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

1. Housing Discrimination Project
2. Clinic: Hate Crimes and Criminal Justice System
   
3. Securing Citizenship: India’s legal obligations towards precarious citizens and stateless persons
4. Citizenship and Statelessness in India: A collaboration with Melbourne Law School and Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford

In the News

• Opinion | A home away from prejudice
• Help for rental home seekers who face bias in India

From the Team

• The Perilous Silence over the Plight of the Bidoon in a Global Pandemic
• Segregated minds, segregated markets: The nature of rental discrimination against Muslims in Delhi and Mumbai
• M Mohsin Alam Bhat, Vidisha Bajaj and Sanjana Arvind Kumar, The crime vanishes: mob lynching, hate crime and police discretion in India, Jindal Global Law Review (2020, forthcoming)  

Executive-Director

Student Fellows

Media Team

• Vedika Kakar
• Laxman Kanodia
• Meghna Malik

Guest Lectures – Clinic on Citizenship and Statelessness

• ‘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
  
  

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.