Journal Policy

The Central University of Kashmir Law Review (CUKLR) is an annual, blind, peer-reviewed and refereed journal published in December every year by the Department of Law, School of Legal Studies, Central University of Kashmir, Ganderbal, Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Review Process
The Journal follows a double-blind peer review process, where the authors and reviewers do not know each other's identities. This helps prevent bias and ensures high-quality evaluations of the manuscripts.

  1. The author's identity or institutional affiliation is concealed and not in any way made known to the reviewers. Once a manuscript is received, the Associate Editor hides the author's name and institutional affiliation (s) from the manuscript to process it further.
  2. The editor-in-chief initially reviews all manuscripts to determine if they fit the journal's aims and scope. If a manuscript does not align, it is rejected, and the author is informed without being sent for further review.
  3. The Chief Editor and Associate Editor ensure that the submissions received are evaluated objectively and exclusively based on academic merit and originality, without regard to any secondary consideration(s) such as the authors' ethnic origin, religious belief, race, sexual orientation, gender, citizenship, political philosophy, or institutional affiliation.
  4. The Chief Editor has full authority over the content of the Journal and may refuse to publish a submission on any of the grounds:
    1. It is not in conformity with the standard policy of the Journal;
    2. It falls outside the scope of the Journal;
    3. It contains materials which is likely to spread hate or disrespect to any community, caste, religion, colour, creed, or its publishing would be against public policy;
    4. It includes information, values, or results that contradict universally accepted principles or are clearly incorrect.
    5. It contains information, values, and results that are against universally accepted principles or are patently wrong or against the obvious.
  5. Where a manuscript is deemed suitable, then it will be forwarded to two independent reviewers for further evaluation who scrutinize the paper and provide feedback on the quality of the manuscript.
  6. The reviewer may recommend accepting the paper as is, suggest major or minor revisions, or reject it entirely. In case of differing opinions between reviewers, the Associate Editor will convey the decision and feedback to the corresponding author, ensuring the reviewer's identity remains confidential.
  7. Where the reviewers suggest major/minor changes, the author(s) will be given an opportunity to incorporate the suggested changes.
  8. Where one reviewer suggests minor changes and another major change, the author may be asked to undertake major changes unless the major changes will change the main objectives of the paper, and in that case, only minor changes will be undertaken.
  9. When one reviewer accepts the paper and another rejects it, the Chief Editor may review it and a take call accordingly.
  10. The Chief Editor will assess whether the author has satisfactorily addressed the reviewer's feedback and may request additional edits if necessary.
  11. The final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of the paper will be communicated to the authors by the Associate Editors.

Reviewer Selection
Reviewers are not part of the Editorial Board, Editorial Advisory Board, or Faculty Committee. They are selected during Faculty Committee meetings based on subject expertise, academic excellence, and commitment to providing timely, constructive feedback. Reviewers should also represent related disciplines.

Review Criteria
Manuscripts are evaluated based on originality, significance, methodology, clarity, research depth, ethical standards, analysis, outcomes, and contribution to existing knowledge.

Confidentiality
Reviewers must maintain confidentiality and not disclose the review process to anyone except the Journal editor, even after publication. Review reports are shared exclusively with the authors during the review process and are not published with accepted articles

Plagiarism and Misconduct

  1. Plagiarism is a serious issue in academia, and the Journal has zero tolerance for it as it violates ethical standards. Manuscripts found to be plagiarized will not be considered for publication.
  2. Author(s) must submit a declaration that the manuscript is their original work and has not been published elsewhere. The author(s) must also confirm that all content is properly attributed and does not infringe on the copyright or rights of third parties.
  3. All submissions will go through a plagiarism check by the editorial team through plagiarism detection software, preferably by Turnitin.
  4. The similarity checks for plagiarism will exclude the following:
  5. All quoted work reproduced with all necessary permission and attribution.
  6. All references, bibliography, table of contents, preface and acknowledgements.
  7. All generic terms, laws, standard symbols and standard equations.

Author Responsibilities

  1. The author is responsible for his/her work and accountable for all aspects. The author has to maintain confidentiality when communicating with journal editors until an editorial decision is made.
  2. The author will be responsible for giving due credit to their sources and providing appropriate references.
  3. The corresponding author is required to submit the manuscripts and will be responsible for maintaining all communication between the Journal Editor and all co-authors throughout the publication process. The corresponding author is required to ensure that all authors who have contributed to the manuscript are listed as co-authors in the definitive order, as well as to ensure that each author is aware of and agree with the submission of the manuscript.
  4. Any change in the authorship list of a manuscript is required to be made prior to the acceptance of the manuscript and only with the approval of the Chief Editor. To request such a change, the corresponding author must submit a valid reason for the change in the author list and a written statement (preferably via email) from each author agreeing with the addition, deletion or rearrangement. However, no request will be entertained from the author requesting the changes in the authorship order after the manuscript has been accepted.
  5. Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that they may have in their manuscript. This includes financial, institutional affiliations, personal bias or any other type of conflict that may give the appearance of influence in the content of their work or during the review process.
  6. The author must not use artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted tools for the generation of abstract, literature review or reporting results. Authors must not list AI or AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author.
  7. The author must ensure that all work credited to authorship is solely performed by humans. A statement confirming this must be included in the manuscript file.

Copyright Policy/ Licensing Agreement
The copyright of the publication will be with the corresponding author, the Department of Law, Central University of Kashmir (publisher) will be within right to sell, exchange or distribute free of charge or to allow free online access to the Journal for which a copyright assignment form has to be filled by the author of the manuscript.

Retraction Policy
The Journal has a clear and transparent retraction policy. If an ethical violation is discovered after publication, the editorial board may retract either the specific paper or the entire volume, depending on what is deemed appropriate.

Archiving and Preservation Policy
The journal maintains an archive that stores and preserves all published content from the first issue, ensuring its accessibility for future generations.

Target Readers and Contributors
The target readers of the journal are legal and allied subjects' scholars, professors, students, thinkers, policymakers and practitioners. The Journal welcome scholarly works from all of them.   

Submission Guidelines

  • The submission is original and has not been published or is under consideration for publication in any other journal.
  • The submission files are in Microsoft Word file format.
  • The manuscript file does not contain the author's name, institutional affiliation, or any other identification mark. A cover letter is attached separately, containing the author's name (s), institutional affiliation, email ID and phone number of the corresponding author.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The main text is single-spaced with 12-point font in Times New Roman and the footnote is single-spaced with 10-point font in Times New Roman, and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text rather than at the end.
  • The manuscript includes an Abstract of around 200 words, followed by four to five keywords.
  • Footnotes and Citations are provided as per the Indian Law Institute Rules of footnoting and Citation Style.
  • The author must send an undertaking that the manuscript submitted for consideration of publication has neither been already published nor submitted for publication anywhere.
  • All submissions shall be made online. For any query, email at: editor-cuklr@cukashmir.ac.in

Publication Ethics and Other Related Editorial Policies
For any other publication ethics and related editorial policies, the journal follows COPE's Core Practice Guidance.