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HarperCollins Presents Gautam Bhatia’s ‘Unsealed Covers’

HarperCollins 

presents

Unsealed Covers

A Decade of the Constitution, the Courts and the State

by Gautam Bhatia

The 2014 general election saw the installation of the first majority

non-coalition government in many decades. The 2019 general election saw its return.

The past ten years have seen courtroom battles over civil rights, national security, citizenship, disputes over making and breaking state governments, among many others.

Unsealed Covers negotiates a unique terrain, where the actions of the judiciary, its engagement with our fundamental rights and its relationship with the executive are examined in terms of evolution and chronology.

Paperback | Non-Fiction | Law | 496 pp | Rs 699

Available wherever books are sold | Releasing 10th Aug 2023

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ABOUT THE BOOK 

In Unsealed Covers, Gautam Bhatia provides a snapshot of the Indian judiciary between 2014 and 2023. The 2014 general election saw the installation of the first majority non-coalition government in many decades (the National Democratic Alliance, NDA). The 2019 general election saw its return with a greater majority. It is commonly accepted that the NDA years have generated significant contestation within and around various democratic institutions meant to act as checks and balances against majoritarian executive power.

One of the most important areas of contestation has been the judiciary in particular the Supreme Court. The past ten years have seen courtroom battles over civil rights, national security, social rights, citizenship, India’s federal structure, and disputes over making and breaking state governments, among many others. Unsealed Covers negotiates a unique terrain, where the actions of the judiciary, its engagement with our fundamental rights and its relationship with the executive are examined in terms of evolution and chronology. The book highlights both continuities and breaks with the past. It also comments on some of the most important judgments of the past decade and the tenures of some of the most influential justices of the Supreme Court.

Author, Gautam Bhatia, says, ‘The judiciary is one of the most consequential institutions in our democracy, but also one of the hardest to understand: legal vocabulary is often opaque to the uninitiated, judicial process is a world of its own, and courtroom argument has its own specialised conventions. This book is an attempt to illumine the darker corners of the province of law, to make the goings-on in our courts accessible, and to provide to citizens a ringside view of the constitutional battles that have shaped the terrain of our democracy over the last decade.’

Associate Publisher, HarperCollins India, Swati Chopra, says, ‘After his critically acclaimed The Transformative Constitution, Gautam Bhatia brings us another crucial book for our times. Unsealed Covers provides what is often not easily available to us – a clear and critical examination of legal debates, in the courts and pertaining to the Constitution – making it a book about influences that have shaped India’s democracy in the recent past.’

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gautam Bhatia is a lawyer who has been involved in several important contemporary constitutional cases. He is the author of Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Freedom of Speech under the Indian Constitution (2015), The Transformative Constitution: A Radical Biography in Nine Acts (2019) and the science fiction books The Wall (2020) and The Horizon (2021).

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For reviews, excerpts, interviews, and more information, please contact Vandana Rathore atvandana.rathore@harpercollins.co.in

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