ValkyaEditorial

Tagged “criminal-law”

49 articles on criminal-law.

Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Aneeta Hada v. Godfather Travels & Tours (2012): arraigning the company is a sine qua non under s.141

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that a prosecution under Section 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act cannot stand against a director or authorised signatory unless the company itself is arraigned as an accused. Vicarious liability is derivative, and the principal offender must be on the record before secondary liability can attach.

Valkya Editorial··6 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Bijoy Kumar Moni v. Paresh Manna (2024): only the drawer of a cheque can be prosecuted under Section 138

The Supreme Court held that liability under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act attaches only to the drawer who maintains the account on which the cheque is drawn. A director who signs a cheque on his company's account does not become the drawer in his personal capacity, and cannot be prosecuted unless the company itself is arraigned.

Valkya Editorial··6 min
High CourtHigh Court of Rajasthan

Satyapal Sharma v. State of Rajasthan (2026): pursuing a dowry case after taking ₹20 lakh alimony and a mutual divorce is an abuse of process

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.

Valkya Editorial··6 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Supriya Kumari M.C. v. State of Kerala (2026): an anaesthetist's s.304-A prosecution quashed for want of gross negligence and a peer expert

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.

Valkya Editorial··7 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Dr. Ramesh v. State of Maharashtra (2026): Form F lapses under the PCPNDT Act are substantive offences, not clerical errors

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.

Valkya Editorial··7 min
Supreme Court ReferenceSupreme Court of India

Dr. Rakesh Kumar Gupta v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2026): can a referee judge on a split verdict reopen unanimous findings of guilt?

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.

Valkya Editorial··9 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab (1983): structuring the 'rarest of rare' death-penalty doctrine

Three years after Bachan Singh restricted the death penalty to the 'rarest of rare' cases, a three-judge Bench in Machhi Singh gave that open-textured standard a working structure — five categories of circumstance and a 'balance sheet' method for weighing aggravating against mitigating factors. A digest of the facts, the framework, and the doctrine's contested later trajectory.

Valkya Editorial··8 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Mithu v. State of Punjab (1983): striking down the mandatory death sentence under Section 303

In 1983 a five-judge Constitution Bench struck down Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code, which had made death the only punishment for a life-convict who committed murder. A digest of the facts, the holding that a mandatory, discretion-free death sentence violates Articles 14 and 21, and the judgment's place in India's death-penalty jurisprudence.

Valkya Editorial··8 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

K.M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra (1961): grave and sudden provocation, and the case that ended India's jury trials

A naval officer shot his wife's lover and asked the Supreme Court to call it culpable homicide, not murder. In 1961 the Court refused — the gap between the provocation and the killing was time enough for passion to cool. A digest of the cooling-off test under Exception 1 to s.300 IPC and the trial that helped end the jury in India.

Valkya Editorial··7 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Bilkis Yakub Rasool v. Union of India: the remission quashed

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.

Valkya Editorial··6 min
Supreme CourtSupreme 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
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

State of Tamil Nadu v. Ponnusamy: crime-scene re-enactment and Article 20(3)

On 19 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that a directed crime-scene re-enactment limited to physical movements does not per se amount to testimonial compulsion under Article 20(3); such material is admissible as corroborative — not substantive — evidence. Conviction restored on circumstantial proof; death sentence commuted to life.

Valkya Editorial··10 min
High CourtDelhi High Court

Roy & Roy v. CBI: Article 21 and the proportionality limits of Look Out Circulars

On 20 March 2026, Justice Sachin Datta of the Delhi High Court quashed Look Out Circulars against NDTV founders Prannoy and Radhika Roy, holding that an LOC sustained for ~6 years without a chargesheet — and after the underlying agency itself closed one of the two FIRs — is an unjustified curtailment of the Article 21 right to travel.

Valkya Editorial··8 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Mukesh v. State (NCT of Delhi): the Supreme Court's affirmation of the death sentence in the Nirbhaya case

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.

Valkya Editorial··9 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Munna Moyuddin Shaikh v. State of Gujarat: modifying a life sentence to time served after twenty-three years in custody

On 26 May 2026, a Supreme Court bench of Justices K.V. Viswanathan and Vijay Bishnoi modified a life sentence to the period already undergone by the appellant — a man who had spent over twenty-three years in custody without remission. The judgment reaffirms the settled position that the imposition of a life sentence does not bar modification to a fixed-term sentence where the convict has already undergone more than 14 years of imprisonment, and reads against the architecture of remission and pre-mature release under the criminal-justice system.

Valkya Editorial··7 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India: the constitutional defence of criminal defamation

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.

Valkya Editorial··11 min