Center for Constitutional Law Studies

Research Centres

Center for Constitutional Law Studies

The Centre aims to lead research in persistent and contemporary issues in public law (including administrative law) and political theory. It will seek to develop expertise in different methodologies and interdisciplinary interests spreading across political philosophy, history; comparative public law, empirical studies, and law and economics. Diverse concerns including issues of justice, violence, accountability, and coercion can promote research at the Center. Approaches adopted by researchers in the Centre can reference various schools and jurisdictions.

The following are the projected activities that can be organized through the Center:   

  • Bringing out a Policy Paper series, which can explore the policy implications of various constitutional doctrines and case law such as on the special status of Kashmir; the judicial selection process;  
  • Specialized constitutional law conferences that can be organized through the Center;  
  • The Center can host an Annual Colloquium of Global Jurists.  
  • The Center can promote a specialized comparative research hub/cluster which can focus on issues of South Asian constitutionalism or more broadly, on issues on “constitutionalism of the global south.”    
  • The center can provide a forum for faculty to present and develop works in progress, which can draw on interdisciplinary insights and are methodologically rigorous — and which can help to focus international attention on Indian constitutional law scholarship.

Public law projects at the Centre can focus on developing expertise in South Asian constitutionalism; migration of constitutional ideas; projects for constitutional theory building and explorations into constitutional history; judicial reasoning; and empirical judicial studies. The Centre aims to become a destination for scholars and public intellectuals from a variety of regional and disciplinary bases.

  • 31st May- 1st June– Prof. Suprita Acharya presented a paper titled “Secularism v. Freedom of Expression: Analysing the Hijab Row” at     the Asian Law Institute (ASLI) Conference organized by National University of Singapore, Singapore.   
  • 27th- 28th April- Prof. Sarbani Sen presented a paper online titled “The Struggle of Constitutional Amendments in India in Oxford University” at a workshop organized by the Oxford University titled Asian Comparative Constitutional Law: Volume II – Constitutional Amendments

  • 23rd -24th February 2023: Two Day (in-person) Seminar on various themes of Constitutionalism with Prof. (Dr.) Philipp Dann, Professor of Public and Comparative Law, Humboldt University, Berlin
  • 23-24th September 2022, at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford. Professor Sarbani Sen and Wenjuan Zhang (JGLS) presented at the workshop on ‘Political Parties and Constitutions in Asia’, organized by the Oxford Programme on Asian Laws and Programme for the Foundations of Law & Constitutional Government.
  • July 5th  2022, at the International Society of Public Law’s 8th Annual Conference. Professor Sarbani Sen, Madhavi Gopalakrishnan, and LL.B student Abhay Almal presented their research on “Strengthening Democracy Through a Re-Evaluation of Constitutional Review”.
  • 8th April 2022, at the Midwestern Political Science Association’s 79th Annual Conference. Professor Sarbani Sen and Madhavi Gopalakrishnan participated in the panel ‘Judicial Politics in South Asia’ and presented their research on minority rights in the constitution-making process and constitutional courts of South Asia.
  • 11th April, talk by Prof. Prabhakar Singh on “More Norms, Less Justice: Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in Need of a Theoretical Gluing”
  • 8th April 2018, Symposium on Issues in Comparative Administrative and Public Law: organized by Jindal Global Law School; Bonavero Institute of Human Rights University of Oxford; University of Melbourne; Faculty of Law, National University, Singapore: at the Australian High Commission, New Delhi.
  • March 28, 2018,  Talk on “Religious neutrality in Germany  — encountering the ‘other’ in recent adjudication of the Federal Constitutional Court and legal/political discourse” By Katharina Wommelsdorff, Research Associate, Walter Schucking Institute for International Law, Kiel University, Jindal Global Law School
  • 12th February 2018, at the Indian Law Institute, Distinguished Public Lecture: “Constitutionalism and the culture of justification.”  by Prof. Moshe Cohen, College of Law and Business, Israel. The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Arjan Sikri presided over the event.  

  • Public Law Conversation Series, Fall 2017 [speakers: Profs. Ajey Sangai; Prof. Oleksandr Merezhko; Prof. Alex Fischer; Sandeep Suresh; Arpita Singh; Thibault Weigelt]

  • October 31st at 3.30 p.m: Vandita Khanna (Ph.D candidate, University of Cambridge) will present her research on ‘Adjudicating Indirect Discrimination Under the Indian Constitution’, followed by a Q&A in a virtual event. Professor Sarbani Sen will moderate the discussion.
  • October 27th at 7.30 p.m: Professor Tarunabh Khaitan (University of Oxford) will preside over a virtual Q&A session relating to his two papers, ‘The Right to Freedom of Religion and the Right against Religious Discrimination: Theoretical Distinctions’ and ‘Religion in Human Rights Law: A Normative Restatement’. Audience members are invited to read both papers and pose questions that critically engage with their arguments. The discussants for this event are Professors Moiz Tundawala and Oishik Sircar (JGLS). Madhavi Gopalakrishnan and Suprita Acharya will serve as moderators.
  • November 2022: Professor Sarbani Sen and Madhavi Gopalakrishnan will present their paper tentatively titled ‘ Re-evaluating Standards & Means of Constitutional Review Through Comparative Study’ at a workshop conducted by the Junior Faculty Forum for South Asia Law Teachers. Details of the exact date and time will be shared soon.
  • July 22nd and 23rd 2018,  Conference on “Constitutionalism in South Asia” [funded by the Ford Foundation] Colombo, with the participation of regional constitutional scholars from India; Pakistan; Sri Lanka; Myanmar; Afghanistan; Bangladesh; Nepal; Bhutan and Indonesia. The conference has been jointly organized by The Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, the Center for Constitutional Law Studies and Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania. [Lead coordinators: Prof. R. Sudarshan; Prof. Srinivasan; Prof. Sarbani Sen]
  • Tentative dates: March 18th –22nd 2019​, The “Basic Structure Doctrine” conference:  The conference has been conceived by Prof. Tarunabh Khaitan (University of Oxford) and Prof. Farah Ahmed (University of Melbourne). They have started a new scholarly journal on Indian constitutional issues called the Indian Law Review and would like a special issue of the journal to be devoted to the Basic Structure Doctrine. A two day conference is scheduled to be held at Jindal Global University in early 2019 with international public law scholars in the area of constitutional change/amendments participating. The lead coordinators at Jindal  are Profs. Sarbani Sen and Alexander Fischer and the international collaborator for the event is Prof. Richard Albert (University of Texas, Austin).
  • Research project on “Constitutional/Legal reasoning of the Indian Supreme Court” — contributors (could be Jindal faculty and/or experts from outside) would like to research and write on the court’s interpretive methodology in various areas: separation of powers; rights jurisprudence; amendment powers etc. Reference: The “Con reason” project developed by European scholars at the Max Planck Institute at Heidelburg and CEU: http://jog.tk.mta.hu/uploads/files/mtalwp/2015_09_jakab.pdf as a precedent