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.
On 6 September 2018, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in so far as it criminalised consensual sexual conduct between adults. The judgment overruled Suresh Kumar Koushal (2013), deployed the Puttaswamy privacy framework, and supplied four substantial concurring opinions on dignity, equality and constitutional morality. A digest of the holding, the reasoning, and the doctrinal lineage.
On 27 September 2018 — three weeks after Navtej Singh Johar — a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously struck down Section 497 IPC, the colonial-era adultery provision that had treated the wife as the husband's property and the consenting adulterer as a thief of marital chastity. Four concurring opinions deployed the dignity and equality framework to dismantle a provision that had survived more than a century and a half of constitutional silence. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal architecture, and the relationship with the BNS framework.
Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita criminalises sexual intercourse obtained by deceitful means — including a false promise to marry. A lawyer's PIL before the Kerala High Court argues that the provision violates Articles 14, 15(1), 19(1)(a) and 21 — that it presupposes male-only power, fails to extend protection to the LGBTQIA+ community, and treats women as objects of patriarchal protection rather than autonomous adults. The High Court has issued notice to the Centre. A digest of the section, the constitutional arguments, and what the challenge will turn on.