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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.