Call for Submissions by National Law School of India Review

About NLSIR

NLSIR is a bi-annual, double-anonymous-peer‐reviewed, student‐edited law journal published by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, with a longstanding commitment to critical law scholarship and engagement with constitutional transformation in India.

NLSIR has also been cited by various High Courts across India and by foreign courts, including the High Court of South Africa.

About the Call for Submissions

National Law School of India Review invites submissions for case comments for Volume 37(2) on State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh. We invite Case Comments between 4,000 and 6,000 words, exclusive of footnotes.

The central point of discussion is a recent judgment of the Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, where a seven‐judge Constitution Bench revisited the logic of homogeneity within the Scheduled Caste category, reassessed the correctness of EV Chinnaiah v State of Andhra Pradesh, and validated the constitutional permissibility of sub‐classification within SC/ST groups for the purposes of reservations.

The decision foregrounds questions about substantive equality, the architecture of Articles 14, 15, 16 and 341, and the allocation of institutional power between Parliament and state legislatures in designing redistributive schemes.

The judgement has generated academic, political, and social debate. It raises foundational concerns about:

• how courts should understand ‘backwardness’ and ‘adequate representation’
• whether equality demands uniform treatment of all castes within the Presidential List or differentiated treatment for the most disadvantaged
• the compatibility of sub‐classification with the integrity of the SC/ST lists
• the role of empirical evidence and the creamy layer doctrine within SC/ST reservations
• and the broader trajectory of reservation jurisprudence after Indra Sawhney, M Nagaraj, Jarnail Singh, and EV Chinnaiah.

Theme

NLSIR invites authors to critically engage with State of Punjab v Davinder Singh and its wider implications for Indian constitutional law and social justice. Submissions may, for instance, examine:

• The Court’s shift from formal to substantive equality and its normative defensibility
• The reconciliation (or tension) between Davinder Singh and EV Chinnaiah, Indra Sawhney, and related precedents on classification, backwardness, and legislative competence
• The implications of permitting sub‐classification within SC/ST for federalism, parliamentary supremacy under Article 341, and state autonomy in designing reservation policies
• The doctrinal status and future of the “creamy layer” principle within SC/ST quotas
• Davinder Singh’s potential impact on reservation in education and public employment, including its interaction with existing state‐level sub‐quotas
• The judgment’s engagement with empirical evidence, social reality, and the judiciary’s role in supervising redistributive schemes
• Critical perspectives from anti‐caste theory, political economy of reservations, or comparative constitutional law on intra‐group prioritisation and ‘most backward’ sub groups

Eligibility

Open to undergraduate law students (BA/BBA/BCom/BSc LLB. and LL.B.) from any recognised law university, department, or school in India.

Submission Guidelines

• We invite Case Comments between 4,000 and 6,000 words (exclusive of footnotes).
• The Case Comment must:
  • Clearly identify the legal questions before the Court;
  • Trace the line of precedent leading up to State of Punjab v Davinder Singh;
  • Offer a sustained critical engagement with the reasoning of the majority and, where relevant, the dissent; and
  • Assess the judgment’s implications for the development of equality and reservation law, including potential impacts on future litigation, legislative reform, and policy design.
• Submissions should conform to the house style and citation format, available at https://repository.nls.ac.in/nlsir/policies.html
• Co‐authorship of up to two authors is permitted.

How to Submit?

Manuscripts must be submitted on this Google Form only. Submissions made on the Digital Commons repository of NLSIR will not be evaluated for the purposes of this Case Comment.

Submission Deadline

The deadline for submissions is April 30th. Requests for extensions are unlikely to be
accommodated, given the publication timeline of the General Issue.

Contact Information

For any queries regarding the submission process, please write to mail.nlsir@gmail.com with the subject line “Case Comment – Davinder Singh”. Further information on submission guidelines, timelines, and policies is available on NLSIR’s Digital Commons Repository.

Please note that NLSIR does not review proposed abstracts and will only review final submissions made through the Google Form.

Click here to Submit.