Elevating regulatory standards with AI, Kerala's court reforms, UPS, Insolvency, Flyovers, and Internet suspension | The TrustBridge Newsletter | Issue 13
Talk: Elevating regulatory standards with AI | Judicial reforms in the Magistrate's court | UPS walks back on important reforms | Internet suspensions harm the rule of law | Flyovers in Guwahati
This is TrustBridge’s monthly newsletter. TrustBridge seeks to improve India’s business environment by improving the rule of law. In this monthly newsletter, we bring you the work done by the TrustBridge Team in the public space and offer insights into future work.
Events
Bhavin Patel presented TrustBridge's work on studying regulatory orders at SEBI and SAT through the use of LLMs in the OpenNyAI Learning Circle. The talk was entitled 'Elevating Regulatory Standards with AI'.
Op-eds
Renuka Sane wrote three articles for The Print:
‘Kerala’s 24×7 ON Courts is a big judicial reform. It will transform the magistrate’s court’, 21 August 2024.
The 24×7 ON Court is a significant milestone in India’s court reform journey. It is particularly important because it brings about change at a magistrate’s court, which has the maximum pendency and minimum policy attention. Hopefully, this experiment will encourage the Kerala High Court to expand the system to other matters. It will also inspire other High courts to think, from first principles, about their pain points and develop solutions.
‘Govt’s new Unified Pension Scheme walks back on important reforms. It’s disappointing’, 28 August 2024.
The larger question that arises from this announcement is how difficult it is to put government finances in order once benefits have been normalised. A pension is seen as a “right” by government employees – part of their overall pay package. We need to start questioning the idea of a compensation package that runs for 30 years post-retirement. And if that is the contract, then suitable adjustments should be made in the compensation up front. Government employees are a small proportion of the country’s labour force, and yet, they consume a large share of the government’s revenues.
‘India’s insolvency law needs a middle ground. Both creditors & debtors need protection’, 11 September 2024.
When a limited liability firm is not able to pay creditors, the assumption is that there is something problematic about the firm, and an insolvency law should find ways to facilitate repayment. Our collective experience has been that firms are misbehaving, and it is banks (and other creditors) who end up with the short end of the stick. Therefore, India’s insolvency law is relatively creditor-friendly, as we don’t have a formal debtor-in-possession model...
However, this equation changes when one considers retail borrowers—people like you and me. When an individual borrows and is unable to repay, it becomes difficult to argue that the creditor must be repaid at any cost. Individuals cannot be entirely stripped of their assets—they need enough money to live a reasonable life. They need a roof over their head, their children must be fed, they must have the means to earn a living, and healthcare expenditures must be met. In fact, the pressure actually shifts to the creditors to engage in humane ways of debt recovery, while ensuring the individual’s life and dignity. The ability to recover money, even when cost-effective, is limited.
Upasa Borah wrote an article for EastMojo: ‘Guwahati’s Flyover Fallacy: Solving nothing while spending crores’, 9 September 2024
How many flyovers in a city are too many flyovers? Arriving at the optimal number would be a task for urban planning studies, and indeed, there are known benefits of having elevated corridors, such as making travel more efficient by reducing congestion. It is perhaps what the Assam government seems to be hoping for (at least for Guwahati) while believing that building roadways would pave the path to economic development in the state.
Prashant Narang and P. Puneeth wrote an article for The Leaflet: ‘Temporary Suspension of Telecommunication Services Rules, 2024: An exception that threatens to become the rule’, 11 September 2024.
While ostensibly aimed at providing a framework for service suspensions during emergencies, these draft Rules, like the one currently in force, represent a dangerous step towards normalising extraordinary State powers and undermining the very foundations of our democratic society. Strictly speaking, they also do not conform to the principles of the rule of law.
The rule of law requires that government actions be constrained by fixed rules announced beforehand, ensuring predictability and preventing arbitrary exercise of power. The proposed Rules, however, fail this crucial test in several ways.
Thought provoking