Sarthak Chaturvedi

05/08/2026

29/07/2026

"पिता धर्मः पिता स्वर्गः पिता हि परमं तपः।
पितरि प्रीतिमापन्ने सर्वाः प्रीयन्ति देवताः।।"

गुरु पूर्णिमा पर मेरे श्रेष्ठ गुरु आदरणीय स्वर्गीय पिताश्री को बारम्बार नमन... जन्म से लेकर आज तक की मेरी यात्रा में सबसे महत्वपूर्ण कदम वह था जब आपने उंगली पकड़कर चलना सिखाया।

उसी पहले कदम से शुरू हुई यात्रा अनवरत जारी है।

12/07/2026

In India, filing a false criminal case against someone carries almost no risk.

The person you accused pays everything. Years of their life. Money. Reputation. Sometimes months behind bars. The social stigma that follows even after acquittal.

You pay nothing if the case fails.

Look at the numbers under Section 498A- the law against cruelty by husband and in-laws.

Charge-sheeting rate: 93.6%. Conviction rate: 15%- the lowest across all criminal heads. Out of 3,72,706 cases pending trial, nearly 3,17,000 are likely to result in acquittal.

In 2012 alone, 1,97,762 people were arrested under this provision.

These are not my numbers. These are the Supreme Court's numbers. From Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar. 2014. Twelve years ago.

At the end of years of litigation, what does the acquitted person receive?

A piece of paper that says not guilty.

No compensation. No accountability for the person who filed the complaint. No consequence for initiating a case that should never have been filed.

This is exactly the gap that a law on Malicious Prosecution would fix.

It would hold a person accountable for initiating a false complaint- one filed not to seek justice but to harass, to pressure, to destroy.

India does not have a standalone law on this. The remedy exists in civil law but it is rarely used, rarely awarded, and almost never strong enough to deter anyone.

21/06/2026

"संघर्ष की बड़ी बड़ी व्याख्या कर रहे थे सभी,
मैंने "पिता" लिखकर सबको मौन कर दिया!"

19/06/2026

Cicero once said- A slave dreams not of freedom. But of his own slaves.

Now this quote sounds a little uncomfortable at first... Even racist! But if you look a little bit closer, it reveals something deeply unsettling.

That the people who are oppressed in this world are experts at singing songs of morality. But the moment they get power- they repeat the same cycles of oppression, if not worse.

Friedrich Nietzsche said something similar.

He argued that the people who lecture us about morality are not doing it because they are good people. They are doing it for their own survival. So that they can control those more powerful than them. Basically, by virtue signaling them.

Which, according to Nietzsche, actually comes from a very deep resentment of the strong.

And the best example of this I have seen in my own legal practice.

When I first entered this profession, I was horrified. Even in the most reputed legal chambers in Delhi- junior lawyers were not even making minimum wage. Brilliant people. Sharp people. Doing work that built careers for others.

Being paid nothing.

And how is this justified?

"When we were juniors nobody paid us. Now that it is our turn- why should we pay?"

Do you see the mentality?

The person who suffered under the system- the moment they got power- did not try to fix it. They repeated it. Because they did not dream of a better system. They dreamed of finally being on top of the same one.

And the cycle continues.

So the next time you see someone loudly championing justice for the oppressed- ask yourself one honest question.

Are they crying because they want to dismantle the system?
Or are they just crying because they are not on top yet?

14/06/2026

Last Saturday, I was in the Oxford Union.

One of the oldest debating chambers in the world. The kind of room where the weight of every conversation held before yours feels almost physical.

At the front: the Chief Justice of India.

Speaking about AI. About digital courts. About the future of the Indian judiciary.

I’ve spent over two decades in Indian courtrooms. I know what they look like on a Tuesday morning — the chaos, the overcrowding, 80 matters listed before lunch.

So sitting there in Oxford, listening to the CJI lay out a vision for where all this is headed… it was a strange feeling.

Not cynicism. Perspective.

He said one thing every lawyer needs to hear right now:

*“AI can read every judgment ever written. It can process data faster than any lawyer alive. But it cannot understand what is actually at stake when a real person walks into a real courtroom.”*

The empathy. The judgment. The human part.

That, he said, will never be automated.

I believe him.

But I also think lawyers who treat that as a reason to relax are missing the point.

*AI won’t replace good lawyers. It will just make it much harder for bad ones to hide.*

Thank you to the Oxford Law Society and the Oxford Union for an evening I won’t forget.

And to the Chief Justice of India — for representing this profession, and this country, with clarity and conviction.

13/06/2026

"Arbitration now resembles the disease it was meant to cure."

That’s the Chief Justice of India. At an international arbitration conference in London. Telling the entire room they’ve become the problem.

I was sitting there on Friday at the ICA Conference when he said it.

The average ICC case now takes 26 months. Median cost: USD 117,000. Complex disputes? USD 1.5 million+.

Arbitration was built to be faster and cheaper than courts. Unfortunately, it is neither anymore.

He also called out what nobody talks about openly — how a small, closed circle of arbitrators keeps appointing each other.

Party autonomy, arbitration’s most sacred principle, is being quietly used by powerful parties to hand-pick arbitrators most likely to favour them.

India has 52 million pending cases. We built arbitration as the escape route.

But if the escape route costs USD 1.5 million to enter, who exactly is it serving?

Not the small business. Not the first-time party. Only those powerful enough to game it.

The CJI proposed real solutions — joint Indo-UK arbitrator training, fast-track procedures, an Arb-Med framework. The ideas are there.

Whether the people who run this world are willing to disrupt it — that is the harder question.

I came back from London with one clear thought: arbitration does not need more conferences. It needs the people running it to be honest about what it has become.

Whether that happens, I genuinely do not know.

Thank you to the Indian Council of Arbitration for at least starting that conversation — openly, and without flinching. 🙏

12/06/2026

Every lawyer in India is now required to disclose if they used AI to draft their pleadings. But who is going to check?

The Supreme Court released draft AI Regulations for Indian courts last week. And before everyone celebrates- I want to raise something nobody is talking about.

These are called "Regulations." Not "Rules."

That one word matters more than people realise.

Article 145 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power to make Rules for its own practice and procedure. Those Rules require Presidential assent. They are binding on everyone.

But, these AI "regulations" were prepared by a Committee. Not by the Full Court. No Presidential assent. No constitutional backing.

So the first question every lawyer should be asking- how enforceable are these?

The most important part of this framework is the mandatory disclosure requirement.

Every lawyer who uses AI to draft a pleading, submission, or document filed in court must disclose it. No exceptions.

I agree with this completely.

But, If these are guidelines and not binding rules-the disclosure requirement has no real teeth.

A lawyer uses AI. Doesn't disclose it. What happens?

Who checks? Who investigates? What are the consequences?

Right now- nobody knows. Because the regulations don't say.

India needs AI regulations for courts. This is a necessary step. But a step that cannot be enforced is just a statement of intent.

The draft is open for public comments until June 20.

If you are a lawyer reading this- submit your comments. This is one of those rare moments where the institution is genuinely asking for input before finalising something that will affect every one of us.

Use it. 🙏