ValkyaEditorial

Valkya Editorial

Weekly reports and landmark-judgment digests for the Indian bar — written by litigators, for litigators.

Weekly Report

Weekly Report: The BNSS bail framework, one year on

As the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita completes its first year in force, the early picture on bail, default bail and police-station procedure is taking shape. A practitioner's scan of where the new Code has settled and where it has not.

Valkya Editorial··3 min

Latest

Landmark JudgmentSupreme Court of India

ASD v. LCSIBD: career, child welfare and the limits of matrimonial cruelty

On 12 May 2026, a two-judge bench expunged findings of cruelty and desertion against a dentist wife who had relocated from Kargil to Ahmedabad for tertiary medical care and to pursue her practice, holding that 'marriage does not eclipse her individuality' and retaining the divorce decree on the ground of irretrievable breakdown under Article 142.

Valkya Editorial··10 min
Landmark JudgmentSupreme Court of India

Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India: dismissing the hate-speech batch

On 29 April 2026, a two-judge bench dismissed thirteen writs, two SLPs and eight contempts in the long-running hate-speech batch, holding that constitutional courts cannot create criminal offences, that no legislative vacuum exists in the IPC/BNS framework, and that police failure to register a suo motu FIR is not, by itself, contempt.

Valkya Editorial··9 min
Landmark JudgmentSupreme Court of India

B.S. Lalitha v. Bhuvanesh: Section 6(5) is a narrow saving clause, not a jurisdictional bar

On 15 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that Section 6(5) of the Hindu Succession Act 1956 is a narrow saving clause that protects pre-20 December 2004 partitions from the retroactive coparcenary amendment of 2005, but does not bar a partition suit and does not displace daughters' independent Section 8 rights — which accrued on the intestate's death and pre-existed the 2005 amendment. An oral partition among sons alone cannot defeat the daughters' succession share, and a second Order VII Rule 11 CPC application on identical grounds is barred by res judicata.

Valkya Editorial··11 min
Landmark JudgmentHigh Court of Judicature at Bombay

Bombay HC, Fahim Ansari v. State of Maharashtra: police-clearance denial for a PSV badge, Article 21 livelihood and public safety

On 29 April 2026, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice A. S. Gadkari and Justice Ranjitsinha Bhonsale held that denial of a Police Clearance Certificate for a Public Service Vehicle badge — to a petitioner acquitted in the 26/11 case but separately convicted in the 2008 Rampur CRPF camp attack — is a reasonable restriction on the right to livelihood under Article 21.

Valkya Editorial··11 min

Weekly Reports

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A weekly scan of the decisions, amendments and notifications that change how lawyers practise — distilled, cross-referenced to the bare Act, and citation-ready.

Banking and SARFAESI in May 2026: the redemption carve-back, the 2024 Fraud Master Directions interpreted, the OTS sanctity ruling, and the RBL Bank foreign-stake transaction

The April-to-early-June 2026 cycle in Indian banking and SARFAESI law has produced an unusually dense set of doctrinal recalibrations. The Supreme Court has carved back the Celir LLP line on redemption, delivered the first major interpretation of the 2024 RBI Master Directions on Fraud Risk Management, reaffirmed the sanctity of one-time settlements against post-settlement criminal-recovery tactics, treated corporate guarantees as financial debt at the banking-IBC interface, and restored a dismissal in a bank-employee disciplinary case. Around these, the cycle has produced the largest-ever foreign-investment transaction in an Indian private bank, a third consecutive MPC rate hold, and a DRAT-Chennai limitation ruling that aligns SARFAESI demand-notice limitation with the Limitation Act s.18 architecture.

Valkya Editorial··14 min

The Code on Social Security 2020: gig workers, aggregators, and the unified frame

The Social Security Code consolidates nine statutes — EPF 1952, ESI 1948, Maternity Benefit 1961, Payment of Gratuity 1972, Workmen's Compensation 1923, BOCW Cess 1996 and three more — and adds the world's first national statutory frame for gig and platform workers. A practitioner's read on the gig and platform definitions, the 1-to-2 per cent aggregator contribution, the pro-rata gratuity rule, and the June 2026 commencement gap.

Valkya Editorial··12 min

The Code on Wages 2019: floor wage, minimum wage, and the unified payment framework

The first of the four labour Codes consolidates the Payment of Wages Act 1936, the Minimum Wages Act 1948, the Payment of Bonus Act 1965 and the Equal Remuneration Act 1976 into a single instrument. Partially commenced in December 2020; the substantive chapters await further Section 1(3) notifications. A practitioner's read on the architecture, the open compliance questions, and the old-law judgments that continue to govern.

Valkya Editorial··14 min

Landmark Judgments

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Close reading of the decisions that matter: the facts, the holding, the ratio, and what it changes for the practitioner — with the citation kept front and centre.

Landmark JudgmentSupreme Court of India

ASD v. LCSIBD: career, child welfare and the limits of matrimonial cruelty

On 12 May 2026, a two-judge bench expunged findings of cruelty and desertion against a dentist wife who had relocated from Kargil to Ahmedabad for tertiary medical care and to pursue her practice, holding that 'marriage does not eclipse her individuality' and retaining the divorce decree on the ground of irretrievable breakdown under Article 142.

Valkya Editorial··10 min
Landmark JudgmentSupreme Court of India

Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India: dismissing the hate-speech batch

On 29 April 2026, a two-judge bench dismissed thirteen writs, two SLPs and eight contempts in the long-running hate-speech batch, holding that constitutional courts cannot create criminal offences, that no legislative vacuum exists in the IPC/BNS framework, and that police failure to register a suo motu FIR is not, by itself, contempt.

Valkya Editorial··9 min
Landmark JudgmentSupreme Court of India

B.S. Lalitha v. Bhuvanesh: Section 6(5) is a narrow saving clause, not a jurisdictional bar

On 15 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that Section 6(5) of the Hindu Succession Act 1956 is a narrow saving clause that protects pre-20 December 2004 partitions from the retroactive coparcenary amendment of 2005, but does not bar a partition suit and does not displace daughters' independent Section 8 rights — which accrued on the intestate's death and pre-existed the 2005 amendment. An oral partition among sons alone cannot defeat the daughters' succession share, and a second Order VII Rule 11 CPC application on identical grounds is barred by res judicata.

Valkya Editorial··11 min

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