Biography

Ritwika Sharma is an Assistant Professor at the Jindal Global Law School. She completed the LL.M. from the University of Cambridge in 2018. She wrote her LL.M. dissertation on the constitutionality of delegated legislation in India, under the supervision of Professor Peter Cane. Ritwika also holds an LL.M. from the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad (2013-14). She completed the B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) in 2013 from the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. 

Ritwika was previously a Senior Resident Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, where she led the dedicated constitutional law research team called “Charkha”. She led several independent research projects on themes of contemporary constitutional relevance, such as the working of India’s anti-defection law, role of political parties in representative democracy, and the delimitation of electoral constituencies. During her time at Vidhi, Ritwika also advised several departments and regulatory authorities under the Government of India, on questions concerning constitutional validity of proposed legislation, legislative competence of the Union and states, and powers and functions of regulators. She also assisted the Union of India in preparing its written submissions in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Case (Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, 2015). Drawing from her experience of working on this case, Ritwika co-edited “Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence” (Oxford University Press, 2018), a volume of essays addressing the politics, doctrine, and crucial developments pertaining to judicial appointments in India.

In 2024, Ritwika was selected as an International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP) Fellow, as part of the Rule of Law cohort. As an IVLP Fellow, she participated in a 3-weeks long exchange program conceptualised and sponsored by the Department of State, United States of America (U.S.A.) to understand the working of federal and state judicial systems in the US. Ritwika has also worked as a Research Associate at DAKSH, Bengaluru, where she worked at the intersection of law and data to suggest meaningful reform measures for improving the state and performance of the subordinate judiciary in India. 

Areas of Ritwika’s research interests include the working of representative institutions, electoral laws and processes, and federalism. She also has an abiding interest in judicial appointments, and judicial process.