Criminal Procedure & the BNSS — 87 Valkya Editorial digests
Criminal procedure — the transition from the CrPC to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, FIR registration and investigation, cognizance, and the inherent power to quash proceedings under Section 482 CrPC / Section 528 BNSS.
The Supreme Court quashed an FIR under Section 498A IPC, holding that vague, generalised allegations that mechanically rope in an entire family — without particularised acts of cruelty — cannot found a criminal prosecution and risk turning a protective provision into a tool of personal vendetta.
The Supreme Court quashed a s.498A IPC and Dowry Prohibition Act prosecution against a husband's brother and unmarried sister, holding that relatives cannot be dragged into a matrimonial dispute on a casual reference to their names without specific allegations of active involvement. The decision deprecates the practice of roping in the entire household and treats it as an abuse of process.
The Supreme Court quashed cheque-dishonour proceedings against an independent non-executive director, holding that mere designation as a director does not attract Section 141 liability. Vicarious liability under the NI Act must be pleaded and proved with specific averments that the director was in charge of and responsible for the company's business.
On 12 June 2026, the Rajasthan High Court held that a former wife who continued Section 498A IPC proceedings against her ex-husband and his family after accepting ₹20 lakh as alimony and obtaining a decree of mutual divorce was abusing the process of law. The Court rejected the argument that the criminal case stood wholly independent of the settled matrimonial dispute.
The Supreme Court quashed a criminal medical-negligence prosecution against an anaesthetist, holding that an expert panel without a peer specialist is a fundamental defect, and that a nurse's failure to find the epidural space is at most civil deficiency — not the gross negligence and mens rea that Section 304-A IPC demands.
A three-judge bench held that a Section 138 complaint lodged before the 15-day statutory notice period has run is premature and discloses no cause of action, so no cognizance can be taken — even if the period has lapsed by the time the magistrate acts. The Court allowed a fresh complaint to be filed within a month of its judgment.
A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court refused to quash criminal proceedings against a sonologist for deficiencies in Form F records under the PCPNDT Act, holding that blank or incomplete columns are not trivial clerical mistakes but substantive statutory violations — a springboard for the offence of female foeticide. A digest of the facts, the holding, and the statutory scheme of Sections 4(3), 5, 6 and 23.
On a Section 392 CrPC reference after a split verdict, a two-judge Supreme Court Bench doubted the long-standing rule in Sajjan Singh and referred to a larger Bench the question whether a referee judge can disturb concurrent findings of guilt the original Division Bench was unanimous on. A digest of the facts, the questions referred, and why the reference matters.
A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that an accused's wish to seek medical treatment abroad under Article 21 is not absolute and must yield to the complainant's right to a speedy trial where comparable facilities exist in India. A digest of the facts, the balancing test, and why the High Court's permission to travel was set aside.
A single judge of the Delhi High Court has declined to decide, and instead referred to a Larger Bench, a foundational sequencing question under the new BNSS: on a private complaint, must the accused be heard under the first proviso to Section 223(1) before or after the Magistrate examines the complainant on oath. A digest of the facts, the interpretive conflict over when 'cognizance' is taken, and the questions sent up for authoritative resolution.
In 1950 a six-judge Constitution Bench struck down a Madras ban on the weekly Cross Roads, holding that the freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) includes the freedom of circulation, and that restrictions for ordinary public order fell outside the narrow Article 19(2) as it then stood. A digest of one of the Supreme Court's first free-speech rulings and the constitutional amendment it prompted.
In December 1981 a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court delivered the First Judges Case. Justice Bhagwati's opinion opened the courthouse door to public-spirited litigants and gave India its doctrine of Public Interest Litigation, while the majority held that 'consultation' of the Chief Justice in judicial appointments did not mean concurrence. A digest of the facts, the two holdings, and their divergent later fortunes.
A five-judge Constitution Bench overruled the rule in Asian Resurfacing that interim stays lapse automatically after six months. A digest of the holding, the Article 142 limits the Court drew, and what it now means for litigants relying on a High Court stay.
A former Chief Minister of Odisha refused to answer written police interrogatories in a disproportionate-assets case, and was prosecuted under s.179 IPC. A three-judge Supreme Court bench held that Article 20(3) operates from the stage of police interrogation, that 'compulsion' includes psychological and environmental pressure, and that an accused may have a lawyer present during examination. A digest of the facts, the holding, and the case's lineage into Selvi.
The Supreme Court's 1994 ruling that the power to arrest and the justification for using it are two different things — and that an arrested person is entitled to have a relative or friend told. A close digest of the safeguards that prefigured D.K. Basu.
A 2013 Constitution Bench held FIR registration mandatory under Section 154 CrPC when information discloses a cognizable offence, limiting preliminary inquiry.
Constitution Bench, 1953: customs confiscation under the Sea Customs Act is administrative, not a court prosecution, so Article 20(2) bars no later trial.
The Supreme Court (April 2026) held that a reliable, consented DNA report on record overrides the conclusive presumption of legitimacy under s.112 / s.116.
How the Supreme Court struck down caste-wise college quotas under Article 29(2), held Directive Principles subordinate to Fundamental Rights, and triggered the First Amendment.
On 8 January 2024, a two-judge bench quashed the premature release of eleven convicts, holding that Gujarat was not the appropriate Government to grant remission under Section 432(7) CrPC and that the order directing it to act had been obtained by suppression of material facts.
On 13 July 2024, the Kerala High Court held that "husband" in Section 498A IPC means a married man — a woman's live-in partner, absent a legally recognised marriage, cannot be prosecuted for matrimonial cruelty, and the proceedings against him were quashed.
On 8 January 2025, the Telangana High Court reaffirmed in the BNS era that a parent who is a natural guardian taking the child from the other parent is not kidnapping under Section 137(2) BNS, and that custody disputes belong before the family court.
On 4 September 1990, a Constitution Bench of five judges struck down a 'hire and fire' clause permitting termination of permanent employees without reasons and without hearing — holding that audi alteram partem must be read into State termination powers and that arbitrary, unguided dismissal violates Article 14.
Valkya Editorial··9 min
High CourtHigh Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh
The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh quashed the ED's charge sheets in the cricket-association probe, holding that without a predicate scheduled offence there can be no proceeds of crime — and that conspiracy alone is not a scheduled offence.
The Patna High Court held that where the ED files its prosecution complaint without arresting the accused during investigation, the power to arrest under Section 19 PMLA does not survive cognizance — applying Tarsem Lal.
The Jharkhand High Court granted regular bail in a money-laundering case, finding the Section 45 PMLA twin conditions satisfied — there was reason to believe the petitioner was not guilty and unlikely to reoffend on bail.
On 4 December 2025, the Gujarat High Court quashed a series of overlapping prohibitory orders, holding that emergency power cannot become normal governance and that such orders must be widely publicised, not merely gazetted.
The Allahabad High Court held that a Magistrate cannot add to or exclude penal sections from the police report at the stage of taking cognisance — alteration is a charge-framing function, and the accused's remedy is discharge, not Section 482 quashing.
In 2017 a two-judge bench installed Family Welfare Committees to screen Section 498-A complaints; in 2018 a three-judge bench withdrew that extra-statutory machinery, restoring the Arnesh Kumar arrest discipline.
In 2020 the Supreme Court issued binding pan-India guidelines on maintenance across overlapping statutory regimes, prescribed a mandatory Affidavit of Disclosure of Assets and Liabilities, and ruled that maintenance is payable from the date of the application.
The Uttarakhand High Court suspended a POCSO conviction and granted bail, terming the trial-court verdict 'more than shocking' — this was not a case of insufficient evidence but of no evidence at all, with the victim hostile and forensics unconnected to the accused.
The Orissa High Court held that before ordering investigation under Section 175(3) BNSS on a complaint of FIR non-registration, a Magistrate must consider the affidavit-supported application, make a proper inquiry, hear the police officer, and pass a reasoned order.
On 5 February 2025, the Madhya Pradesh High Court granted anticipatory bail in a rape case on condition that the accused surrender all electronic devices and social-media passwords to the investigating agency, raising sharp questions of privacy and self-incrimination.
On 7 February 2025, a two-judge bench held that communicating the grounds of arrest under Article 22(1) is a mandatory constitutional requirement, the breach of which vitiates the arrest and entitles the accused to release despite statutory bail bars.
On 29 May 2026, a two-judge bench awarded ₹11 lakh in constitutional compensation for 24 days of illegal incarceration after a parole-release order, reiterating the 'obey first, appeal later' principle.
On 11 March 2026, a two-judge bench permitted withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from a thirteen-year permanent-vegetative-state patient, classifying clinically assisted nutrition and hydration as medical treatment under the Common Cause framework.
On 29 May 2026, a two-judge bench quashed POCSO and rape proceedings against an estranged husband's family on findings of tutored 'parrot-like' testimony, and articulated for the first time at Supreme Court level an explicit ethical duty on advocates not to assist vexatious matrimonial-dispute prosecutions.
Justice Neerja K. Kalson held that a maternal grandmother in actual care and custody of her granddaughter has sufficient eligibility to maintain a section 125 CrPC application on the minor's behalf where the parental relationship has broken down; the minor's statutory right to maintenance cannot be defeated by a technical objection to who instituted the petition.
On 22 April 2026, the Supreme Court held that the mandatory bail conditions under section 480(3) BNSS apply only to non-bailable offences punishable with imprisonment of seven years or more, correcting widespread trial-court template practice.
On 19 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that the first proviso to Section 223(1) BNSS — requiring the accused to be heard before cognizance is taken on a complaint — is a mandatory, substantive Article 21 right; cognizance without compliance is void ab initio, and the rule applies to PMLA complaints where cognizance is taken on or after 1 July 2024 even if the complaint was filed earlier.
On 24 April 2026, a two-judge bench permitted the medical termination of a 15-year-old's 28-week pregnancy, holding that Article 21's reproductive-autonomy guarantee — particularly for a pregnant minor — takes precedence over the MTP Act's statutory 24-week outer limit, and that adoption cannot be offered as a substitute for forced continuation.
On 6 April 2026, a three-judge bench held that the inherent powers under section 528 BNSS can be invoked to quash criminal proceedings where unimpeachable material displaces the prosecution's factual foundation; the Bhajan Lal framework carries through unbroken into the BNSS era.
On 26 May 2026, an Allahabad High Court division bench quashed an FIR, chargesheet and cognizance order against an advocate prosecuted for conspiracy after he filed a GST statutory appeal on behalf of his client using the Electronic Credit Ledger for pre-deposit.
On 28 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that the recall power under Section 311 CrPC cannot be used to plug defence lacunae or re-traumatise a rape prosecutrix four years after her cross-examination.
On 9 January 2026, a two-judge bench held that mandating medical age-determination at the bail stage in POCSO matters is impermissible and urged the Centre to consider a 'Romeo–Juliet' clause for close-in-age consensual relationships.
Bombay HC (Aurangabad) quashes an FIR under the struck-down Section 66A IT Act years after Shreya Singhal, condemning police 'high-handedness' over a dead law.
A three-judge bench fixed s.138 jurisdiction at the place of dishonour, overruling K. Bhaskaran — only for Parliament to reverse it via the 2015 amendment.
On 9 July 2024, the Supreme Court struck down a Google-Maps-pin bail condition, holding that any condition letting an agency track an accused's every movement violates Article 21 privacy.
A five-judge Constitution Bench led by CJI Y.V. Chandrachud freed s.438 anticipatory bail from judge-made fetters, needing no FIR but barring blanket orders.
On 23 September 2024, the Supreme Court held that viewing and storing child sexual exploitative material is punishable under s.15 POCSO and s.67B IT Act, and replaced 'child pornography' with 'CSEAM'.
On 15 May 2024, the Supreme Court held that grounds of arrest must be furnished in writing at the earliest, declared the NewsClick editor's UAPA arrest illegal, and extended Pankaj Bansal beyond PMLA.
A two-judge bench laid down an A/B/C/D categorisation of offences for bail and held that breach of Sections 41 and 41A CrPC entitles the accused to bail.
On 12 April 2012, a 2:1 majority of the Supreme Court — Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar — upheld the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, including the Section 12(1)(c) mandate that all recognised schools reserve 25% of Class I seats for children from disadvantaged groups and weaker sections. The majority itself carved out the exemption for private unaided minority schools, on the reasoning that the mandate would impair the Article 30(1) right. Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan dissented. The two-step minority exemption began here; Pramati (2014) completed it for aided minority schools.
On 6 May 2014, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice R.M. Lodha struck down Section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946 — the statutory revival of the executive 'Single Directive' that this Court had abrogated in Vineet Narain (1998) — as violative of Article 14. The judgment closes the doctrinal arc: an administrative immunity, struck down in 1997-98, cannot be reintroduced in legislative form when the underlying constitutional defect remains. The decision became the analytical scaffold for CBI v. R.R. Kishore (2023) and frames the still-pending challenge to Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 inserted by the 2018 amendment.
A five-judge Constitution Bench held that s.438 anticipatory bail need not, as a rule, be time-bound and can survive the charge-sheet, reaffirming Sibbia.
On 6 March 1973, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court gave Section 11A its foundational construction — the Industrial Tribunal's own satisfaction on guilt and punishment displaces the four-grounds restraint of Indian Iron & Steel, and the Tribunal may alter the punishment imposed by an employer.
On 28 March 2018, a three-judge Bench held in Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency v. CBI that interim stays of trial granted by a High Court in civil and criminal proceedings would automatically vacate after six months, unless extended by a speaking order. The rule operated for almost six years before, on 29 February 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench in High Court Bar Association, Allahabad v. State of UP held it constitutionally unsustainable and overruled it. A digest of both judgments, the practitioner architecture they produced, and the constitutional position that now obtains.
On 18 May 2026 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in Bansal v. Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV, set aside the 2018 single-judge SEP infringement decree by Justice Manmohan on Philips' DVD-related Indian Patent IN 184753 and articulated, for the first time at the Division Bench level in India, the evidentiary baseline a Standard-Essential Patent holder must meet at trial. The DB held that essentiality is a fact requiring proof through claim-charts mapped to the standard and through cross-examinable witnesses; that Philips' right was exhausted under Section 107A(b) of the Patents Act 1970 because the DVD components had been put on the market in China by Philips' authorised licensees; and that comparable-licence evidence is required to discharge the FRAND-rate burden. The ruling resets the FRAND-evidence architecture for the Ericsson, Nokia, Dolby and Malikie actions still on foot.
On 15 July 2014 a two-judge Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (Mohit S. Shah, C.J., presiding, with M.S. Sanklecha, J.) affirmed India's first — and to date only successful — compulsory-licence grant under *Section 84* of the *Patents Act 1970*. The decision sustained the Controller's 9 March 2012 order granting Natco Pharma a compulsory licence over Bayer's IN 215758 (Sorafenib Tosylate, sold as Nexavar) on all three independent grounds under *Section 84(1)* — reasonable requirements of the public unmet, price not reasonably affordable, and patent not worked in India. The Special Leave Petition was dismissed on 12 December 2014 with the questions of law left open. The judgment, read with the subsequent rejections of the BDR Pharma (Dasatinib) and Lee Pharma (Saxagliptin) applications, defines the practical contours of Indian compulsory licensing in the post-TRIPS public-health architecture.
On 29 March 2023 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in Intex Technologies (India) Ltd v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, delivered the country's first authoritative appellate framework on standard-essential patents and FRAND licensing. The judgment by Justices Manmohan and Saurabh Banerjee dismissed Intex's appeal, allowed Ericsson's cross-appeal, doubled the royalty security ordered by the Single Judge, held that injunctions and pro-tem royalty deposits are available to SEP holders against unwilling licensees, ruled that parallel CCI proceedings do not oust Patent Act jurisdiction, and established the 'willing licensee' inquiry as the central test in Indian SEP litigation. A close reading of the Bench's reasoning, the two-way street it builds between SEP holders and implementers, and the bespoke Indian remedy of pro-tem security that now travels through Nokia v. OPPO, Ericsson v. Lava and the wider Delhi SEP docket.
On 10 July 2024, a two-judge bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih held that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to claim maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (now Section 144 of the BNSS, 2023) against her husband, and that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 operates in addition to — not in derogation of — that secular maintenance right. The judgment is the most consequential restoration of the Shah Bano line in the post-1986 period.
On 5 May 2017, a three-judge bench of Justices Dipak Misra, R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan dismissed the appeals filed by the four adult convicts in the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder — known to public memory as the Nirbhaya case — and affirmed the death sentence imposed by the Trial Court and confirmed by the Delhi High Court. The judgment applied the rarest-of-rare doctrine articulated in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980) and held that the offence fell within its scope. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal application, and the architecture of capital sentencing it confirms.
On 23 December 2016 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in MySpace Inc v. Super Cassettes Industries Ltd, set aside Justice Manmohan Singh's blanket 2011 injunction and worked out the first coherent Indian framework for intermediary safe-harbour in copyright. The DB held that the proviso to Section 81 of the IT Act does not preclude an intermediary from invoking the Section 79 safe-harbour in copyright suits; that 'actual knowledge' under Section 51(a)(ii) of the Copyright Act requires knowledge of specific infringing material at a specific URL; that takedown notices must identify works with specificity, location and ownership; and that no general proactive monitoring obligation can be imposed.
On 28 August 2024, the Supreme Court granted bail to Prem Prakash — an associate of the then-Chief Minister of Jharkhand — in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 matter, after he had spent over a year in custody. The judgment reaffirmed the constitutional principle that 'bail is the rule, jail is the exception' in PMLA cases, held statements made by an accused while in PMLA custody to be inadmissible against him under Section 50 PMLA, and continued the post-Vijay Madanlal arc in which the Court has moderated the operation of the twin bail conditions where prolonged incarceration meets the proportionality test of liberty. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal frame, and where the PMLA bail line stands now.
On 27 January 2026, a two-judge bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and S.V.N. Bhatti held that disputes relating to the employment, termination, or alleged sham nature of contract labour arrangements must be adjudicated by a Labour Court or Industrial Tribunal under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 — and that the State's reference jurisdiction operates even on an apprehended dispute and is not foreclosed by the absence of a prior written demand on the employer. The judgment reaffirms the SAIL safeguards for contract labour and supplies a working architecture for contract-labour litigation.
On 6 September 2022 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in State Tax Officer (1) v. Rainbow Papers Ltd, read Section 48 of the Gujarat Value Added Tax Act 2003 — which creates a first charge on the dealer's property in respect of VAT dues — as creating a 'security interest' by operation of law within Section 3(31) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, with the consequence that the State became a 'secured creditor' under Section 3(30) and a resolution plan that wholly ignored the statutory dues was non-compliant with Section 30(2). A coordinate bench in Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam v. Raman Ispat then confined the holding to its facts. A close reading of the GVAT-IBC architecture, the Section 53 waterfall analysis, the doctrinal arc that has followed, and what practitioners advising resolution applicants and statutory authorities should take from the case.
The May 2026 cycle in tax law has produced one of the most consequential indirect-tax rulings of the calendar year — the Supreme Court's affirmation of 28 per cent GST on online gaming on full face value in *DGGI v. Gameskraft Technologies* — alongside the first full compliance cycle of the Income-tax Act 2025, the GSTAT 30 June 2026 backlog deadline, the GST 2.0 dual-rate regime in its first full fiscal year, and the practitioner fallout from the *Tiger Global* GAAR ruling of 15 January 2026. Read together, the cycle discloses the doctrinal and administrative architecture within which tax practice now operates.
On 3 July 2017 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in TRF Ltd v. Energo Engineering Projects Ltd, held that where an arbitration clause authorises the Managing Director of a party to act as sole arbitrator or to nominate one, and that MD is statutorily ineligible under Section 12(5) read with the Seventh Schedule of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996, the MD cannot act as arbitrator and equally cannot nominate a substitute — 'once the infrastructure collapses, the superstructure is bound to collapse.' A close reading of Justice Dipak Misra's judgment, the doctrinal architecture, the 2015 Amendment background and what the holding seeded for Perkins Eastman and Central Organisation for Railway Electrification.
A year into the operation of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the practitioner-level architecture is now substantially visible. The Supreme Court's April 2026 disposition in Narayan v. State of Madhya Pradesh settled the s.480(3) bail-condition question. Section 187(3)'s fragmentary-custody architecture has produced a competing High Court line — the Kulkarni interpretation against the Senthil Balaji line — without a definitive Article 141 resolution. The s.482 discretion has widened, on the Chhattisgarh High Court's reading. Trial in absentia under s.356, the s.183 recording-of-statements architecture, and the s.367–369 protective regime for accused with intellectual disability have each produced their own developing doctrine. This piece reads the year's jurisprudence as one practitioner architecture.
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.
The Supreme Court's 2014 ruling that arrest in offences carrying up to seven years is not a clerical reflex — and the checklist its bench wrote into the working life of every station-house officer. A close digest, with the directions verbatim and a reading on how they travel onto BNSS s. 35.
The 1996 ruling that converted custodial protection from constitutional aspiration into station-house procedure — and the eleven directions that still govern every arrest in India, now carried over into Section 35 BNSS and beyond. A practitioner's digest.
Bhagwati J.'s 1979 directions ordered the release of thousands of undertrials who had been in custody longer than the sentence the offence carried — and, in doing so, read speedy trial into Article 21. A close digest of the reasoning, with a reading on how it now constrains pre-trial detention under the BNSS.
A short judgment with a long reach. When the appellate court reverses an acquittal and finds the accused guilty for the first time, Section 386(a) CrPC requires it to itself hear the convict on sentence — not remit the matter to the trial court. A reading of the doctrinal point, the section it turns on, and how the rule travels onto BNSS Section 427.
A five-judge Constitution Bench in 1980 upheld the constitutional validity of the death penalty by a 4:1 majority, with Bhagwati J. delivering a powerful dissent two years later. The Sarkaria J. majority opinion gave the bar the 'rarest of rare' doctrine, the special-reasons requirement under Section 354(3) CrPC, and the doctrinal architecture of the pre-sentence hearing under Section 235(2) — the framework that anchors every contemporary sentencing appeal.
On 5 May 2010, a three-judge Bench held that the involuntary administration of narco-analysis, polygraph and Brain Electrical Activation Profile tests violates the right against self-incrimination under Article 20(3) and the right to personal liberty under Article 21. The judgment extended the Article 20(3) protection from spoken or written testimony to involuntary extraction of personal knowledge from the mind. A digest of the doctrinal architecture, the consent framework, and how it now travels onto BSA s. 51.
Seven years before *Common Cause* would articulate the comprehensive constitutional framework, *Aruna Shanbaug* recognised passive euthanasia in Indian law for the first time. The 2011 disposition — addressing a petition seeking withdrawal of life support for a nurse who had been in a persistent vegetative state for nearly four decades following a brutal sexual assault — supplied the doctrinal architecture that *Common Cause* would later complete. A digest of the case, the holding, and the relationship between the two judgments.
On 13 May 2016, a two-judge Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra upheld the constitutional validity of Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code — the criminal-defamation framework — against challenges based on the freedom of speech and expression. The reasoning rested on the proposition that reputation is constitutionally protected under Article 21, and that the criminal-defamation framework, properly construed, does not produce an undue chilling effect on expression. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal architecture, and the contemporary practitioner's framework.
On 23 April 1985, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud held that Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure — the secular maintenance framework — applies to Muslim women, and that the right to maintenance does not end with the iddat period where the divorced wife is unable to support herself. The judgment's substantive disposition was reversed by the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986; the constitutional architecture it articulated, however, has continued to govern subsequent engagement with the question. A digest of the holding, the reasoning, and the doctrinal trajectory.
Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita introduces, for the first time in the Indian general criminal-procedure framework, a structured architecture for trial in absentia of proclaimed offenders. The framework deems absconding to operate as a waiver of the right to be present and tried in person — subject to elaborate procedural safeguards including a 90-day mandatory wait, two consecutive arrest warrants, paper publication and State-funded counsel. A practitioner's read on the section, the constitutional question, and the early High Court engagement.
On 1 April 2026, the Income-tax Act, 2025 replaced the 1961 Act. The numbering is new, the structure is tighter, and the conceptual architecture has shifted — most visibly in the disappearance of 'previous year' and 'assessment year' in favour of a single 'tax year'. A reading of what has actually changed, what is structural cosmetic, and what the bar needs to know for its first cycle of tax-year-2026-27 work.
The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has held that the investigating officer's discretion to sponsor a witness for recording of statement under Section 183 BNSS — the successor to Section 164 CrPC — is not displaced by a party's request. The investigating agency cannot be compelled to record the statement of a particular witness. A digest of the section, the holding, and what it means for the criminal-investigation framework under the BNSS.
Section 482 of the BNSS replaced Section 438 of the CrPC on 1 July 2024, but did so without reproducing the statutory guiding factors — nature of accusation, antecedents, possibility of fleeing — that the CrPC had attached. A reading of the Chhattisgarh High Court's diagnosis of what this means for the anticipatory-bail discretion, and how trial courts and the bar should approach the post-BNSS framework.
A 74-year-old man, diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia, was facing prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Justice K. Babu of the Kerala High Court held that the wider protection in the BNSS for accused suffering from intellectual disability — including dementia — applies retrospectively to proceedings initiated before 1 July 2024. A digest of the doctrinal point, the BNSS / CrPC comparison, and its reach.