of the Penal Code for having entered into a conspiracy to commit the murder of Vidya Jain and under Section 320 for her murder. Some of the accused were also charged with Section 27 of the Arms Act, 1959 . 

Conspiracy comes into being the moment the agreement to commit the crucial act is reached, and it does not cease to exist so long as the intention of acting upon the agreement exists. When Chandresh and Rakesh (friend of Chandresh) went to hire Karan Singh as an assassin, the criminal conspiracy had come into existence and did not cease when the latter refused to execute what was assigned to him. The duo then engaged with another assassin who also refused, and the conspiracy continued. Finally, the inclusion of the final two assassins was also part of the criminal conspiracy. 

The crucial point of contention was the gravity of crimes of all the involved parties i.e., who should be more responsible for the crime of murder. The trial court had sentenced the accused to life imprisonment but on appeal, the High Court, in N.S. Jain v. the State (1977) increased the punishment of the two contract killers to death by hanging.

Tandoor murders (1995)

The Hotel Ashok Yatri Niwas of Delhi became the site of the very gruesome murder of a woman. The accused, hotel manager Keshav Kumar and co-owner of the hotel, Shushil Sharma was discovered to be stoking a fire in the kitchen tandoor with wood on that fateful night of 2 July 1995 by two police officers. Detecting a foul odour, the officers douse the flames and discovered that the tandoor was stuffed with partially burnt human remains, a torso and burnt bones. A black polythene sheet nearby bore traces of blood. The body was revealed to be of Naina Sahni, wife of Shushil Sharma. While Kumar was immediately caught by the police, Sharma fled and was later arrested by the Bangalore police and handed over to the Delhi authorities. The use of the tandoor to attempt to cover up the murder is what truly horrified people and made this become a case people could not stop talking about. Not many people remember that the tandoor was not the weapon of the murder, that Naina had been shot to death and the tandoor was only used to destroy the body. 

The trial was held in the sessions court in Delhi, in 2003 where Sharma pleaded that due to the media furore and the misdirected public hatred he would be subjected to an unfair and unjust trial. Therefore, he claimed, he should either be discharged or the trial be postponed but the same was not granted. Capital punishment was awarded to Sharma, placing the case in the ‘rarest of rare’ category, warranting the imposition of extreme punishment by the trial court. In State v. Sushil Sharma (2007) , the Delhi High Court admitted an appeal filed by Sushil Sharma, challenging his conviction and death sentence by the trial court. However, the High Court rejected these assertions and upheld the verdict of the trial court in this case. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, while reaching the conclusion that the accused were indeed liable to be convicted for committing the heinous crime of murder and brutally disposing of the body of the accused, said that the action of Sharma was the result of a strained individual relationship and not an offence against society. Thus, the Supreme Court in Sushil Sharma v. State (NCT) Of Delhi (2013) commuted capital punishment to life imprisonment, while also taking into account certain mitigating factors like the accused previous criminal record and the age of the accused.

The murder of Neeraj Grover (2008)

Neeraj Grover was a media executive. Maria Monica Susairaj was a Kannada actress who wanted to work in the TV industry. When she moved to Mumbai, Maria befriended Grover and they soon entered into an intimate relationship. However, Maria started having doubts about whether Grover was serious about aiding her career. The prosecution alleged that the plan to kill Grover was hatched on 6 May 2008, when Maria contacted Emile Jerome Joseph, her fiancé. On 7 May 2008, both Maria and Joseph killed Grover and chopped up his body. Later, Maria confessed to her crimes and led the police to the place where the body parts were burned. She also stated that Joseph had forced her to commit the act with him with the threat of rape. Later, the confessional statement was retracted by Maria. According to the Court’s analysis of Maria’s confession, it was concluded that only Joseph was responsible for the murder of the victim.

After considering the evidence, the Court held the accused guilty of both causing disappearance and destruction of evidence. The prosecution proved that Joseph killed the victim but the defendant pleaded the first exception to murder, i.e., culpable homicide due to the grave and sudden provocation. The Court ruled out premeditation on the part of Joseph and maintained that he was under provocation. Both of the accused were charged under Section 201 for causing the disappearance of evidence, with a maximum penalty of three years. Joseph was charged under Section 304 (1) of the IPC for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and was given ten years’ rigorous imprisonment as well as a fine of Rs 50,000. Maria was convicted under Section 201 of the IPC for the destruction of evidence and was given three years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. Joseph was also convicted under the same offence and given the same punishment, for which his sentence would run concurrently.

D.K. Basu and custodial deaths

Shri D.K. Basu, Ashok K. Johri v. State of West Bengal, State Of U.P. (1996) was a landmark judgement that elaborated on custodial deaths. The initial party to the case was West Bengal and D.K. Basu. D.K. Basu was the Executive Chairman of Legal Aid Services of West Bengal. Basu wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of India enumerating certain news articles in newspapers that have spoken about custodial deaths and instances of custodial torture. The letter emphasized the need to draw up guidelines that an arresting authority must follow while remanding a person to custody and to draw up victim compensation schemes in those scenarios of custodial death and torture. Because the issue that was mentioned in the letter was of gravity, the letter was considered to be a writ petition and accordingly proceedings were initiated. Later, Shri Ashok K. Johri wrote a similar letter to the Chief Justice about a custodial death in Uttar Pradesh and accordingly that letter was also considered to be a writ petition and the two were clubbed together. The state governments in their reply stated that custodial deaths were taken into consideration and appropriate actions were taken against the concerned individual. Further, the Supreme Court solicited the Law Commission to deliver an official report on this issue and accordingly the 113th report on “Injuries in Police Custody” was released. 

In the judgement, the Supreme Court reiterated that any type of torture or cruel, inhuman, or humiliating treatment, whether it occurs during an investigation, interrogation, or otherwise, is covered by Article 21. The rights protected by Article 21 cannot be denied to undertrials, convicts, detainees, and other detainees in custody unless they are refused in accordance with the method established by law, which may include reasonable restrictions on the right. 

The primary achievement of this judgement was that the Court gave out certain specific guidelines that had to be followed while making arrests. These included the need for arresting or interrogating officers to bear accurate, visible and clear identification and name tags with their designations and allowing one relative of the arrested person to be informed about the arrest and place of detention.

Cases where children were the victim

Renuka shinde and seema gavit : child killers (1990-1996).

In Maharashtra, a woman named Anjanabai, the matriarch of her family, taught and encouraged her family to murder and abuse young children for money. The entire episode came to light when her two daughters, twenty-nine-year-old Renuka Kiran Shinde, twenty-five-year-old Seema Mohan Gavit along with Renuka’s husband, Kiran Shinde, were arrested in 1996. The three, along with Anjanabai, were accused of abducting and killing children, particularly those less than five years of age. Although they were accused of abducting thirteen children between 1990–96 and killing nine of them, they were eventually charged with only five murders.

The sisters had managed to kidnap children from many major cities in Maharashtra and would keep these children in Pune at their residence. The modus operandi of the sisters was easy: they would keep the child with them, often preferring to physically carry them while they went about their business of snatching purses and petty thievery. The children were murdered when they attracted any attention or cried, or became too old to be carried in their arms. The sisters often committed the murder of these children in the most gruesome and cruel ways which included banging the head of the child to a wall until it died. The Supreme Court while ordering the death penalty for the accused observed that the decision had been reached after carefully considering the fact that the accused were a menace to society and that there was no chance of them being reformed. 

The mercy petitions of the sisters were rejected by the President on 31 July 2014. However, in January 2022, the Bombay High Court commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment on account of the state’s delay in seeking a decision on their mercy petitions after the Supreme Court rejected their appeal in 2006.

The Billa – Ranga Case (1978)

The main aim of Billa and Ranga, two hardened criminals who had just been released from Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai on the day the crime occurred, was to capture kids that they happened to come across and demand ransom from their parents. The unfortunate in this situation were two teenagers, Geeta and Sanjay Chopra who happened to come across their vehicle, a yellow Fiat and entered it to take a lift to the AIR office where they were to participate in a programme. Certain people realised there was a problem as the car sped away because the teenage duo had themselves realised the nefarious intentions of Billa and Ranga and had started fighting in the car and screaming from within. A police report was attempted to be made by one concerned citizen but the police refused to take the report citing jurisdictional issues.

At the same time, Billa and Ranga realised that the teenager’s family would not be able to afford the ransom they had in mind and immediately killed the two. The parents came to know that their children were missing when they did not hear them on the radio in that programme the children were supposed to be in. An FIR was filed and subsequently, the bodies were discovered, making the case a murder case. 

Due to extensive media coverage, the murderers were soon captured and upon investigation, it was found that after Sanjay was killed, Geeta was stripped naked, raped and then killed. The High Court observed that the accused had a diabolical plan of a cold-blooded, ruthless, cruel murder of two young innocent teenagers and deserved no mercy. Thus the death penalty was awarded and the Supreme Court also upheld the verdict. 

A major point of the case was the courage shown by the teenagers as witnesses said that they put up a big fight and as a result, Billa had to receive stitches from a hospital. The Indian government bestowed the Kirti Chakra gallantry award on Geeta and Sanjay Chopra on 5 April 1981. In 1978, the Indian Council for Child Welfare instituted two annual bravery awards for children under the age of sixteen, the Sanjay Chopra Award and the Geeta Chopra Award, given each year along with the National Bravery Award. Yet the point remains that had the police gotten into prompt action, this murder could have been prevented.

Cases that triggered changes in Indian rape laws

The rape of mathura (1972).

The Mathura rape case was an instance of custodial rape that occurred in the March of 1972 when a tribal girl was allegedly raped by two policemen on the compound of Desaiganj Police Station in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. 

The case first came to the sessions court in 1974 where it held that because Mathura was “habituated to sexual intercourse”, her consent was voluntary and thus there was sexual intercourse but not rape. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on appeal held that there was rape and sentenced the two policemen to one and five years of imprisonment. The Court observed submission to rape under threat or fear is not a valid form of consent.

But the Supreme Court, in Tuka Ram And Anr v State Of Maharashtra (1978) , overturned that judgement and acquitted the accused. Due to widespread protests, the Government of India eventually brought about the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1983 which made a statutory provision in the face of Section 114 (A) of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 . It states that if the victim says that she did not consent to the sexual intercourse, the Court shall presume that she did not consent as a rebuttable presumption.

Bhanwari Devi rape case (1992)

Bhanwari Devi was an Indian social worker from Rajasthan who was gang-raped in 1992 by men who were enraged by her efforts to prevent their family from having a child marriage. Her subsequent treatment by the police and the accused’s subsequent acquittal in court drew enormous national and international attention, and it became a watershed moment in India’s women’s rights movement.

In 1995, the Session’s Court acquitted the accused stating that because the husband of Devi was nearby, rape could not have happened. But, upon pressure from various groups, the Rajasthan State Government appealed the decision in the High Court but because two of the accused were already dead, only one hearing took place.

This case was important because after being inspired by Devi, a number of women’s organizations led by one called Vishaka filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court against the State of Rajasthan and the Union of India through Vishaka & Ors v. State Of Rajasthan & Ors. (1997) This led to the formation of the Vishakha guidelines which dealt with sexual harassment in the workplace.

The Nirbhaya gang-rape (2012)

This is a case that sparked widespread protests and triggered changes in major rape laws in India. The gruesome and horrifying gang rape of Jyoti Singh also called Nirbhaya or the Unafraid , brought the entire youth of India to the streets. Instead of victim shaming, the people of India screamed her name as it had become a source of strength in the face of the fear of the unsafe nature of the Delhi streets. Women and the youth week seemed to have enough and were poised to fight for their rights. After a long legal battle, the accused were finally hanged in the Tihar Jail in the March of 2020.

The changes made in the rape law were substantial. A committee was set up under a former judge of the Supreme Court, J.S. Verma to suggest amendments in the criminal law. The report found that crimes against women were directly linked to failures of the government and the police. The major suggestions of the report were to make rape punishable by life sentence instead of death as it had been seen that the death sentence did not act as a deterrent and cleared ambiguity over the control of the Delhi police in such cases. The committee, however, did not favour setting the official age of a juvenile at sixteen rather than eighteen.

For starters, through the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013 the definition of rape was changed in Section 375 to include the insertion of any object in the vagina or rectum of a woman.  Further, The punishment for rape is seven years at the least and may extend up to life imprisonment ( Section 376 ). Any man, be it a police officer, medical officer, army personnel, jail officer, public officer or public servant, who commits rape may be imprisoned for at least ten years (Section 376). A punishment of life imprisonment, extending to death, was prescribed for situations wherein the rape concludes with the death of the victim, or the victim being in a vegetative state ( Section 376-A ). Gang rape has been prescribed punishment of at least twenty years under the newly amended sections ( Section 376-D ). The new amendment also defined ‘consent’ to mean an unequivocal agreement to engage in a particular sexual act; clarifying further that the absence of resistance will not imply consent. 

Bizzare identity crimes

Lal bihari identity case (1975-1994).

Lal Bihari was born in 1955, died between 1975 and 1994, and has been an activist since then. His uncle bribed government officials to declare him dead so that he might receive their ancestral land, and Mr Lal Bihari was officially declared dead. He began his battle against the Indian bureaucracy to establish that he was still alive after he discovered what had happened. Meanwhile, he staged a sham burial, demanded widow’s pay for his wife, ran against Rajiv Gandhi in the 1989 election, and even added a ‘Mritak’ to his name. He is currently the director of an organisation that seeks to deal with similar identity situations for others who have lost theirs.

Bhawal Case (1920-1946)

This was a strange case centred on a probable impostor claiming to be the prince of the Bhawal Estate, which included over 2000 villages and was one of the largest zamindari estates in undivided Bengal. Ramendra, the Bhawal estate’s second Kumar , died in the early twentieth century, although there were rumours that he wasn’t truly dead. A sanyasi who resembled Ramendra was discovered strolling the streets of Dhaka ten years later, in 1921. Former tenants and farmers of Ramendra vouched for him and supported his claim to the title for some reason. Except for Ramendra’s widow, Bibhabati, almost everyone believed him.

A long legal battle ensued but the new Ramendra shifted to Calcutta and was hailed as the actual one by the city elites. Further, he started using revenues from his estate. In 1946 the Court ruled in his favour, but he passed away shortly after.

Criminal defamation

Personal opinion or defamation: the khusboo case (2010).

The events that led to the lawsuit began in September 2005, when India Today magazine conducted a poll on the sexual habits of people living in India’s major cities. One of the topics explored was premarital sex and opinions from many social groups were gathered. Khushboo, a south Indian actress, expressed her opinion on the subject, stating that the occurrence of premarital sex was becoming more common. She later vehemently defended her statement and as a result twenty-one criminal complaints under Sections 499 , 500 , 509 , 153-A and 292 of the IPC, read with Sections 4 and 6 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 , in various separate jurisdictions were filed. 

To get respite from this constant prosecution, she approached the High Court of Madras to quash these complaints. Despite clear indications that this was a matter of political victimization, the High Court refused to step in and directed the chief judicial magistrate to combine all the complaints. Kushboo’s lawyers then went to the Supreme Court to quash the complaints, who in S. Khushboo v. Kanniammal & Anr (2010) held that her statements were not defamatory under Section 499 of the Penal Code. Khushboo did not mean to hurt the complainants’ reputation, and no genuine harm could be determined from her words, according to the Court. She wasn’t implying that all Tamil Nadu women participate in premarital sex; rather, she was addressing how premarital sex was perceived in society at the time.

The uproar surrounding comments made on the subject of premarital sex has raised serious concerns about our ability to tolerate viewpoints that differ from those held by the majority. A simple reference to the rising prevalence of premarital sex and the appeal for societal acceptance was challenged because it was outside the scope of free speech protection.

Scandalous scams 

Collapse of kingfisher .

Vijay Mallaya was an Indian business tycoon who had to abscond to the United Kingdom after being accused of fraud and money laundering in the country. Mallya fled the country and sought sanctuary in the United Kingdom in 2016. Vijay Mallya is said to owe around Rs 9000 crores to multiple banks, which he took out as a loan to save his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines from going bankrupt. Mallya’s desire to develop his liquor and airline businesses sparked the whole thing. His advisers advised him against it, but he went ahead and did it anyway. To fund the newly created Kingfisher Airlines, he sold another company founded by his father.

Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher quickly established itself as one of India’s best domestic airlines, and many Indians’ first choice for flying. But, the Indian government refused to allow Kingfisher to conduct foreign flights due to specific constraints. To travel internationally, he used United Spirits or United Breweries, his parent business, to purchase Deccan Air, which was losing a lot of money at the time. He intended to merge with Deccan, but he was unable to make a profit for Kingfisher even by 2010. Hence started the loans.

The Harsha Mehta scam

Any article on controversial crimes would be incomplete without India’s biggest cases of scams. Harshad Mehta was a stockbroker who was one of the primary stock manipulators of the Bombay Stock Exchange, commonly known as the 1992 Indian stock market scam. When the scam came to light, the entire stock market collapsed. The securities scandal involved the transfer of Rs 3,500 crore in bank cash to a gang of stockbrokers led by Harshad Mehta. This money was subsequently invested strategically in the stock market, enabling it to soar to almost 4,500 points. Mehta came to be known as the ‘Big Bull’ and gullible investors followed his lead.  Sucheta Dalal, an experienced journalist, was the first to uncover it in April 1992.

Harshad Mehta owed the State Bank of India Rs. 500 crores after it discovered it was hanging onto worthless bank receipts. By the end of April 1992, he was accused of diverting money from the public sector company, Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL) to his accounts. A full-fledged committee, the Janakiraman Committee, was established by the RBI to probe into the details of the scam. Mehta was convicted by both the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court and charged with 74 criminal offences. His legal battles dragged on until 2001 when he passed away in jail from a cardiac arrest. 

2G Spectrum case

This was an Indian case of abuse of power and even featured second in Time Magazine’s “Top Ten Abuses of Power” . This case involved allegations of bribery against former telecom minister of India, A. Raja of the UPA government. It was alleged that Raja had allotted airwaves and licences for telephone networks in exchange for bribes, causing financial losses up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the Indian national exchequer. Further, a proper auction was not conducted as was the norm in these situations. The Supreme Court cancelled 122 2G licences but the Special CBI Court acquitted the accused in 2017. The Court stated that the prosecution had “miserably failed” to establish evidence against the accused. The arguments in the case of an appeal against the CBI Court decision are ongoing in the Delhi High Court.

Coalgate scam

Another huge scam that sent shockwaves around the country during the UPA government was the ‘Coalgate’ or ‘Coal block allocation scandal’. In a nutshell, it was a political scandal that rocked the UPA government in 2012. Between 2004 and 2009, the government of India was accused of awarding 194 coal blocks to public and private firms for captive usage in a faulty, ad hoc way, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).

Satyam scam

This was one of the biggest corporate scams in the country. Satyam Computer Services was a computer outsourcing company whose founders and directors falsified data, inflated stock prices and stole huge amounts from the company. It was a case of corporate governance and fraudulent auditing practices allegedly in connivance with auditors and chartered accountants. The company misrepresented its accounts both to its board, stock exchanges, regulators, investors and all other stakeholders. It was a fraud, which misled the market and other stakeholders by lying about the company’s financial health. Even basic facts such as revenues, operating profits, interest liabilities and cash balances were grossly inflated to show the company in good health. Later in 2009, the company founder Ramalingam Raju confessed to the crime. In 2015, the accused were sentenced to seven-year imprisonment. Further huge amounts of fines were also imposed.

The BOFORS scandal

During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a huge weapons-contracting controversy between India and Sweden. In 1986, India reportedly inked a deal with the Swedish armaments firm Bofors AB to deliver their 155mm field howitzer to the Indian Army for Rs 1437 crore (approx). Many politicians were suspected of taking bribes or “kickbacks” totalling over Rs. 64 crores for the agreement, including then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The Bofors fraud is now believed to be worth roughly Rs. 400 crore.

PNB Bank, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi

A more recent case of bank fraud that made headlines and almost ruined the second-largest state-run bank was the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case. This scam included Indian diamantaire Nirav Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi and two top PCB officials. The  PNB filed a case with the CBI in 2018 accusing Nirav Modi and his firms of getting Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) from PNB without paying the margin amount on loans. This meant that if those companies defaulted on the loan, PNB would be responsible for the repayment. The fraud’s discovery not only exposed PNB’s management flaws but also shattered faith in India’s state-run banking system, which controls more than two-thirds of the country’s bank assets.

• Pinky Anand and Gauri Goburdhun, TRIALS OF TRUTH: India’s Landmark Criminal Cases (Penguin Books) 
• 40 landmark judgments that changed the course of India
• 11 Most Mysterious And Sensational Cases Of Murder In India
• 10 Most Interesting Indian Court Cases Everyone Needs To Know About
• The Tarakeswar case: When the “theatre” in the courtroom was more interesting than Othello
• Scam 1992 Explained: How Harshad Mehta, Brokers And Banks Gamed The System
• Harshad Mehta Fraud Case: Hansal Mehta to Release Series Scam 1992
• What was the 2G spectrum scam? 10 things to know – FYI News
• Coal blocks allocation cases Explained: The allegations, investigation, and what next | Explained News, The Indian Express
• Satyam scam: All you need to know about India’s biggest accounting fraud – Hindustan Times
• 9 of the biggest financial scams in India

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• Open access
• Published: 14 August 2024

Understanding the role of mobility in the recorded levels of violent crimes during COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of Tamil Nadu, India

• Kandaswamy Paramasivan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8130-9266 1 , 2 ,
• Saish Jaiswal 3 ,
• Rahul Subburaj 4 &
• Nandan Sudarsanam 5  

Crime Science volume  13 , Article number:  21 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Purpose/Goal

This research investigates the potential link between mobility and violent crimes in Tamil Nadu, India, using an empirical study centred on the COVID-19 pandemic waves (2020–2022). The goal is to understand how these events influenced crime, employing a counterfactual approach.

The study employs the XGBoost algorithm to forecast counterfactual events across different timeframes with varying levels of mobility. The mobility data sources include historical bus and passenger records spanning a decade, along with Google Community Mobility Reports added during the pandemic phases. The foundation for crime analysis is built upon the univariate time series of violent crimes reported as First Information Reports from 2010 to 2022.

Results indicate a significant correlation between mobility and violent crimes when mobility drops below a specific threshold. However, no such correlation is observed when mobility is above this threshold during the non-pandemic periods. The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on people’s and vehicular mobility, especially during the complete lockdown periods of the first two waves, and also affected crime rates.

Conclusions

The decrease in recorded incidents could also be attributed to fewer criminal opportunities. Additionally, this could be due to unfavourable situational factors, such as victims’ limited access to appropriate health and law enforcement agencies to report crimes. Furthermore, frontline services were busy with pandemic-related commitments, which could have contributed to a lack of crime registration even when crimes were committed.

Introduction

Mobility holds a pivotal role in shaping crime dynamics by influencing spatial crime distribution and victimisation risks (Browning et al., 2021 ). It impacts opportunities for crime, either by bringing together potential offenders and targets or by disrupting social controls and fostering anonymity (Felson & Cohen, 1980 ). This understanding is vital for crafting effective crime prevention strategies.

In Tamil Nadu, India, human mobility is influenced by a multitude of factors. Public health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have led to lockdowns and social distancing measures, markedly altering mobility patterns (Paramasivan et al., 2022 ). Natural disasters, including cyclones and floods, particularly in Chennai, necessitate evacuations and disrupt travel, as observed by Narayan ( 2017 ) . Economic drivers also play a role, with certain cities experiencing an influx of guest workers (Ramesh & Ramya, 2023 ). Political events, like the deaths of prominent leaders, have drawn millions to urban areas, drastically impacting mobility ( The Asian Age , 2018 ; Times of Islamabad , 2016 ). Additionally, technological advancements have facilitated remote work, reducing the need for commuting (Mukherjee & Narang, 2023 ). Improved transportation infrastructure undoubtedly plays a role in influencing movement patterns. Overall even during non-pandemic times, there is considerable variation in the mobility pattern.

Extreme events like pandemics significantly disrupt mobility patterns, primarily due to imposed travel restrictions and social distancing measures. (de Palma et al., 2022 ). Such disruptions can cause disorientation and economic hardships, affecting people’s ability to move (Onyeaka et al., 2021 ). Grasping these effects is crucial for responding to crises and curbing their impact on public safety.

To capture this dynamic mobility landscape, the study utilises two key data sources. First, it leverages passenger and operational data spanning a decade (Jan. 2010 – Dec. 2022) from one of the largest bus transport corporations in the region that is responsible for all the public transport in Tamil Nadu. Second, the study incorporates Google Mobility Community Reports for Tamil Nadu, encompassing pandemic and post-pandemic periods across six land-use categories. This comprehensive data approach will enable a nuanced understanding of human mobility patterns within Tamil Nadu.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s unprecedented restrictions on movement offer a unique opportunity to examine the causal relationship between human mobility and violent crime rates. Taking advantage of a situation resembling a natural experiment, this study examines how changes in mobility patterns, especially during the three distinct pandemic waves with varying lockdown strictness, affect violent crime rates in Tamil Nadu (TN), India.

Directly comparing crime rates during the pandemic to pre-pandemic periods can be misleading due to factors like existing trends, seasonal variations, and holiday effects. To overcome this challenge, this research utilises a counterfactual approach that quantifies the impact of the pandemic on violent crime. The study employs a robust machine learning model, XGBoost, to perform a counterfactual prediction. This analysis estimates the crime rate that would have likely occurred in the absence of the pandemic. By comparing the actual reported crime rate with the predicted counterfactual rate, we can isolate the causal impact of the pandemic on crime.

To further elucidate the relationship between mobility and crime, the study replicates the counterfactual analysis using mobility data, specifically focusing on passenger volume and the number of buses operating. Although the primary emphasis is on the pandemic period and its induced mobility patterns in Tamil Nadu, the research spans nearly a decade, providing a broader context for understanding the dynamics between mobility and violent crime. This extensive approach enables a comprehensive assessment of how variations in mobility influence violent crime rates in Tamil Nadu, extending beyond the pandemic period alone.

Literature review and theoretical framework

Human mobility and crime.

Browning and colleagues ( 2021 ) highlight the growing importance of human mobility in understanding crime patterns. They propose three key perspectives: place and neighborhood approaches, which analyze how the concentration of potential offenders, victims, and guardians in specific areas influences crime rates; person-centered approaches, which focus on individual movements and interactions with places to assess personal crime risk; and ecological network approaches, which examine broader systems of connections based on shared activity locations to understand how these connections impact crime variations at both individual and spatial levels. These perspectives collectively underscore the increasing theoretical significance of mobility within the field of criminology. Studies have demonstrated that increased human mobility often correlates with higher property crime rates in large cities. This suggests that previous research on population size and crime rates might have been skewed by the presence of “floating populations” (e.g., tourists, temporary workers) rather than solely focusing on resident populations (Caminha et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, research indicates that the interconnectedness of human mobility networks plays a crucial role in predicting violent crime, even more so than geographical proximity alone. Neighborhoods experiencing significant changes in mobility patterns often see a rise in violent incidents, highlighting the importance of considering mobility dynamics in crime prevention strategies (Vachuska, 2022 ).Several studies have successfully used aggregated human mobility data from mobile networks, combined with demographic information, to accurately predict crime hotspots in cities like London (Bogomolov et al., 2014 ). Including mobility data in crime prediction models has demonstrably improved accuracy, with studies showing increases of up to 89% (Kadar & Pletikosa, 2018 ) and 70% (Wu et al., 2022 ).

It’s important to note that the influence of human mobility on crime likely varies depending on the specific crime type. Crimes like cybercrime, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, institutional crimes (e.g., corruption), and certain white-collar crimes are often driven by unique opportunity structures and may be less influenced by location compared to violent crimes like homicide, assault, and rioting.

Impact of COVID-19 on violent crime worldwide

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly impacted the occurrence and reporting of violent crime worldwide. A complex interplay of factors, including mobility restrictions, media coverage, mental health impacts, resource availability, and emergency response efforts, has contributed to these changes. Research findings indicate that the pandemic’s effects on crime varied significantly across countries and crime categories (Nivette et al., 2021 ).

As LeClerc and Wortley ( 2013 ) emphasise, it’s crucial to avoid overgeneralizing crime patterns in criminology. Understanding the specific decision-making processes of offenders is essential for developing effective crime prevention strategies.

This emphasis on specificity is crucial, especially within crime types, to grasp the nuances of shifting crime patterns. It becomes even more critical during pandemics, where understanding subtle changes, like opportunity structures, is paramount. For instance, pandemic-induced alterations in daily routines can lead to decreased populations in non-residential areas and increased populations in residential zones (Stickle et al., 2020 ).

The opportunity structure for a particular form of crime is not always the same. Most property offences, for example, have greatly dropped, as have road traffic accidents (Paramasivan et al., 2022 ). Murder, assault, and rioting, on the other hand, increased in certain places in the USA (Kim, 2022 ; Meyer et al., 2022 ) while remaining stable (Campedelli et al., 2021 ) or dropping in others (Calderon-Anyosa & Kaufman, 2021 ).

Regarding the pandemic, a few research works predict a drastic to moderate reduction in all crimes, including violent crimes (Abrams, 2020 ; Cheung & Gunby, 2021 ; Halford et al., 2020 ; Nivette et al., 2021 ). On the other hand, there are contradictory patterns of increased violent crimes in many places around the world (Hilsenrath, 2020 ; Kourti et al., 2021 ; Krishnakumar et al., 2021 ; Maji et al., 2021 ; Piquero et al., 2021 ; Raghavan, 2021 ).

According to Abrams ( 2020 ) , the theoretical framework of opportunity theory posits that a decrease in interpersonal connection during the various pandemic phases is likely to result in a corresponding decline in opportunities for the commission of specific violent crimes, including assault, rape, and robbery. The potential impact of implementing or removing restrictions on mobility is expected to have an effect on the incidence of reported criminal activities, either registering an increase or decrease in crime rates. The authors suggest that this discovery provides empirical backing for routine activities/opportunity theory, as there is a positive correlation between the incidence of violent crime and the increased mobility of potential victims and offenders across temporal and spatial dimensions (Lopez & Rosenfeld, 2021 ).

The researchers of the present work seek to explain the role of mobility in the recorded levels of violent crimes on the basis of Crime Pattern Theory (Brantingham et al., 2016 ), Routine Activity Theory (RAT) (Felson & Cohen, 1980 ) and Crime Opportunity Theory (Hannon, 2002 ). Crime Pattern Theory, which is based on environmental psychology, emphasises the relevance of people’s habitual actions in raising awareness of criminal opportunities. First, offenders may be able to discover criminal opportunities more quickly and frequently near their points of activity, known as nodes. Qualitative research has established that the potential for crime opportunity awareness exists in the family, workplace, and other non-criminal settings (Curtis-Ham et al., 2023 ). Some quantitative research works (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993 ; Menting et al., 2019 ; van Sleeuwen et al., 2021 ) suggest that offenders are more likely to commit crimes near their houses, the residences of close relatives, and the sites of previous offences than in other regions. On the other hand, because normal activities play a role in raising awareness of criminal chances, the likelihood of offending is highest near activity nodes and diminishes with distance. This decreasing distance pattern reflects the fact that people are more familiar with places closer to their activity locations than with areas farther away, and familiarity is a major component in crime location selection. All of this is also consistent with the concept of least effort: in theory, people will take the smallest distance possible to find a chance to commit a crime (Curtis-Ham et al., 2020 ). When mobility is severely hampered in the context of extraordinary circumstances such as a pandemic, there is a lower probability of crime occurrence due to fewer crime opportunities and a lower likelihood of committing offences near activity space where there is increased guardianship.

Building on the comprehensive discussion of human mobility’s influence on crime and the pandemic’s impact on crime rates, this literature review highlights a critical gap. While existing research explores these topics, there is a scarcity of studies examining the relationship between mobility and crime across an extended timeframe encompassing both pre-pandemic normalcy and the entire COVID-19 pandemic period (2020–2022).

This research aims to address this gap by investigating the potential link between mobility and violent crimes in Tamil Nadu, India, using an empirical study focused on the COVID-19 pandemic waves. This counterfactual approach will employ the XGBoost algorithm to forecast crime occurrences under hypothetical scenarios with varying levels of mobility.

The study employs counterfactual analysis using the rich datasets spanning a decade: historical bus and passenger records for mobility data and First Information Reports (FIRs) for crime data from 2010 to 2022. By analyzing these data in conjunction with Google Community Mobility Reports from the pandemic period, this research seeks to find the relationship between human mobility and violent crime.

Data and method

In response to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, the Government of Tamil Nadu, under the National Disaster Management Act, 2006, issued emergency orders through the Revenue and Disaster Management Department to contain the virus by restricting movement. Throughout 2020–2022, the department released a series of government orders (GOs) that prohibited, restricted, or relaxed activities for individuals, organisations, and agencies. These GOs, available on the official government website, document the lockdown measures implemented during Waves 1 and 2 ( Government of Tamil Nadu. (2020). Order: Wave 1 ; Government of Tamil Nadu. (2021). Order: Wave 2 ). During Wave 3, although mandatory restrictions were not imposed, the government issued precautionary measures and advisories to encourage public safety.

The study investigates three pandemic waves that occurred from Mar. 23, 2020 to Aug. 31, 2020, Apr. 10, 2021 to Jun. 07, 2021 and Jan. 07, 2022 to Feb. 17, 2022, respectively, spanning 2020–2022. The region of analysis is Tamil Nadu, the sixth most populous state in India. Figure  1 illustrates the study’s timeline across various windows corresponding to the pandemic waves. Criminality was evaluated using time-series data, primarily focusing on crimes against individuals documented through First Information Reports (FIRs) — formal reports of cognisable offences initiating investigations.

The timeline for the different phases of lockdowns during the three pandemic waves (W1, W2, and W3) in 2020–2022

Lockdown severity fluctuated throughout the pandemic. Complete lockdown (CL) represented the most stringent measures, prohibiting all movement of people and vehicles. All institutions, markets, businesses, and shops, including those selling essential goods like alcohol, were completely shut down. People were mandated to stay indoors except for limited windows for purchasing medicines, essential groceries and vegetables. Social gatherings, including funerals and weddings, were heavily restricted. Exceptions were made for vehicles transporting essential goods and personnel involved in pandemic response, particularly healthcare, police, and local administration.

Partial lockdown (PL) introduced a gradual easing of these restrictions. Key industries and establishments reopened with limited staff and operating hours. Shops selling essential goods received extended opening times compared to CL. Alcohol sales were permitted for a limited daily window. Social gatherings of up to 50 people were allowed, but large venues like stadiums, theatres, malls, and major markets remained closed. Importantly, schools and colleges stayed shut, and private taxis and public transportation like buses, trains, and coaches remained non-operational.

The research relies on the First Information Reports (FIRs) registered in Tamil Nadu. Crimes are reported via FIRs in TN’s 1356 police stations, primarily governed by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Chapter XVI (Sects. 299–377) for crimes against the human body. The analysis centres on frequently reported offenses within this category — including murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, and rioting. The study employs univariate time series data of the state’s daily crime count spanning Jan. 1, 2010, to Dec. 31, 2022, for counterfactual analysis.

This research leverages mobility data from two sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the movement of people and vehicles in Tamil Nadu. The first source, encompassing daily bus and passenger frequency data from the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) between Jan. 1, 2010 and Dec. 31, 2022, offers over a decade of pre-pandemic and pandemic period information. The second source, the Google Community Mobility Report, provides data on movement trends across six land-use zones within TN during the pandemic and post-pandemic period. By combining these two datasets, the study gains a richer understanding of mobility patterns throughout the region.

Google Community Mobility Reports (GCMR) that utilise user data — especially from handheld devices — are used to assess mobility trends for the pandemic phases. GCMR categorises user presence and time spent in domains like ‘retail and recreation’, ‘parks’, ‘groceries and pharmacies’, ‘workplaces’, ‘transit stations’, and ‘residential areas’ to gauge mobility changes. For each domain (e.g., retail, grocery stores), it calculates the relative change in visits compared to a pre-pandemic baseline (median visits from Jan. 3, 2020, to Feb. 6, 2020). This change signifies mobility trends within that domain. For example, a -20% change in retail visits signifies a 20% decrease compared to the baseline, while a + 15% change in residential time indicates a 15% increase in time spent at home.

The research starts with an exploratory analysis to determine if the pandemic caused significant changes in crime rates. Instead of merely comparing the mean or median of daily crime frequencies between pandemic and non-pandemic periods, it compares the distributions to identify any differential impacts. The Shapiro-Wilk Test is used to check for normality. Given that the population sizes differ between the periods, normality is likely violated, so the Mann-Whitney U test, a non-parametric test, is employed to check for statistical differences between the two distributions. To quantify the difference, Cliff’s Delta, another non-parametric measure of effect size, is used (Hess et al., 2014 ).

In the next level, to gauge the impact of the pandemic specifically and only on the major violent crimes, including attempted murder, murder, aggravated assault and rioting, the study deploys counterfactual analysis as the simplistic aggregated comparison done might be erroneous as likely it would have missed the trend, seasonality and holiday effects of the time series of the past historical data. This study utilizes XGBoost, a machine learning algorithm for time series forecasting and counterfactual analysis, to make predictions during the pandemic period based on a decade of historical data. The historical data is used to create lag and rolling features, capturing trends and patterns for accurate predictions. The variables include daily crime counts. The research involves creating and fine-tuning models through training, validation, and forecasting stages, as detailed in Table  1 .

During training, XGBoost sequentially trains decision trees, improving model accuracy by focusing on incorrectly predicted observations and predicting their residuals. The algorithm monitors performance on a validation set to avoid overfitting, using an early stopping criterion when validation performance stops improving.

The model’s accuracy is evaluated using the weighted mean absolute percentage error (WMAPE) metric, which avoids infinite errors by addressing zero crime days. WMAPE is calculated as the summation of absolute differences between actual and predicted values divided by the summation of actual values over the time period t from 1 to n.

To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the pandemic’s impact, the counterfactual analysis is replicated for mobility data. This analysis explores changes in both vehicular mobility (number of buses operated) and people’s mobility (passenger travel).

Next, a deeper investigation assesses the pandemic’s influence on four specific violent crimes. Utilising data from the Google Community Mobility Report (GCMR), the analysis examines these crimes across six land-use categories. This detailed exploration considers data from three distinct pandemic waves, further divided into nine phases with varying mobility patterns.

Similar to the crime analysis, the researchers compare actual and predicted distributions for mobility and crime data using appropriate statistical tests. Finally, Cliff’s Delta, a non-parametric effect size measure, is employed to quantify the magnitude of these effects.

In the last part of the investigation, the study evaluates Pearson’s correlation coefficient between mobility metrics and four categories of violent crime for various phases in the pandemic period. The mobility metrics in the results include transportation data (buses operated and passengers traveled) as well as the percentage change in mobility provided by GCMR. The carefully examined relationship between these factors becomes one of the major findings of the research.

Compared to non-pandemic periods, most crime categories – including violent crime, property offenses, and crimes against women and children – showed statistically significant declines during the pandemic. However, the decrease was negligible for these crimes. Road crashes, domestic violence, and theft saw substantial reductions with medium to large effect sizes. Notably, child sexual abuse cases exhibited a large effect size increase during the pandemic compared to non-pandemic times (see Table  2 ).

The counterfactual analysis performed using XGBoost prediction provided results within acceptable levels of accuracy for several time series forecasts (see Table  3 ). The investigation yielded two significant results. The first is about counterfactual analysis of the impact on crime and mobility during exceptional circumstances, and the second is about descriptive statistical analysis exploring the relationship between mobility and recorded levels of crime at all times.

Counterfactual daily counts of violent crimes represent incidents without an emergency. The observed/actual daily violent crime counts and predicted numbers in a non-emergency scenario were compared. The Wilcoxon test revealed no significant variations in distributions across violent crime categories throughout time frames, as highlighted in Table  4 , except during the complete lockdown in Wave-1 when all violent crimes reported a significant drop in recorded levels. During this severely restricted movement period, the effect size for aggravated assault, attempted murder, murder, and rioting was − 0.96, -0.4, -0.45, and − 0.28 compared to the counterfactual (refer to Table  5 ). The most noticeable effect was on aggravated assault levels. This trend is visually illustrated in Fig.  2 , which showcases a distinct decline in aggravated assault cases during Wave-1’s lockdown. The counterfactual analysis was extended to measure people’s mobility and vehicular mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it revealed that only during Wave-1 of the pandemic was there a significant reduction in both mobilities, whereas during the non-pandemic period did not report any significant reduction as can be seen in the effect sizes which were negligible or small (See also Table  6 and Table  7 ). These findings mirror the analysis of the Google Mobility Community Report (GMCR) in Table  8 . The GMCR investigation, which is not a counterfactual analysis, is only applicable during the pandemic phases and compares pandemic mobility to pre-pandemic mobility.

A , B Plot of actual and predicted daily aggravated assault cases in TN during pandemic waves 1, 2, and 3

The study analyses the correlation between registered crimes and mobility (transportation department data) using Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) based on daily crime counts and mobility data from Jan. 1, 2010, to Dec. 31, 2022. Table  9 indicates a negligible correlation between crimes and vehicular mobility, and the same for people’s mobility, except for aggravated assault (r = + 0.456) and child sexual abuse ( r = -0.577), moderately correlated to people’s mobility via passenger counts.

The investigation distinguishes between crisis (pandemic lockdowns) and non-emergency periods, particularly during 2010–2022. Analysis within these emergency periods reveals a significant correlation between mobility and violent crimes during severe restrictions, importantly in complete lockdown phases of the first two pandemic waves. Particularly, aggravated assault cases displayed a significant correlation during restricted mobility windows in pandemic lockdowns of Wave-1 and Wave-2. Noticeably, all categories of violent crimes exhibited moderate correlation during both waves of complete lockdown. People’s mobility and vehicular mobility showed no discernible difference concerning their relationship with registered violent crimes (Table  10 ).

The transportation department’s mobility data validation using GMCR data confirmed the relationship between mobility and violent crime. Figure  3 visually depicts the direct correlation between mobility changes across public spaces and reported crimes in the first six time windows from Wave-1 to Post-Wave-2. The percentage variations in mobility in different time frames follow the same trend, with the exception of the residential zone, where mobility increased as people stayed indoors more during the lockdown stages. However, the magnitude of such change expectedly varied, with the maximum occurring in the retail and recreation zone and the minimum in the spatial domain of pharmacy and grocery. In the most recent two periods, Wave-3 and post-Wave-3, there is no such correlation, as the percentage change in mobility increased across all land-use categories during these periods.

Relationship between mobility change and reported violent crimes during pandemic waves in TN. The top panels show mobility vs. attempted murder and murder, while the bottom panels depict mobility vs. aggravated assault and rioting

This section begins by highlighting the key findings presented in the previous section. Table  2 presents a straightforward comparative impact on general crimes, revealing a statistically significant difference between crime distributions during the pandemic and non-pandemic periods. However, the effect size for violent crimes, such as attempted murder, murder, rioting, and aggravated assault, is negligible. A more detailed counterfactual comparison dividing the pandemic into nine phases (Table  4 ) shows a substantial drop in all violent crimes during the complete lockdown in Wave-1 when mobility was severely restricted.

When examining the correlation between mobility (using passenger and bus data) and violent crime, significant correlation coefficients were observed during the complete lockdown periods of both waves (Table  10 ). Further analysis across the entire pandemic period, relying on the standards of the range of Pearson’s correlation coefficient (Ratner, 2009 ), found a moderate positive correlation between percentage changes or effect size metrics of mobility and violent crime (Table  11 ).

Unlike the transportation data, which does not categorise crime locations, the GCMR data provides percentage changes in mobility divided into six specific land-use categories, facilitating further analysis. The study reveals a high correlation between changes in mobility within these six land-use categories and four types of violent crimes, as shown in Fig.  3 . Notably, during post-wave-2, wave-3, and post-wave-3 periods, when mobility levels remained stable, this correlation disappeared across all land-use zones and crime categories (Fig.  3 ).

In summary, there is generally no correlation between mobility and violent crimes at all times. However, if mobility falls below a certain threshold, a relationship emerges, with substantial reductions in mobility leading to significant decreases in violent crime.

Recorded levels of crime rates are affected by other situational factors such as victims’ ability, willingness, and eagerness to report crimes (Stefanovska, 2019 ; Wittebrood & Junger, 2002 ) and law enforcement’s proficiency and responsiveness (Boateng, 2016 ). The second wave of COVID-19 was more lethal than the first (Tendulkar et al., 2023 ); India Coronavirus: Worldometer, 2024 ), but violent crimes decreased despite a relative increase in mobility during the complete lockdown during the second wave. This decline may occur due to a clogged crime reporting system and overburdened hospitals and other frontline agencies. Deterioration of the medical infrastructure impedes crime reporting and victim assistance.

During the complete lockdown in wave-1 of the pandemic, the decline in aggravated assault, attempted murder and murder, as reported by Cliffs Delta, were − 0.96, -0.4,-0.45, respectively. In the same period, mobility decreased most significantly in Retail and Recreation zones (-80.5%), followed by Workplace (-64.3%), Transit Stations (-62%), Grocery and Pharmacy (-51.2%), and Parks. Locations such as bars, recreational centers, street-side shops, and bus stations are particularly prone to the above violent crimes (Brantingham et al., 2016 ).

The substantial fall decline in mobility observed in retail and recreational, workplace, transit stations and parks may be attributable to a diminishing criminal opportunity for the offender due to limited activity space (Curtis-Ham et al., 2021 ). According to Brantingham and Brantingham ( 1993 ) , instances of crime arise when the awareness space of offenders, which refers to the areas they are cognizant of in proximity to their activity nodes, intersects with chances for criminal behaviour. The presence of potential targets and the absence of effective guardians create opportunities for criminal activity (Felson & Cohen, 1980 ), however, substantially reduced mobility during the strict stay-at-home orders did not pave the way for such circumstances for crime occurrences.

According to the researchers (Abrams, 2020 ), violent crimes, such as armed robbery, assault, rape, and murder, are declining because there are fewer possibilities for the crimes to occur. During the total lockdown, several locations were shut down. Bars, theatres, malls, restaurants, and concerts, which would ordinarily be locations where offenders would find targets to perpetrate crimes, were closed down. Similarly, there was an increase in mobility in the residential zone, implying enhanced guardianship and less opportunity for crime. The current study is predominantly in line with the work of Clarke ( 2012 ) , who suggests that rather than modifying offender propensity, situational factors facilitate or encourage the actual commission of criminal acts, explaining why some people are more likely to be delinquent or criminal (Clarke, 2012 ).

Whether considering the space-time convergence of routine activities or substantial changes in opportunities for committing crimes or place-based characteristics, these factors are affected only if mobility falls below a certain threshold. Similarly, situational factors that inhibit or impede the reporting and registration of complaints are impacted only when victims’ mobility is severely restricted, as the physical presence of the complainant at the police station is required for investigation. During the complete lockdown, there was almost complete cessation of all modes of transport except a few permitted.

Building on routine activity theory’s focus on the dynamics between offenders, victims, and guardians, research has highlighted the importance of spatial variations in crime at smaller scales, such as street segments and addresses (Eck & Weisburd, 2015 ; Hipp & Williams, 2020 ; McCord & Ratcliffe, 2007 ; Smith et al., 2000 ). Routine activities theory preconditions that a crime occurs when a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of capable guardians converge in time and space. Offenders evaluate the costs and benefits of criminal acts based on immediate environmental conditions. This theory highlights the importance of mobility and the social composition of spaces in relation to offenders, guardians, and targets, leading to extensive research on place-based characteristics that inhibit or promote criminal opportunities (Wilcox & Cullen, 2018 ). It is important to discuss the corollary that during the same relevant time, the increase in mobility in residential zones was 32%. Increased mobility leads to a greater presence of capable guardians, such as parents, neighbors, and teachers, who monitor the area and deter potential offenders. Additionally, place managers who oversee the regular conditions of crime-prone sites are more likely to be present, further enhancing security (Eck, 2003 ; Weisburd et al., 2012 ). This present research empirically supports the exploration of mobility-related factors influencing crime at this “microplace” level.

Certain types of crimes are differently impacted by human mobility, as their opportunity structures may differ or the location may have no significance. These crimes often involve circumstances or motivations less dependent on human mobility, whether involving the offender, victim, or guardian. Cybercrimes, including hacking, phishing, and online fraud, occur in the digital realm and are not reliant on physical human mobility. However, due to reduced human mobility during the pandemic, people were more present in the digital world, either working or on social networking sites or retailing, which caused an increase in these crimes (Hawdon et al., 2020 ).

It can also be said that intimate partner violence typically occurs within private residences and is influenced more by interpersonal conflicts due to jealousy, finances, women’s gender role transgressions than by mobility patterns (Jewkes, 2002 ). Similarly, child sexual abuse often involves perpetrators known to the victim and typically occurs in environments such as homes or familiar settings, making it less influenced by general public mobility (Kaufman et al., 1998 ).

Human mobility will impact these offenses, such as intimate partner violence or child sexual abuse, differently. If mobility includes the presence of the offender for a longer duration, as increased mobility was during the pandemic stay-at-home orders, mobility indirectly impacts these occurrences. Regarding child sexual abuse, the prolonged closure of schools increased the possibility of abuse due to the opportunity for the offender to exploit the victim, while teachers, social workers, and others could not identify such cases and notify the appropriate agency for action (Paramasivan et al., 2023 ).

White-collar crimes, such as financial fraud, embezzlement, and insider trading, are usually conducted in the immediate environment where crime opportunities are discovered and evaluated by potential offenders. They are not significantly affected by the broader mobility of people (Benson et al., 2009 ).

While general human mobility may not directly impact these crimes, changes in societal conditions, such as lockdowns, can still indirectly influence the incidence or reporting of these crimes. For instance, lockdowns may increase domestic violence due to prolonged proximity and stress (Kourti et al., 2021 ), or reduce the reporting of child abuse due to a lack of access to external observers like teachers (Baron et al., 2020 ). As the present study primarily concerns the specific violent crimes discussed, no detailed investigation has been done on whether these crimes are impacted by human mobility. This is identified as a future line of investigation.

The study makes an intriguing observation: when mobility falls below a certain threshold, a strong correlation between mobility and recorded violent crime levels emerges. Otherwise, the research found no relationship between mobility and recorded levels of crime. Stay-at-home orders in certain countries have led to a reduction in violent crimes. During Wave-1’s complete lockdown in Tamil Nadu, both violent crime and mobility decreased, demonstrating a linear relationship.

The impact on vehicular and people’s mobility during the pandemic period experienced a significant decrease in mobility, particularly during the complete lockdown stages of the initial two waves of the pandemic, having a discernible impact on recorded crime levels.

There was an exceptional drop in recorded levels of crime during the complete lockdown period of Wave-1, when mobility across all land-use categories (except residential zones) declined phenomenally. The decline in reported incidents may also be attributable to diminished criminal opportunities. Additionally, this could be due to unfavourable situational factors, such as victims’ limited access to appropriate health and law enforcement agencies to report crimes. In addition, frontline agencies were preoccupied with pandemic-related responsibilities, which may have contributed to a lack of crime registration despite the fact that crimes were committed.

The significant decrease in crime during the lockdown, despite a potential increase in criminal motivation due to the pandemic, aligns with RAT principles. With drastically reduced mobility, offenders had fewer opportunities to encounter suitable targets and evade guardians. Additionally, the increased residential mobility suggests more potential guardians were present at home, further deterring crime. This empirical evidence from the lockdown strengthens the argument that opportunity, not social disorganization, played a major role in the observed crime decline.

Data availability

The authors do not have permission to share the data publicly in view of the confidential agreement between the authors and the departments of Government of India. However data will be made available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

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Paramasivan, K., Jaiswal, S., Subburaj, R. et al. Understanding the role of mobility in the recorded levels of violent crimes during COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of Tamil Nadu, India. Crime Sci 13 , 21 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00222-w

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10 Important Cases of Labour Law

This article presents a comprehensive overview of ten landmark cases that have significantly influenced the evolution of labour laws in india..

The article '10 Important Cases of Labour Law' presents a comprehensive overview of ten landmark cases that have significantly influenced the evolution of labour laws in India.

Labour law covers employment contracts, wages, health and safety, fair treatment of employees, dispute resolution mechanisms and so on and so forth. It provides regulations that govern the relationship between an employee and the employer in a workplace. Labour laws play an important role in the protection of the rights of employees. The cases discussed below aim to cover various aspects of labour laws.

1. Workmen of M/S Firestone Tyre and Rubber Co. of India v. Management [1]

In the instant case, the workers of the Firestone Tyre & Rubber Company were terminated from their employment by the employer as a result of the Domestic Inquiry Finding. Meanwhile, during the pendency of the suit, the amendment to the Industrial Tribunal Act in 1971, brought in Section 11 A which conferred Industrial Tribunal with the Appellate Authority power over domestic inquiries into emerging disputes. The Tribunal gave a decision in favour of the employer and therefore dissatisfied with the decision; the aggrieved workers appealed to the Apex court against the order passed by the tribunal. The Supreme Court considered on the understanding of Section 11A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and acknowledged the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 as a beneficial legislative measure drafted for the welfare of employees.

However, the court ruled that since the lawsuit was started before the amendment, the said section would not be applicable in this case. It would only be relevant to cases started after the amendment to the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947.

2. Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India [2]

A PIL was filed by an organization named Bandhua Mukti Morcha who were actively fighting against the abhorrent practice of bonded labour. The organisation outlined a survey report, conducted in stone quarries in the Faridabad district which revealed numerous workers facing inhuman & intolerable conditions, with a drive of forced labour.

In response to the highlighted facts, the Court recognized guidelines for identifying bonded labourers and directed that state governments must locate, release, and rehabilitate the bonded labourers. The court also declared that a person being a bonded labourer is deprived of liberty, and is a slave with no freedom in choosing employment.

The court also ruled that if it is established that a worker is engaged in forced labour, the presumption is that economic deliberations are involved, and therefore, the worker is a bonded labourer. This presumption can only be refuted by the employer & the state government if they deliver satisfactory evidence.

3. Steel Authority of India Limited v. National Union Waterfront Workers [3]

The Government of West Bengal originally forbade contract labour at specified stockyards in Calcutta by virtue of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1989. The prohibition was temporarily put off through a notification dated August 28, 1989, but it was extended until August 31, 1994. The contracted labourers of a central government enterprise which were primarily involved in manufacturing iron and steel products and engaged in import-export had its branches across India, petitioned the Calcutta High Court to direct the appellants, SAIL, to fascinate them into their consistent establishment due to the West Bengal government's prohibition. The Calcutta High Court, considering the State Government as the appropriate authority dismissed the writ petition. In response to this, the appellants appealed to the Supreme Court, putting in question, the interpretation of "appropriate government" enshrined in Section 2(1)(a) of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970.

The apex court lined that any company working under the authority of the Central Government undertakings, which fails to function due to a lack of conferred power, is considered an industry under the Central Government. Subsequently, the court determined that as per the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, the appropriate government was the Central Government.

4. People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India [4]

The PUDR is an organization formed to protect the democratic rights of the Citizens. In the instant case, PUDR appointed three scientists for the inquiry to be conducted in the ASIAD Projects. Based on the investigation report the petitioner addressed a letter to Justice P.N Bhagwati which served as a Public Interest Litigation. The letter highlighted violations of various labour laws and the apex court was requested to look into the issue. The letter was considered as a writ petition by the Supreme Court. Notices were issued to the Union Government, the Delhi Development Authority & the Delhi Administration.

The major allegations highlighted-

The violation of the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976( women workers were not paid properly; misappropriation of money).

The violation of Article 24 of the Constitution of India, the Employment of Children Act, 1938 & 1970 as the children below 14 years were engaged at the construction site by the contractors.

The violations of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Violation) Act of 1970, resulted in the maltreatment of the workers and denial of their various rights.

The apex court in this case found that the stated violations did happen and at a gross means. The court held that there were abuse of labour laws in mass and the State was obliged to take action against such violation ensuring that the fundamental rights of the labourers are safeguarded.

5. Syndicate Bank and Ors v. K. Umesh Nayak [5]

The major issue in the instant case before the Apex Court was whether the workmen were entitled to get paid during the period of strike despite the strike’s nature, legal or illegal.

The Apex Court held that unless a strike contradicts the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, it would be considered legal. Close scrutiny is essential to be applied to the particular factual condition of each claim.

In the instant case, the strike was a result of longstanding disputes between employees and employers. It is the last resort available to the employees for their demands to be fulfilled by the industry. The Industrial Legislation provides for worker’s right to protest and the right of the employer to lockout & provide machinery for peaceful inquiry & clearance of disputes between them. Therefore, the Court ordered that the employees be paid for the strike period.

6. Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay v. Labour Appellate Tribunal of India [6]

Retrenchment was questioned in this case. The term retrenchment amounts to the termination done by the employer of the employee for reasons other than giving punishment through disciplinary action. It is generally done to relieve them from a job in good faith. In this particular case, the employer sent a show cause notice to the employee after leading an inquiry into misconduct. As a result, the employee was terminated being found guilty and unfit for continued employment with the company. The terminated employee filed a petition seeking restoration and compensation on grounds of termination. The Labour Court ruled in favour of the employee. This decision was challenged by the appellant in Bombay High Court. The High Court decided that this case did not involve retrenchment because the employee’s termination was based on misconduct.

7. M.C. Mehta v. State of Tamil Nadu [7]

In the instant case, Shri MC Mehta invoked Article 32, for violation of fundamental rights of children guaranteed under Article 24. The Court found Sivakasi was the main offender who was employing many child labourers, engaging them in the manufacturing process of matches and fireworks which is qualified as a hazardous industry and held employing children under the age of 14 years in this industry is prohibited.

The Court restated that children below the age of fourteen must not be engaged in any hazardous industry and must ensure all children get free education till the age of 14 years. The Court further also looked at Article 39 (e) which states that the children’s tender age should not be exploited but instead, the opportunities for their healthy growth and development. Therefore, the Court directed the employer Sivakasi must pay a compensation of Rs. 20,000 for violation of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986.

8. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited v. Workmen [8]

The appellant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is a company registered under Section 617 of the Companies Act, 1956, belonging to the Central Government. The case is about 1000 workers, working in the company’s repairing unit at Barrackpore, West Bengal were facing issues w.r.t the allowance of the employee’s education, revision of lunch allowances and job permanency. The dispute was then taken by the West Bengal Government under Section 10 (1) to the Industrial Tribunal. The Industrial Tribunal partly awarded some relief to the workers. As a result, the Appellants took their case to the Apex Court and questioned whether the West Bengal government was an appropriate government or not, to resolve the dispute.

The Supreme Court held that the West Bengal government is the appropriate government keeping in mind the company’s subsidiary in West Bengal carried on different business.

Therefore, when there arises a situation of conflict or breakdown, the government of West Bengal has the authority to settle any dispute and keep industrial peace.

9. Bata Shoe Co. Ltd. v. D.N Ganguly [9]

The case is related to a dispute that emerged between Bata Company and the workers. The parties opted for the process of Conciliation to reach a settlement. But the workers initiated a strike post-settlement for which the company declared the strike illegal, stating its contradiction to the earlier settlement. Accordingly, the company conducted an inquiry and terminated the striking workers. In executing the termination dispute, another conciliation proceeding arose, resulting in a signed agreement between both parties. Remarkably, no conciliation officer was present throughout this process.

The main issue before the apex court was whether a settlement executed between the company and the workers could exist in accordance with Section 12 and Section 18 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The apex court held that the first settlement was binding since it was in accordance with the specified sections however the subsequent settlement remains non-binding since it was contrary to the specified provisions of the Industrial legislation.

10. Bangalore Water Supply v. A. Rajappa & Others [10]

A. Rajappa was an employee of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board. A labour dispute was persisting between the employee and the board. A. Rajappa along with several other workmen were fined by the Board for misconduct. A hefty amount was recovered from them which was not reasonable. Therefore A. Rajappa along with other workmen approached the Labour Court. The issue was whether Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board fell within the definition of industry under Section 2(j) of the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947. The Supreme Court of India dismissed the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board's appeal and held it within the industry definition under the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947.

[1] 1973 SCR (3) 587

[2] AIR 1984 SC 802

[3] Appeal (Civil) 6009-6010 of 2001

[4] 1982 AIR 1473

[5] 1994 SCC (5) 572

[6] AIR 1957 Bom 188

[7] AIR 1997 SC 699

[8] 1975 AIR 1737

[9] 1961 AIR 1158

[10] AIR 1978 SC 548

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Fighting for the Future of Indian Law

Stanford’s growing program in american indian and indigenous law is on the front lines, from the supreme court to tribal council chambers.

• June 29, 2023
• Rebecca Beyer
• Illustrations by Jeffrey Decoster
• Spring 2023 – Issue 108
• Cover Story
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When the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last fall in a controversial case challenging a law requiring states to make every effort to place Native children who have been removed from their homes with members of their family, tribe, or another Native nation, dozens of Stanford Law School students and faculty had gathered to listen to the live audio.

The case, Brackeen v. Haaland , was called at 7:02 a.m. Pacific time, but the SLS contingent was wide awake. They each had an interest in the outcome. Some of the listeners are Native American themselves and have relatives or friends who can recall when their children were forcibly removed from their homes and tribes before the law in question, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), was passed in 1978. Professor Gregory Ablavsky solo-authored amicus briefs for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the high court in support of the federal government in the case. First-year students in Professor Elizabeth Reese ’s discussion group had been studying ICWA and the underlying lawsuit for weeks. Professors Pamela S. Karlan and Jeffrey L. Fisher and students in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic represented the Navajo Nation in the matter and most of the group had been present when Reese, Ablavsky, Karlan, and Fisher mooted the lead attorney for the tribes supporting the law.

The Supreme Court upheld the law in a 7-2 decision on June 15, but the case was just the latest example of the high stakes for long-standing principles of tribal sovereignty in this country.

The campus listening party was pedagogical in nature—it was the first chance for most of the 1Ls present to study a statute and see it debated at the highest court in the land. But the gathering was also a show of community for Stanford’s growing American Indian and Indigenous Law program, led by Ablavsky and Reese. The area gained real traction in 2015 with the hiring of Ablavsky, the first Stanford professor with expertise in the field; Reese joined the faculty in 2021 as the first American Indian professor. Today the program encompasses everything from studying Indian law in the classroom to working on behalf of tribes in policy practicums. The students and faculty gathered on November 9, 2022, weren’t just listening to the oral arguments—they were invested in the case. Reese, a scholar of American Indian tribal law, federal Indian law, and constitutional law, is a citizen of Nambé Pueblo. She brought donuts for the occasion.

“I had nothing like this when I was in law school,” says Reese, whose Tewa name, Yunpoví, means Willow Flower. “I couldn’t have dreamed of anything like this Indian law program. We were sitting there in the room listening live when the justices referenced some research that Professor Ablavsky had done. It was very cool.”

  Changing Course

The term Indian law often encompasses two broad categories: tribal law and federal Indian law. Tribal law is exactly what it sounds like—the laws and governing mechanisms that each of this country’s 574 federally recognized, sovereign Native nations have created for themselves since before the creation of the United States. Federal Indian law, on the other hand, refers to laws enacted by the United States to govern relations between the U.S. and tribes.

When Ablavsky arrived at SLS, the law school’s clinics were already working for and with tribes, including on important environmental, religious liberty, and educational matters, and there was a community of Native students and their allies, represented by the Native American Law Students Association (NALSA). But, while some faculty incorporated tribal issues into their curricula, courses dedicated to Indian law were taught only every few years by visiting professors or adjuncts.

Federal Indian Law is now offered every year, taught by Ablavsky or Reese (in one recent quarter, it was the highest enrolled class at the law school). In addition, Ablavsky created a policy practicum— Fed eral Indian Law: Yurok Legal Assistance —in which students work with the tribal attorneys of the largest federally recognized Native nation in California on issues ranging from water rights and police powers to tribal-county relationships. And Reese, who in April took a temporary leave from SLS to join the White House Domestic Policy Council as the senior policy adviser for Native affairs, teaches Tribal Law and leads 1L discussion groups on Native issues, like the one on Brackeen .

In a 2021 Stanford Law Review article called “The Other American Law,” Reese argued that Tribal law should be taught and studied alongside and within mainstream legal subjects. When she joined the faculty that same year, she says the foundation of Indian law offerings was “fantastic.”

“There was already a lot going on,” she explains. “The norm at other law schools would be only stuff that I planned or NALSA planned. Here, the work was already happening.”

Tanner Allread, JD ’22/PhD ’25, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation who is finishing his PhD in history, says the fact that Federal Indian Law was a mainstay of the SLS curriculum was a major draw.

“That really sold me,” he says. “I felt that I would have a lot of support as a Native student.”

Choctaw citizen Carson Smith, JD ’25 (BA ’19), who studied political science and Native American studies as an undergraduate, agrees.

“I applied to other law schools,” she says. “But it had to be Stanford. Professors Ablavsky and Reese were the really big sell. Most campuses don’t even have one tenure-track law professor focused on this area—we have two.”

Jenny Martinez, the Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School, says SLS is “proud of its growing tribal law and federal Indian law program, which is unmatched among top law schools.”

“Liz and Greg are both pushing the field forward and engaging professionally with the most important questions in this area,” she says. “What’s more, the students love them.”

Drawing on the Past to  Shape the Future

As lead faculty, Ablavsky and Reese bring with them complementary backgrounds and experience.

Ablavsky taught fifth grade on the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico before law school. In addition to his JD, he has a PhD in history and specializes in issues related to sovereignty, territory, and property in the founding era—expertise that is in very high demand at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is dominated by originalists.

An award-winning author, Ablavsky won both the Law and Society Association’s James Willard Hurst Book Prize and the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Book Prize for his 2021 book, Federal Ground: Governing Property and Violence in the First U.S. Territories . He has written amicus briefs in several high-profile cases, and his historical perspective is highly relevant for judges who must decide present-day controversies with centuries-old statutes or case law. In the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta , which held that states can prosecute crimes by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country, Justice Neil Gorsuch cited Ablavsky’s work in a scorching dissent (in a forthcoming law review article, Ablavsky argues that Castro-Huerta is an example of opinions based on “bad” history). And in the 5th Circuit’s fractured en banc decision in Brackeen, judges who voted to uphold ICWA cited Ablavsky’s articles and amicus brief more than 40 times.

“The law has always been tied up with conquest. But it's also tied up with our sovereignty.”

Elizabeth Reese, assistant professor of law

“Greg is an incredible historian,” Reese says. “He’s able to do really powerful and important work, particularly because the Supreme Court is so focused on originalism right now. On the flip side, I’m very plugged into the contemporary Native community, the fights that tribes are fighting, the way that tribes are building themselves up as governing institutions.”

Reese spent her early childhood in Nambé in New Mexico. After law school, she worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and later the National Congress of American Indians, where she helped tribal governments implement certain powers to prosecute non-Indians restored to them under the 2013 Violence Against Women Act (a 1978 Supreme Court case, Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe , held that tribal courts cannot prosecute non-Indians except where Congress has specifically given them the power to do so). In that role, she reviewed tribal codes and worked with tribal judges, attorneys, and victim advocates on the legal requirements of jurisdiction under the law.

Reese spends much of her time laying the groundwork for the future of tribal and federal Indian law. In 2021, she testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in favor of expanded criminal jurisdiction for tribes under the Violence Against Women Act. In part based on her testimony—and the comprehensive report she produced for the National Congress of American Indians—Congress granted tribes the power to prosecute additional crimes under the law.

Her scholarly work is likewise forward looking. Reese’s article “The Other American Law,” published in the Stanford Law Review, calls for enhanced access to tribal laws and court decisions and for the inclusion of tribal law cases in the first-year legal curriculum. Reese is currently working on an article about tribal representation in Congress, one of many unfulfilled promises made by the federal government.

“Tribes don’t have senators and congresspeople. The fact that they’re lumped in with states, which are competing sovereigns for resources and land, has never made sense,” she says. “My work is always thinking about and demanding systems that fully recognize tribal sovereignty. What does that really look like? Some of the things we’re currently fighting about are the bare minimum.”

Engaging Students

Ablavsky and Reese regularly involve students in their research and writing. Several students worked with Ablavsky on his Brackeen amicus brief; Allread helped prepare Reese for her Senate testimony and is a co-author with Ablavsky on “We the (Native) People?: How Indigenous Peoples Debated the U.S. Constitution,” published in the Columbia Law Review .

“Professor Ablavsky has been the most amazing mentor and adviser and supporter,” Allread says. “I was very honored that he asked me to work with him.”

Allread has a piece of his own forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review . The article, which builds on a paper he wrote for a class Ablavsky taught called Law and Empire in U.S. History , returns Oklahoma’s state power argument in Castro-Huerta to its original context: the era of Indian Removal, when tribes were forced from their land to make way for white settlers.

In Reese’s Tribal Law class, students research the law and policies of individual tribes or small groups of tribes that have banded together. Eventually, Reese hopes to make their research accessible to other scholars and practitioners—part of her overriding goal to bring tribal law into the mainstream.

In “The Other American Law,” Reese highlights three case studies showing how tribes—a catchall term first used by the U.S. government to describe precolonial governments that, as she writes, “we ought to call by the names they call themselves ”—have dealt with some of the same kinds of legal questions that other U.S. jurisdictions deal with: criminal procedure, separation of powers, and election law.

“While this article also argues that tribes have much to offer if included in the mainstream, it also suggests that tribes should not need to prove their value to warrant mainstream attention,” she writes. “Instead, they simply belong in the mainstream, alongside our study of the other governments of the United States, because they are also a part of this nation.”

“They give us the opportunity to work with them; we supply the students' time and energy.”

Professor Greg Ablavsky about the policy practicum he launched working with the Yurok Tribe

Outside of the research realm, students have long had the opportunity to work with tribes through Stanford Law School’s clinics, addressing issues that range from religious freedom and equity in education to water rights and protecting sacred lands from development. Ablavsky and Reese have expanded those opportunities through the American Indian and Indigenous Law program.

Several years ago—after a chance meeting with a Yurok official at a conference—Ablavsky created the Yurok Legal Assistance policy practicum. Unlike clinics that work in specific practice areas, the practicum is a partnership in which SLS students assist the Yurok Tribe on any legal questions they have.

“It’s a win-win,” Ablavsky says. “The Yurok Tribe has various kinds of legal research they need help with, but their attorneys don’t always have the capacity to work on longer-term projects. We have a bunch of eager students who are interested in this area of the law and serving Indian country. They give us the opportunity to work with them; we supply the students’ time and energy.”

In the past, students have helped the Yurok with questions about the removal of a dam on the Klamath River, the administration of benefits, and drafting tribal code to encourage economic development, among other topics.

Smith took the practicum as an undergraduate and again as a 1L: “I felt like I was actually doing something meaningful,” she says, “and didn’t have to be trapped in an ivory tower.”

Reese and Ablavsky are proactive in connecting students with other experiential opportunities as well. Allread interned at top Indian law firm Kanji & Katzen; Smith will work at the firm this summer. After a referral from Reese, Emily Bruell, JD ’24, spent most of her 2L year assisting the California Rural Indian Health Board in efforts to access COVID data from counties arguing that the California Information Practices Act prevents them from sharing the data with tribes.

“Obviously this information is critical to managing disease and public health,” Bruell says. “When it comes to the spread of disease, tribes don’t exist in a bubble; they’re very interdependent with surrounding counties.”

There is also plenty of pro bono work for students interested in Indian law. In 2021, Daniel Ahrens, JD ’23, and Sam Becker, JD ’22, co-founded the Native Law Pro Bono Project, in which students partner with two legal aid organizations—the Northwest Justice Project and California Indian Legal Services—to conduct legal research and assist on direct-service projects.

This year, Ella Bohn, JD ’24, has co-led the work with California Indian Legal Services, which has included land improvement projects, prescribed burning for cultural practices, and access to sacred sites located on private lands. For the Northwest Justice Project, students help Native clients draft wills to protect their tribal lands. Students can also work with Yurok Tribe members on their wills through an alternative spring break supported by NALSA and the Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation.

“There are a lot of points of entry for students interested in this area of the law,” Bohn says. “It’s also an area of law where I felt I could really be additive and helpful. There’s a need for good advocates in Indian country.”

Read NALSA: 50 Years of SLS Native Community

Building and Empowering Community

A central component of Stanford’s American Indian and Indigenous Law program is community. A strong support system is imperative in an area of the law in which the government’s past policies have included indiscriminate killing and termination—disbanding tribes and selling their land. After all, for Native students, these cases— Brackeen and Castro-Huerta and countless more dating back to the early 19th century—are tied up with questions about their collective identity, or, as Reese says, the “ability of our communities to thrive and survive.”

“It’s hard because some of these cases are about the Trail of Tears, about, effectively, my tribal community experiencing an act of genocide,” Smith says. “Those are really difficult things to navigate.”

Stanford University has a long history of Native activism and community. The Stanford American Indian Organization, founded in 1970, successfully fought to remove the Indian mascot as the university’s athletic symbol; the Native American Cultural Center opened on campus in 1974. At SLS, Reese and Ablavsky see themselves as facilitating and expanding on that existing community. They make themselves available to students inside and outside of the classroom; they write letters of introduction and recommendation; Reese hosts students at her home for traditional meals.

“They are fantastic human beings,” Smith says. “I know they don’t value me just for my academics; they value me as a person.”

Bohn agrees. “They go out of their way to be really involved with students,” she says. “They are valuable community members in addition to being professors who are really smart.”

Reese says training the next generation of tribal and federal Indian law attorneys is one of the best parts of her work as a professor.

“The law has always been tied up with conquest,” she says. “But it’s also tied up with our sovereignty. The law has done some of the most harmful things to tribes and also ensured some of the most important protections. It is a vital tool, and it is my job to train people in this profession to wield that tool effectively and powerfully.”  SL

Rebecca Beyer is a freelance writer and editor in the Boston area.

Damages Awarded For Loss Of Profit Are Patently Illegal If Awarded In Contravention Of The Terms Of The Contract

Contributor.

In the recent case of  M/S Plus91 Security Solutions v NEC Corporation India Private Limited (Erstwhile NEC Technologies Private Limited) 1 , the Delhi High Court ruled that an Arbitral Tribunal awarding damages for loss of profits was patently illegal if the same was against the terms of the contract. The Court held that “ a clause limiting the liability (of a party) is clearly a part of the contractual bargain and the same cannot be disregarded “.

The said appeal was filed by M/S Plus91 Security Solutions (“ Plus91 “) against the order of the learned Single Judge in  NEC Corporation India Private Limited (Erstwhile NEC Technologies Private Limited) v M/S Plus91 Security Solutions 2 , wherein the Court set aside the arbitral award directing NEC Corporation Private Limited (“ NEC “) to pay an amount of INR 8,43,07,904 (Rupees Eight Crores Forty-Three Lakh Seven Thousand Nine Hundred and Four) plus 6% (six percent) per annum payable to Plus91 as damages for loss of profits.

Under Section 73 of the Indian Contract Act 1872 (“ Contract Act “), a party to a contract who suffers damage through a contract being broken is entitled to compensation for any loss or damage caused to them as a result of such breach, or which the parties know would likely result from the breach of the contract. It is to be noted that compensation under Section 73 of the Contract Act would not be granted for any remote or indirect loss that the party suffers. In order to determine if the damage suffered by a party is remote or not, it must be determined if the damage suffered is deemed to have arisen naturally, fairly and reasonably from the breach of the contract 3 . This is to ensure that the parties who enter into a contract are not liable for unforeseen consequences arising out of the breach of a contract.

Loss of Profit is any loss accruing to a party on account of reduction or absence of profit from the contract due to delay or breach of the contract caused by the other party. The principle herein is that the party suffering such loss shall be entitled to claim compensation for the expected profit to be received by them had the terms of the contract been successfully fulfilled. However, in the case of  Bharat Coking Coal Ltd v L K Ahuja 4 , the Supreme Court has held that in the absence of any proof or evidence of loss of profit or possibility of an alternate use, compensation for the same cannot be provided 5 .

In the present case, Plus91 claimed that NEC had breached the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (“ MOU “) signed between the parties as NEC had failed to award Plus91 a contract for INR 84,30,79,040 (Rupees Eighty-Four Crore Thirty Lakh Seventy-Nine Thousand and Forty). After hearing the submissions of the parties, the Arbitral Tribunal awarded Plus91 10% (ten percent) of the value of the works as compensation for loss of profits. It is to be noted however, that Clause 10 of the MOU specifically restricts the liability of the parties and excludes liability for loss of profits. Clause 10 of the MOU states “ Neither Party is liable for any indirect, special or consequential loss or damage or any loss or damage due to loss of goodwill or loss of revenue or profit arising from or in connection with this MOU ”.

Pursuant to an appeal to the learned Single Judge Bench of the Delhi High Court, the learned Single Judge set aside the order of Arbitral Tribunal on the basis of patent illegality. The Court held that NEC's intent to collaborate with Plus91 was clearly established through the signature of the MOU, however, the MOU provides for the parties to enter into a specific agreement for each project. Therefore, the Court ruled that there was no definite commitment on the part of NEC to enter into an agreement.

The Delhi High Court held that while the MOU indicates that a relationship has been established between the parties for jointly pursuing the projects, the MOU specifically states that the parties will enter into a specified agreement for each project. The Delhi High Court further emphasized the need to maintain the contractual bargain between the parties and stated that “ The Parties agreed that they would not be liable for (i) any indirect, special or consequential loss or damage; (ii) any loss or damages due to loss of goodwill; and, (iii) loss of revenue or profit arising from or in connection with this MOU. If the MOU is accepted as a binding agreement, this is clearly party of the bargain struck by the parties. Disregarding the said stipulation would in effect amount to rewriting the bargain between the parties “.

The Delhi High Court referred to the case of  Ch. Ramalinga Reddy v Superintending Engineer and Anr. 6 , wherein the Supreme Court ruled that in cases where the contract between the parties bar certain claims for damages, the same would be binding on the parties. The Delhi High Court further relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in  W.B. State Warehousing Corporation & Anr. v Sushil Kumar Kalyan & Ors. 7 , wherein it was held that if there was a specific term in the contract or the law that doesn't permit for parties to raise a point before the arbitrator, the award passed by the arbitrator in contravention thereof shall be in excess of his jurisdiction.

Consequently, the Delhi High Court held that the award for damages on account of loss of profit is contrary to the terms of the MOU and thus, the award issued by the Arbitral Tribunal is vitiated by patent illegality.

1. FAO (OS) (COMM) 36/2024.

2. OMP (COMM) 244/2023.

3. Hadley v Baxendale, [1854] EWHC J70.

4. 2004 (5) SCC 109.

5. AIR 2004 SC 590.

6.(1999) 9 SCC 610.

7.(2002) 5 SCC 679.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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Supreme Court acquits man 17 years after conviction in assault case

The supreme court acquitted a man 17 years after his conviction for assault and use of criminal force, citing the lack of evidence..

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• Conviction under assault overturned due to lack of evidence
• Madhya Pradesh High Court's 2009 conviction order was set aside
• Incident involved jostling during arrest, not intentional criminal force

Seventeen years after his conviction for assault and use of criminal force, the Supreme Court acquitted a man, ruling that the prosecution failed to establish the charges against him.

A bench led by Justice BR Gavai has set aside Madhya Pradesh High Court’s 2009 order which confirmed the conviction of the appellant, who was then posted as a patwari, under Section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The Supreme Court found that none of the essential elements of assault or criminal force were present in the case. The court noted that the incident appeared to involve attempts by the appellant to wriggle out of an arrest, resulting in jostling and pushing, but not an intentional assault or use of criminal force.

The court further emphasised that there was no evidence to show the accused used any hard or blunt object, nor was there proof that he intended to obstruct the officials in their duties during the trap proceedings.

"In short, none of the ingredients of Section 353 are attracted. The jostling and pushing by the accused in an attempt to wriggle out, as is clear from the evidence, was not with any intention of using or using criminal force," the court said.