COPYRIGHT AGREEMENT AND AUTHOR DECLARATION

The author(s), being the author(s), copyright owner(s), or duly authorised representative(s) of the manuscript (the “Article”), hereby submit the Article to Law & Society in Transition (the “Journal”) for publication and agree to the following terms and conditions.

Originality and Authorship
The author(s) represent and warrant that:
•    The Article is an original scholarly work of the author(s), except for material that has been lawfully incorporated from other sources and appropriately identified and acknowledged.
•    The author(s) have full authority to enter into this Agreement and to grant the rights or permissions provided herein.
•    All individuals who have made a qualifying contribution to the Article have been appropriately identified as authors, and no person who has not contributed appropriately has been listed as an author.
•    The Article has not been knowingly fabricated, falsified, plagiarised, or otherwise prepared in violation of applicable law or accepted standards of research and publication ethics.
•    The Article does not knowingly contain defamatory, obscene, unlawful, fraudulent, or otherwise actionable material.
Responsibility for Third-Party and Copyrighted Material
The author(s) bear sole responsibility for identifying, verifying, obtaining permission for, and properly acknowledging any third-party or copyrighted material incorporated into the Article.
For the purposes of this Agreement, third-party material includes, without limitation:
•    text, quotations, excerpts, and translations;
•    photographs, illustrations, artwork, maps, diagrams, and figures;
•    tables, charts, and datasets;
•    images, screenshots, logos, and other visual material;
•    audio, video, and multimedia content;
•    substantial portions of previously published works;
•    material obtained from websites, databases, repositories, books, journals, newspapers, reports, or other sources; and
•    any other material in which copyright or another third party right may subsist.
The author(s) expressly warrant that they have:
•    obtained all permissions, licences, consents, and other authorisations required for the use, reproduction, adaptation, publication, and online dissemination of such material; or
•    established a valid legal basis for the use of such material, including an applicable statutory exception, limitation, licence, public-domain status, or other lawful basis.
Where permission or a licence has been obtained, the author(s) shall retain appropriate documentary evidence and provide it to the Journal upon request.
All third-party material must be accurately identified and appropriately credited in the Article in accordance with the applicable licence or permission terms.

Author Responsibility for Copyright Compliance
•    The author(s) acknowledge and agree that the Journal, its Publisher, Editor, Editorial Board, Reviewers, Staff, and representatives do not undertake responsibility for determining whether material supplied by the author(s) infringes the copyright or other rights of any third party.
•    The author(s) are solely responsible for the accuracy of all representations concerning ownership, licensing, permission, attribution, and lawful use of third-party material contained in the Article.
•    Publication, acceptance, editing, formatting, hosting, indexing, dissemination, or distribution of the Article by the Journal shall not constitute a representation, warranty, or certification by the Publisher or Editor that all material contained in the Article is free from third-party rights or that all required permissions have been obtained.
•    The author(s) acknowledge that editorial review, peer review, plagiarism screening, technical checks, or publication of the Article does not relieve the author(s) of their responsibility to obtain all necessary permissions and comply with copyright law.

Indemnification by the Author(s)
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the author(s) agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Journal, Publisher, Editor, editorial board members, reviewers, employees, officers, agents, and representatives from and against any third-party claim, demand, complaint, proceeding, liability, loss, damage, cost, expense, or reasonable legal expense arising out of or relating to:
•    any allegation that the Article infringes copyright or any other intellectual property right;
•    unauthorised use, reproduction, adaptation, distribution, communication, or publication of third-party material;
•    failure to obtain a required permission, licence, consent, or authorisation;
•    inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading attribution or licensing information supplied by the author(s);
•    plagiarism, misappropriation, or unauthorised reuse of material by the author(s);
•    breach of any warranty, representation, undertaking, or obligation contained in this Agreement; or
•    any other unlawful or unauthorised material supplied or incorporated by the author(s).
This indemnification obligation applies regardless of whether the relevant claim arises before or after publication of the Article.

Previously Published and Submitted Material
The author(s) warrant that the Article:
•    has not been previously published in substantially the same form, except where such prior publication has been expressly disclosed to the Journal;
•    is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal or publisher;
•    does not contain substantial material previously published by the author(s) or others without appropriate disclosure, permission, and attribution; and
•    does not contain any rights that have previously been exclusively assigned, transferred, licensed, or otherwise granted to another person or organisation in a manner inconsistent with this Agreement.
Any preprint, thesis, dissertation, conference paper, working paper, repository version, or other related publication must be disclosed to the Journal where relevant.

Permission to Publish and Disseminate
The author(s) grant the Journal and its Publisher the necessary rights and permissions to publish, reproduce, communicate to the public, distribute, archive, host, index, preserve, and otherwise disseminate the Article in the Journal's print and electronic editions and through websites, repositories, indexing services, databases, digital archives, and other scholarly communication platforms.
These rights include the right to make the Article available online in perpetuity, subject to the applicable copyright ownership and licence terms.

Copyright and Open-Access Licensing

Articles Published Under an Open-Access Licence
•    Where an Article is designated for publication under an open-access licence, copyright ownership shall remain with the author(s) or other identified copyright holder, unless otherwise expressly agreed in writing.
•    The Article shall be published under the applicable Creative Commons licence stated by the Journal at the time of publication.
•    For Articles published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), the public may share the Article provided appropriate attribution is given, the use is non-commercial, and no adapted material is distributed, subject to the terms of the applicable Creative Commons licence. C
•    The author(s) acknowledge that the Journal does not grant or transfer to the public any rights in third-party material that is not owned by the author(s). Such third-party material remains subject to its respective copyright, licence, or other applicable rights.
Articles Not Published Under an Open-Access Licence
•    For an Article not designated for open-access publication, the author(s) assign to the Publisher the copyright and rights expressly specified in this Agreement, subject to applicable law and the terms stated herein.
•    Any assignment shall be understood to apply only to the rights, duration, territory, and forms of exploitation expressly specified in the applicable publishing agreement.

Author's Retained Rights
•    Except to the extent expressly assigned or restricted under this Agreement or the applicable open-access licence, the author(s) retain rights permitted by applicable law, including rights in their underlying research, data, ideas, methods, discoveries, inventions, and other intellectual property that are not themselves transferred under this Agreement.
•    The author(s) may use reasonable portions of their Article for academic and educational purposes, including lectures, presentations, teaching, research, institutional repositories, and scholarly works, subject to the applicable copyright, licence, attribution, and third-party rights.
•    Any reuse of third-party material remains subject to the rights and restrictions applicable to that material.
Editorial and Production Rights
•    The author(s) authorise the Editor and Publisher to make reasonable editorial, linguistic, formatting, typographical, technical, and production changes necessary to prepare the Article for publication.
•    Such changes shall not ordinarily alter the substantive scholarly meaning of the Article.
•    The Journal may also format, convert, reproduce, and adapt the Article as technically necessary for publication in different electronic or archival formats.
Attribution of Authorship
•    The Publisher will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the author(s) are properly identified in connection with the published Article.
•    The author(s) are responsible for ensuring that the names, affiliations, corresponding-author information, acknowledgements, funding information, and other author-supplied metadata submitted to the Journal are accurate and complete.
Withdrawal, Correction, Retraction, and Removal
•    The Journal reserves the right, in accordance with its editorial and publication-ethics policies, to correct, issue an expression of concern regarding, retract, withdraw, or remove an Article where there is credible evidence of plagiarism, copyright infringement, fabricated or falsified information, serious ethical misconduct, unlawful content, or another substantial breach of the author(s)' warranties or obligations.
•    Where a third-party rights holder raises a credible copyright complaint concerning material supplied by the author(s), the Journal may temporarily restrict access to the relevant material or Article while the matter is investigated and resolved.
•    Such action shall not relieve 
•    The author(s) acknowledge that the Journal does not grant or transfer to the public any rights in third-party material that is not owned by the author(s). Such third-party material remains subject to its respective copyright, licence, or other applicable rights.

No Warranty by the Publisher or Editor Regarding Author-Supplied Material
•    The author(s) acknowledge that the Publisher and Editor rely substantially upon the representations, warranties, permissions, licences, and information supplied by the author(s).
•    Accordingly, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the Publisher and Editor make no representation or warranty concerning the ownership, licensing status, originality, accuracy, legality, or third-party rights associated with material supplied by the author(s).
•    Nothing in this Agreement shall be interpreted as transferring responsibility for obtaining third-party permissions from the author(s) to the Publisher or Editor.

Author's Continuing Responsibility
•    The author(s)' obligations under this Agreement survive publication of the Article.
•    If any copyright, intellectual-property, privacy, defamation, permissions, licensing, or other rights-related issue arises after publication as a result of material supplied by the author(s), the author(s) remain responsible for addressing the matter and cooperating fully with the Journal and Publisher in resolving it.
•    Publisher's Right to Assign
•    The Publisher may assign or transfer its rights and obligations under this Agreement to a successor publisher, publishing entity, or other lawful successor in connection with the Journal, its publication operations, or its assets, subject to applicable law.

Publication and Author Copy
Following publication, the Journal may provide the corresponding or principal author with an electronic PDF or other electronic version of the published Article, subject to the Journal's publication and access policies.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction
•    This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India.
•    Subject to applicable law, the parties agree that the courts having competent jurisdiction in Puri, Odisha, India shall have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising out of or in connection with this Agreement, its interpretation, performance, or termination.

Author's Declaration
By signing below, the author(s) expressly confirm and declare that:
•    I/We have read and understood this Agreement.
•    I/We have authority to enter into this Agreement.
•    I/We accept full responsibility for the originality and lawful use of all material submitted with the Article.
•    I/We have identified and appropriately acknowledged all third-party material used in the Article.
•    I/We have obtained all necessary permissions and licences, where required, for the use and publication of copyrighted or otherwise protected material.
•    I/We will provide evidence of such permissions or licences to the Journal upon request.
•    I/We understand that publication by the Journal does not constitute verification or approval by the Publisher or Editor of the copyright status of author-supplied material.
•    I/We accept responsibility for any claim arising from unauthorised use of copyrighted or otherwise protected material supplied by me/us.
•    I/We agree to indemnify the Journal, Publisher, Editor, and their representatives in accordance with this Agreement.
•    All information provided in connection with the Article is accurate and complete to the best of my/our knowledge.

Signatures

For the Author(s)

Name of Principal/Corresponding Author: