About Project 39A
Project 39A, based out of National Law University, Delhi is inspired by Article 39-A of the Indian Constitution that furthers values of equal justice and equal opportunity. We are committed to interdisciplinary engagement with the criminal justice system through research, pro bono legal representation, and public communication. Our areas of focus are legal aid, torture, forensics, mental health and criminal justice, and the death penalty.
About the Blog
This blog aspires to provide a platform for academic engagement with issues pertaining to the criminal justice system. We believe that a nuanced and multidisciplinary discussion of these issues will enable us to meaningfully examine the structural challenges and harsh realities of the criminal justice system in India. Through this blog, we hope to trigger conversations that usher a deeper understanding of our criminal justice system and inspire critical thinking. While the focus of this blog is criminal law and justice, we also encourage perspectives through a diversity of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, anthropology and science.
Editorial Board
Neetika heads Project 39A’s work on sentencing since 2016. Formerly, she was with Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI) in Lucknow where she represented survivors of domestic and sexual violence. She graduated in law from Christ College of Law, Bangalore (2012). She has a Master of Arts (Women’s Studies) degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai (2016) and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree from Harvard Law School (2022) which was supported by the Lady Meherbai D Tata Education Trust Scholarship. Neetika’s research interests lie at the intersection of law and society and include capital punishment, feminist legal theory, sentencing, sexual offences, and distributional analysis of law.
Preeti is an Assistant Professor of Law at National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Her research interests include systemic harms of the criminal legal apparatus, particularly in the context of sexual violence and other gendered crimes. She graduated in law from National Law University, Odisha (2014) and completed her Master’s from Harvard Law School (2019) where she was a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar. Preeti also holds an M.Sc. in Criminology from the University of Oxford (2022) where she was a Chevening Scholar. Formerly, as a Research Associate at Project 39A, she worked on the capital sentencing doctrine in India.
Rupali is a constitutional and criminal law practitioner and scholar based in New Delhi. She is a graduate of Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad and is enrolled as an advocate at the Delhi Bar. She clerked with Hon’ble Mr. Justice Dr. S Muralidhar at the Delhi High Court and thereafter practiced before the Supreme Court, Delhi High Court and trial courts in Delhi. She attended Harvard Law School as a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow 2019-2020 where she received two Dean’s Scholar medals for outstanding scholarship and was awarded a Master’s in Law (LL.M) in 2020. She was thereafter awarded the prestigious Harvard Law School Henigson Human Rights Fellowship 2020-2021 to work on strategic litigation and training of lawyers at ‘Parichay’, a citizenship law legal aid clinic in Assam. She presently practices in the Supreme Court of India.
Shailesh is a Lecturer of Criminology at the University of East London and a Teaching Fellow of Criminal Law at SOAS, University of London. He is also an Associate Tutor at the School of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London, where he submitted his PhD thesis in July 2022. He is a recipient of the Commonwealth PhD Scholarship of the UK government. He graduated from Chanakya National Law University, Patna (2013), and completed his LLM from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad (2014). He did his MPhil from JNU, New Delhi (2016) on a Junior Research Fellowship from the Indian government.
Shreya is an Assistant Professor at NLSIU, where she teaches students of the B.A. LL.B. programme. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance (CLPG) at National Law University Delhi, where she worked extensively in the areas of reproductive justice, laws relating to sexual offences, medical jurisprudence, and intersections between constitutional law and criminal justice. Prior to her research at the CLPG, Shreya also served as an Associate with the Corporate and Commercial Laws team at the law firm, Khaitan & Co. At NLU Delhi, she was the recipient of the Vice Chancellors Gold Medal for Overall Best Female Student and the Gold Medal for securing the first rank in the LL.M., Class of 2018.
Past Editorial Board
November 2020 – October 2022