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NALSAR UNIVERSITY OF LAW

Accredited in 'A++' grade with a score of 3.52 on a four point scale by NAAC in Cycle 2

T Kannan

Murali Karnam is the Professor of Human Rights and the Director of Access to Justice Program

He began his academic life in political science but migrated to interdisciplinary areas of politics and law. He has a Ph.D. from the department of political science of the University of Hyderabad, after writing a dissertation, on the colonial history of the Indian penal system. After spending a decade advocating for prison reforms and prisoners’ rights, he joined the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in 2013. He has been teaching at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad since 2018.

Professor Murali Karnam has two intellectual interests—political theory and penal system. He teaches political theory, penal law and researches issues of penal system; preventive and pre-trial detentions. He runs a Prison Legal Aid Clinic with the support of students.

As the director of the Access to Justice Program, he runs a field office and supervises a team of advocates, prison social workers and research associates focussing on providing qualitative legal aid to prisoners.

He believes theory without practice is empty and practice without theory is pedantic

LLB; M. A (Political Science); M. Phil (Caste Violence in Andhra Pradesh), PhD (Prisons, Prisoners’ Rights and Politics of Reformation)

Research Interests:

Professor Murali Karnam has been researching on issues of human rights and Indian penal system. He has published 3 manuals on conditions of prisons in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. He has extensively researched the history of the penal system and published a number of articles on prison practices in national journals. He has also contributed materials for E-Pathasala on fundamental rights, role of judiciary and quasi-judicial institutions in the protection of human rights. The conditions of human rights in conflict zones is one of the areas of his publication and research interest. Recently he has completed a major research project on the efficacy of Open Prisons conducted in 7 states of India. He has also completed two research projects on practices of preventive detentions in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. He regularly contributes to regional and national newspapers on the issues of human rights and penal system. 

Completed research works:

As a Visiting Fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, he was engaged in a research on “Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making towards Conservation and Protection of Water Resources in the Village Panchayats of Tamil Nadu”. This study makes an evaluation of public participation in several cases of environmental planning and conservation focusing on how effectively these efforts introduced public values into the decision-making processes of village Panchayats in Tamil Nadu, resolved conflict among stakeholders, and built trust in environmental agencies.

As a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), a Centre of excellence promoted by the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, he worked on ‘The Political Articulation of Water Rights’ in two south Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. He wrote a Research Working Paper “Water, Left Politics and the Manufactured Dissent: Politics of Political Mobilization against Coca Cola in Gangaikondaan, Tamil Nadu, India” based on the ethnographic materials from Tamil Nadu fieldwork.

As a Research Associate at Centre for the Study of Casteism, Communalism and Law (CSCCL) of NLSIU, he was engaged in the research project on “ the study of Performances of Special Courts in India”, which the CSCCL of NLSIU had taken up for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. The study made an attempt to understand the functioning of Special Courts that were set up under the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. He was involved in deciding the research design for the study. Apart from this, he had personally supervised the data collection in the three Southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

2024:

  1. Annual Survey of Laws in Andhra Pradesh to be published by NALSAR University of Law.

2022

  1. A research project on the “Functioning and Impact of Open Prisons in India’ sponsored by Bureau of Police Research and Development, Government of India” submitted in November 2022.
  2. A research project titled “Preventive Detentions in Andhra Pradesh: An Instrument of State against Personal Liberty” completed and submitted to Thakur Foundation in July 2022.

 

2021

  1. Conference on Legal Aid in Criminal Defence organized by NLU D on 18 March 2023.
  2. State, society and law: Celebrating TK Oommen International Conference on State and Society in Contemporary India: 26 March 2022, at NALSAR University: The Theme: Preventive Detention Law as State of Exception, the case of Telangana
  3. “Combatting Impunity for Extrajudicial Executions in Asia” organized by International Commission of Jurists: Advocates for Justice and Human Rights on 11, 18, 25 of September 2021. 
  4. 7th National Conference of Heads of Prisons of all States and Union Territory organized by Bureau of Police Research and Development, New Delhi on 6 and 7th of October 2021. The Theme: “Decadal Road Map for Prisons and Correctional Services”

SOCIOLOGY-I: Society, Culture and Law in Sociological Perspectives

            SOCIOLOGY-II: Sociology of Law

SEMINAR COURSE (Currently Teaching):  Religion and Secular Theologies: Critical Approaches to the Legal Imagination of the Sacred and Secular in India

SEMINAR COURSES (Taught): Anthropology of Law and Violence; Subaltern Studies: Understanding Hegemony, Dominance and Subordination in Indian Society; Theory and Praxis, Social Movements in India, Caste Politics in India, and Social Conflicts and Conflict Resolution in India.

 

Prof. Murali Karnam
Professor of Human Rights and Director of Access to Justice
NALSAR University of Law
Post Box No.1,
Justice City, Shameerpet, Malkajigiri-Medchal District,
Hyderabad - 500078, Telangana

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 9866479775