Centre for Public Interest Law (CPIL)
October 11, 2023 2024-04-05 7:22Centre for Public Interest Law (CPIL)
Research Centres
Centre for Public Interest Law (CPIL)
The Centre for Public Interest Law provides an institutional space for research and advocacy on issues of public interest. It aims to bring together students and faculty at JGLS, with practitioners, lawyers and activists from outside to build empirical projects and policy interventions. CPIL is also mandated to offer clinical courses that focus on issues of socio-economic empowerment, equality and inclusion.
The Centre offers an ideal point of collaboration and partnership with international and national projects, which involve empirically sound public interest research and advocacy.
In the past, CPIL has been the fulcrum for legal clinics focusing on projects to help low-income individuals and expanding their legal skills. The Centre’s first project focused on poverty in Haryana. The project studied the causes and consequences of poverty to establish ways to provide relief to low-income individuals, and allowed students the opportunity to engage with legal issues surrounding poverty, including food security, homelessness and basic affronts to human dignity. From 2017 to 2020, CPIL provided space for an ambitious empirical research on housing discrimination in Delhi and Mumbai. In 2018-19, CPIL hosted a legal clinic of hate crime and criminal justice system.
CPIL is currently offering the year-long Clinic on Citizenship and Statelessness where the students are developing research outputs on citizenship issues in India and assessing the citizenship determination framework under international law. The recordings of the guest lectures delivered at the Clinic can be accessed through our website and YouTube.
CPIL Projects
- Housing Discrimination Project
- Clinic: Hate Crimes and Criminal Justice System
- Securing Citizenship: India’s legal obligations towards precarious citizens and stateless persons
- Citizenship and Statelessness in India: A collaboration with Melbourne Law School and Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford
1. Hate Crimes and Criminal Justice System
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Vidisha Bajaj & Sanjana Arvind Kumar, The Crime Vanishes: Mob Lynching, Hate Crime, and Police Discretion in India, 11(1) Jindal Global Law Review (2020), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3630807
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Mob, Murder, Motivation: The Emergence of Hate Crime Discourse in India, 16(1) Socio-Legal Review (2020), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3602509
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, The Case for Collecting Hate Crimes Data in India, 4(9) Law & Policy Brief (2018), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3367329
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Mob lynching should be categorised as a class of hate crimes, Hindustan Times (14 August 2018), https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/mob-lynching-should-be-categorised-as-a-class-of-hate-crimes/story-0NvzhshQfKg6h2dhm3NXRM.html
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, How to count lynchings, Indian Express (27 July 2018), available at https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/mob-lynching-cases-in-india-vigilantism-incidents-supreme-court-narendra-modi-govt-national-crime-records-bureau-5278269/
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, How Mob Violence and Hate Crimes Are Linked to Social Vulnerability, The Wire (23 July 2018), available at https://thewire.in/law/mob-violence-hate-crimes-and-social-vulnerability
2. Housing Discrimination Project
Podcast: The Feminist City, Episode 9 – On the Nature of Rental Housing Discrimination Against Muslims in the City, 19 March 2021, available at https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/podcasts/the-feminist-city-trailer/the-feminist-city-ep-9-on-the-nature-of-rental-housing-discrimination-against-muslims-in-the-city/
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat and Asaf Ali Lone, Cities Divided: How Exclusion Of Muslims Sharpens Inequality, Article-14 (12 February 2021), available at https://www.article-14.com/post/cities-divided-how-exclusion-of-muslims-sharpens-inequality
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Bigotry At Home: How Delhi, Mumbai Keep Muslim Tenants Out, Article-14 (11 February 2021), available at htps://www.article-14.com/post/bigotry-at-home-how-delhi-mumbai-keep-muslim-tenants-out.
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Segregated minds, segregated markets: The nature of rental discrimination against Muslims in Delhi and Mumbai, India Housing Report (12 June 2020), available at https://indiahousingreport.in/outputs/opinion/segregated-minds-segregated-markets-the-nature-of-rental-discrimination-against-muslims-in-delhi-and-mumbai/.
3. Citizenship and Statelessness in India
Aashish Yadav, Kiran Gupta v The State Election Commission & Ors Letters Patent Appeal No. 139 of 2020 in Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case no. 19109 of 2019, Patna HC 12(1) Jindal Global Law Review (2021), available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s41020-021-00145-6.
Andrea Marilyn Pragashini Immanuel, Did Shamima Begum Receive Her Due Process under International Law?, OpinioJuris (13 April 2021), available at: http://opiniojuris.org/2021/04/13/did-shamima-begum-receive-her-due-process-under-international-law/
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat and Aashish Yadav, On the Verge: Revocation and Denial of Citizenship in India, in ‘Revocation of Citizenship: The New Policies of Conditional Membership’, EUI Working papers (2021), available at https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/70213/RSC%202021_23rev.pdf
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Citizenship’s Rule of Exception, The Leaflet (26 January 2021), available at https://www.theleaflet.in/citizenships-rule-of-exception/
Abdul Kalam Azad, M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, and Harsh Mander, Citizenship and the Mass Production of Statelessness in Assam, India Exclusion Report 2019–20 (2021), available at http://centreforequitystudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/India-Exclusion-Report-2019-20-e-copy.pdf
Khush Aalam Singh, Mapping Developments: A follow-up to the Detention Chapter from the Securing Citizenship Report, Parichay – The Blog (25 January 2021), available at https://parichayblog.org/2021/01/25/mapping-developments-a-follow-up-to-the-detention-chapter-from-the-securing-citizenship-report/
Anushri Uttarwar and Arunima Nair, The Indian Judiciary and Its Record on Statelessness, Parichay – The Blog (25 January 2021), available at https://parichayblog.org/2021/01/25/the-indian-judiciary-and-its-record-on-statelessness/
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat and Aashish Yadav, What India Legally Owes 1.9 Million People Held As Non-Citizens, Article-14 (6 January 2021), available at https://www.article-14.com/post/what-india-legally-owes-1-9-million-people-held-as-non-citizens.
Centre for Public Interest Law, Jindal Global Law School, Securing Citizenship: India’s Legal Obligations towards Precarious Citizens and Stateless Persons (2020), available at https://jgu.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/jgls/SecuringCitizenship-Report_CPIL.pdf.
Khush Aalam Singh, The Perilous Silence over the Plight of the Bidoon in a Global Pandemic, Jindal Forum for International and Economic Laws (25 September 2020), available at https://jindalforinteconlaws.in/2020/09/25/the-perilous-silence-over-the-plight-of-the-bidoon-in-a-global-pandemic-khush-aalam-singh/
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Twilight Citizenship, 729 Seminar (May 2020), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3603707
Harsh Mander and M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Why the National Population Register is more dangerous than the Assam NRC, Scroll.in (20 January 2020), available at https://scroll.in/article/949097/why-the-national-population-register-is-more-dangerous-than-the-assam-nrc.
M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, On the NRC, Even the Supreme Court is Helpless, The Wire (7 January 2019), available at https://thewire.in/law/nrc-supreme-court-crisis.
In The News
Debarshi Dasgupta, Help for rental home seekers who face bias in India, The Straits Times (3 February 2020), available at https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/help-for-rental-home-seekers-who-face-bias-in-india.
Priya Ramani, Opinion | A home away from prejudice, Livemint (29 November 2018) available at https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/nBk1zBMgciPTVmSjTltM7O/Opinion–A-home-away-from-prejudice.html.
Research Fellows
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Andrea Marilyn Pragashini Immanuel |
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Bhavinee Singh |
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Raushan Tara Jaswal |
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Vandita Khanna |
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Shuchi Purohit |
Media Team
- Vedika Kakar
- Laxman Kanodia
- Meghna Malik
Guest Lectures – Clinic on Citizenship and Statelessness
Seeing Like a State: Unpacking Legal Discourses on Foreigners in Assam | Rupali Samuel
- ‘History of Citizenship and Migration in South Asia’| Manav Kapur
- ‘Reduction of Statelessness in South Asia’| Andrea Marilyn Pragashini Immanuel
- ‘India and its Refugees: Incoming and Outgoing Flows’ | Suraj Girijashanker
- ‘Evolution of Foreigners Tribunals in Assam: From a Rule of Law Perspective’ | Talha Abdul Rahman
- Reflections on Marginality in Assam | Uddipana Goswami
- Belonging and Citizenship Contestations in Assam | Abdul Kalam Azad
Centre Events – Public Lectures
- ‘Framed as a Terrorist’: Conversations about Criminal Justice | Mohammad Aamir Khan
- ‘The Battle for Criminal Justice – Legal Strategies and Tactics’ | Teesta Setalvad
- ‘Understanding Deprivation and Socio-Economic Marginalization: Evidence, Methods, Agenda’ | Dr. Abusaleh Shariff
- ‘State of the Nation: Violence, Compassion and Solidarity in Contemporary India’ | Harsh Mander
Other Events
- Panel Discussion: Policing and Minorities in India – Tackling the Latest Research
- Film Screening and Discussion: ‘The Colour of My Home’ – A film by Farah Naqvi and Sanjay Barnela
- Book Discussion: ‘The Anatomy of Hate’ with Revati Laul
- Workshop on Hate Crimes 2018
- Book Discussion: ‘Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities in Delhi’ with Ghazala Jamil
CPIL has released its Securing Citizenship report on India’s legal obligations towards precarious citizens and stateless persons. The report reviews and comments on the key contemporary legal issues pertaining to citizenship and statelessness in India. The report can be accessed here.
To foster critical public engagement with the report, CPIL is hosting a series of events and symposia in collaboration with Parichay – The Blog. The flagship event will be a webinar, on 5th December 2020 from 6:00 to 7:30 PM (IST). The distinguished panelists below will discuss the key themes of the report.
Amal de Chickera | Co-Founder & Co-Director, Institute on Statelessness & Inclusion
Sujata Ramachandran | Research Associate, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo
Oliullah Laskar | Advocate, Gauhati High Court and Founding Member, Right to Nationality & Citizenship Network
The discussion will be moderated by Mohsin Alam Bhat – Associate Professor & Executive-Director, Centre for Public Interest Law.
Register to receive the ZOOM link
Write to us at cpil@jgu.edu.in and mabhat@jgu.edu.in