The NLS Forum curates pioneering research and current developments in the fields of law, public policy, social sciences and humanities.
Our work bridges academic scholarship, legal practice and
civil society discourse.
We present the University blog and five student journal blogs, where leading scholarship from around the world is edited by our faculty, researchers and students. To submit your work, please refer to the submission guidelines provided for each blog.
Consent, Conduct, and Their Constraints: Why Estoppel Cannot Cure Non-Arbitrability
May 3, 2026
This essay critiques the Supreme Court’s decision in Sanjit Singh Salwan v. Sardar Inderjit Singh Salwan for allowing estoppel to uphold an arbitral award in a dispute involving public charitable trusts, despite such disputes being non-arbitrable under §92 CPC. It argues that estoppel cannot validate what is legally a nullity, nor override statutory limits or public policy embedded in non-arbitrability doctrines. By prioritizing party conduct over jurisdictional invalidity, the judgment risks undermining the structural boundaries of arbitration and creating uncertainty around void awards and compromise decrees.
Agentic AI in Indian Financial Services: Regulatory Gaps in the PA Master Directions and the Case for Anticipatory Governance
June 22, 2026
Payment Aggregators are isolated from RBI’s FREE-AI Committee Report, despite the Report’s sweeping amendments to seven other Master Directions. This gap is not merely theoretical: the market has already moved ahead with commercial AI deployments in the payments and fintech space, the clearest example being the Pine Labs-OpenAI collaboration. Autonomous contract formation does not meet contractual law requirements, and the liability gap is unresolved. Legal commentators have proposed a workaround, though it remains without statutory or judicial recognition in India. This piece argues that targeted amendments to the PA Master Directions recognising Agentic AI are necessary to keep up with the industry. On the institutional side, a dedicated working group on Agentic AI in financial services under the newly formed AI Governance and Economic Group (AIGEG), along with anticipatory governance efforts by regulators, will be key.
Appellate arbitration perspectives from India and Australia: The Draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill 2024 and the ACICA Arbitration Rules
May 16, 2026
Introduction Studies published by the School of International Arbitration at Queen Mary University of London (‘SIA’) consistently identify arbitration’s status as a preferred dispute resolution mechanism in cross-border trade. Most recently, in SIA’s 2025 International Arbitration Survey, 48% of respondents preferred arbitration coupled with ADR and a further 39% preferred arbitration alone: the survey summarising […]
Poking the Tiger: The Supreme Court Rewrites India’s Treaty Entitlement Rules
March 11, 2026
The author examines the Supreme Court of India's 2026 decision in Tiger Global and its implications for the interaction between treaty entitlements and India's General Anti-Avoidance Rule. The judgment, it is argued, marks a decisive doctrinal shift from formal treaty compliance to a substance-over-form approach, reframing the 2016 Protocol's grandfathering clause from an inviolable guarantee to a rebuttable presumption subject to anti-avoidance scrutiny. By embedding GAAR principles into treaty interpretation, the Court subordinates legitimate expectations to domestic anti-abuse frameworks, ultimately conditioning treaty benefits on demonstrable commercial substance over mere formal compliance.