ABOUT THE SERIES

Legal issues and research often tend to be an amalgamation of complex and abstract ideas, an obstacle for non-legal (and some legal) professionals to actively engage with the law. Empirical research brings a sense of objectivity and provides new insights into the workings of law and legal institutions.

To that end, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy is launching a Public Lecture Series titled ‘The Law through the Lens of Hard Data.’ The series will provide a platform for Indian scholars, professionals, and academicians working with empirical data to describe, analyse and understand the law and legal
institutions.

ABOUT THE LECTURE

Despite inheritance law reform towards gender equality, Indian families rarely transfer immovable property to women. Given this, do women use courts to claim their rights? If so, who opposes them? What kind of property is disputed? Do judgements favour women? And what does the language of judgements reveal? Bridging economics and law, Professor Bina Agarwal will present her pioneering research (co-authored with Shruthi Naik) that innovatively probes online data on High court judgements, delivered across India over fifteen years (2005-2020), and arrives at some unexpected findings. 

Alok Prasanna Kumar, co-founder of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, will moderate the event.