NUJS Journals West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences
Not a member yet
453 research outputs found
Sort by
NFRA AT THE CROSSROADS: STRENGTHENING FINANCIAL GOVERNANCE WITHOUT OVERREACH
Get PDFIn wake of an attempt to regulate the conduct and functioning of regulating authorities after recent scams such as the Satyam scam in 2009 and Punjab National Bank scam in 2018, Government of India formulated the “NFRA” (National Financial Reporting Authority). However, right from its inception, controversy surrounded this body since the way it operates has been receiving limelight but for the wrong reasons. Retrospectivity in its operations to the effect that it can bar the practicing licenses of regulators has questioned the very existence of NFRA. This ‘grey’ area even though resolved by the recent judgment in Mr. Harish Kumar T.K & Ors. v. NFRA has been settled but the same has not been taken in well by the auditors who already have The Chartered Accountants Act, 1959 to comply with.
Hence, this paper comes up with original ideas of de-tangling auditors from several legislations to comply with. Building upon an amalgamation of adjudication, arguments, and observations from the court room proceedings in case of NFRA v. Mr. Harish Kumar T.K & Ors. as well as ongoing batch matter of Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP versus Union of India & Anr. in Delhi High Court, this research would showcase the fact that NFRA is yet another layer of red taping with a strong objective but excessive powers. The researchers would conclude and further contribute by providing novel suggestions such as ethical standards for NFRA while taking the route of successful independent agencies such as “PCAOB” (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board) of “US” (United States of America)
REGULATING THE DIGITAL FRONTIER: A LEGAL ANALYSIS OF VIRTUAL ASSETS IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT
Get PDFThe advent of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens, and tokenized securities has brought about a new paradigm in the international financial and legal environment. In India, lack of an overarching regulatory framework has led to legal uncertainties regarding the characterisation, taxation, and regulation of virtual assets. Though virtual digital assets are not a legal tender, their taxation under the Income Tax Act, 1961 especially since the Finance Act, 2022 has classified virtual digital assets (VDAs) into a tax regime levying a flat rate of 30% as tax on profits and 1% Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) on transactions. Further, the Reserve Bank of India’s launching of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in 2022 represents a crucial regulatory action, unlike the decentralized model of private cryptocurrencies. Based on the 2022 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, India was ranked seventh in the world in digital currency usage, with 7.3% of its population being reported to have digital currency as of 2021. The Supreme Court judgment in Internet and Mobile Association of India v. RBI (2020), nullifying the RBI prohibition on crypto enterprises from using banking services, has thus also asserted judicial oversight against regulatory excesses. This paper undertakes an analysis of the Indian law of digital assets, examining statutory provisions, judicial pronouncements, and regulatory responses. By doing this, the paper underscores the urgency of adopting an integrated, technology-agnostic, and risk-focused legal structure in order to achieve investor protection, financial integrity, and innovation within the Indian digital asset landscape
THE ROLE OF THIRD-PARTY DATA IN MODERN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Get PDFExponential growth in the number of mobile applications available on platforms such as the Google Play Store and Apple App Store has drastically expanded user data collection, making it a quite alarming situation. It exposes over 2.2 million and 2.8 million apps, respectively, on each platform—on which the developers rely, especially with third-party tracking to achieve monetary benefits from targeted advertisement pools. It makes use of cookies, embedded links, and browser fingerprinting to construct detailed profiles of user behaviour. Yet, against rising concerns over privacy risks, the majority of consumers keep on accepting privacy policies they do not understand; more than 90% confess that they never read the terms and conditions. For example, if a user was looking at yachts on one website, then advertisements offering yacht insurance would appear on another. This data-driven marketing is mostly driven by financial incentives of achieving better targeting in their campaigns. Third-party trackers are quite common; earlier studies have established that nearly 46% of the home pages of Alexa's Top 10,000 websites contain at least one tracker, while Google is monitoring 25% through its ad network and analytics service. This paper underscores the urgent need for robust privacy protection measures to address the challenges posed by third-party tracking and to empower users to control their data
404 ERROR: PATIENT NOT FOUND - DIAGNOSING THE LEGAL CHAOS WHEN AI HIJACKS HEALTH RECORDS AND HOLDS LIVES FOR RANSOM
Get PDFA complementary danger is emerging with the evolving healthcare technologies—AI-driven cyberattacks against medical devices and health records. This paper investigates the critically intertwined elements of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and healthcare law, revealing an emerging crisis that must be approached as an immediate concern by legal and health practitioners. The paper scrutinizes three key vectors of AI-boosted cyber threats: advanced malware attacks against medical devices and hospital networks, machine learning techniques that yield unauthorized access to electronic health records (EHRs), and hyper-customized spear phishing campaigns against healthcare professionals. The paper outlines the disastrous potential of these insidious attacks at the level of both compromised patient safety and huge data breaches, using detailed case studies of some high-profile incidents. The paper dismembers the sophisticated legal and ethical quandaries placed on AI-driven cyber-attacks on healthcare. On the one hand, we critically review the current state of this broad regulatory framework, pointing out important gaps that leave healthcare institutions vulnerable. The ethical dimensions equally remain challenging—whether to go for robust cybersecurity measures or patient privacy. Our findings suggest a number of concrete recommendations: a few of the forward-looking policies involve updating laws in force, proposing the need for cooperation at an international level, and showing technological and procedural measures toward healthcare cybersecurity. This paper hence urges policymakers, legal experts, and healthcare administrators to take advance steps to prevent the growing threat of cyber-attacks run by AI and prevent damage to the integrity of medical devices and the confidentiality of health records in our increasingly digital world
THE POTENTIAL APPLICABILITY OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN SMART IP REGISTRIES AND CONFLICTS WITH DATA PROTECTION LAWS
Get PDFThe latter half of the 2010s witnessed unprecedented growth in the digital technology sector, evidenced by the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain technology. Eventually, the thought of applying these technologies to statutory setups has been the cradle of significant discourse. Though its potential in the trademark registry is untapped, its decentralized, distributed, and immutable nature could provide a secure and transparent database for maintaining records, which would greatly aid in trademark evidencing, registration, licensing, enforcement, and maintenance. Additionally, embedded smart contracts would provide a degree of automation, which would result in reduced turnaround time, necessary for tackling the pendency of applications in the registries, proving to be superior to the currently operating traditional databases. Nevertheless, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act could prove to impede the seamless integration of the technology in the registries, due to challenges emanating from the denial of right to modification, erasure, and privacy due to the inherent nature of the technology, further complicated by the undetermined legal status of smart contracts and its automated authentication process. Upon doctrinal enquiry, with the aid of analytical and comparative tools, it is clear that these potential challenges could be mitigated with the adoption of a Europeanized approach towards the purpose requirement and by taking a pro-technology approach whilst maintaining a balance with the right to privacy
Militarization of Space: Reconciling Anti-Satellite Testing with the Outer Space Treaty Framework
Get PDFThe international legal dispute concerning anti-satellite (ASAT) testing and the international legal regime in space activities is analyzed in this article against the backdrop of India's 2019 Mission Shakti test, which generated a high volume of debris in low Earth orbit. The research considers how the provisions in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty authorize and forbid ASAT testing by critically analyzing salient treaty provisions. The research explores significant gaps in Article IV, which allows the production of kinetic ASATs since it does not provide for the employment of WMDs in space, but says nothing regarding conventional weapons platforms. Using textual interpretation, the research reveals how modern understandings of Article IX's "due regard" and "harmful contamination" provisions have developed to possibly encompass activity causing debris generation. To deal with new challenges in the space security governance, this analysis adds to academic knowledge of how current principles in space law can be interpreted and extended
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MWPSC ACT IN LIGHT OF THE 2019 BILL AND OTHER DECIDED CASES
Get PDFThe Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (MWPSC) Act, 2007 is possibly the only welfare legislation governing elderly rights in India. However, the Act attempts to address too many elderly concerns ending up addressing almost nothing. In a way, the Act is a weak legislation, which can hardly provide any respite to the elderly citizens. The shortcomings of the Act have been largely sought to be remedied by the 2019 Bill, which is pending before the Indian Parliament. The paper makes a critical analysis of the MWPSC Act and the 2019 Bill to underscore the (in)effectiveness of the provisions in extending any operative remedy. The paper also dissects a few judgments rendered by the High Courts and the Supreme Court to understand whether the Act has benefitted the hapless elderly individuals. The main premise on which this paper is based is that MWPSC is a weak enactment, which is unable to effectuate elderly rights, especially those relating to maintenance. The paper argues that the MWPSC Act, with or without the prospective amendment, needs to be replaced with a better law, an Elderly Care and Support Law. The paper employs descriptive and analytical methods to testify facts and existing normative frameworks
A Re-Look At The Mandate Of Equality
Get PDFSome measure of discrimination among people is legitimate, and even mandated under the conception of a just society. The difficulty, however, arises from the menacing effects of longstanding illegitimate and immoral bases for discriminating among people such as, gender, race, and class. Equality is a much contested concept, and undoubtedly can be judged by comparing some particular aspect of a person with same aspect of another person. Hence, the measurement of equality solely depends on choice of the variable, that is, income, wealth, status, opportunities, freedom, dignity, rights etc., in terms of which comparisons are made. The idea of equality was even conceived by the ancient Greek philosophers around fifth century B.C. Political Philosophers like John Locke, Rousseau, and Tom Paine have advocated equality as constituting the very basic natural right of man. Natural equality of man was practically recognised in the 18th century’s Declaration of the Rights of Man issued by the National Assembly of France and likewise in the United States Declaration of Independence. History testifies that by the time the Constitution was adopted, India was a society divided deeply along the religious, caste, sex, language and many other lines. With the adoption of the Constitution, however, it became a constitutional mandate for the State to secure for all Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the very ideals, upon which the Constitution is founded. In this backdrop, the present study seeks to trace the concept of equality as conceived by various authorities and under various international instruments. The study, in nutshell, also seeks to examine the constitutional provisions