A five-judge Constitution Bench held that when the Court struck down Section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act in Subramanian Swamy (2014), the provision was not merely invalid going forward — it was void ab initio, unenforceable from the date of its insertion on 11 September 2003. The Bench rejected the Article 20(1) ex-post-facto objection because Section 6A was a procedural protection, not a penal provision creating an offence.
On 29 July 2009, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court resolved the Abdul Rashid–Sajan Abraham conflict, holding that total non-compliance with Section 42 NDPS vitiates the trial while delayed compliance with a satisfactory explanation is acceptable.
On 19 July 2022, a three-judge bench held that 'reasonable grounds' under Section 37(1)(b) NDPS mean credible and plausible grounds, and that custody length or a filed chargesheet do not by themselves relax the bar. The Court cancelled bail.
Setting aside a Punjab & Haryana High Court remand, the Supreme Court held that where an offence is triable exclusively by the Court of Session, a Magistrate seized of a complaint case is not required to record full pre-charge evidence under Section 244 CrPC. The committal role under Section 209 is a 'narrow inspection hole' — administrative, not evidentiary.
In one of the first Supreme Court readings of default bail under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the Court held that non-filing of the additional copies of the police report required by Section 193(8) BNSS does not entitle an accused to default bail. Once a Section 193(3)-compliant chargesheet is filed within the 60/90-day period, the Section 187(3) right is extinguished.
On 21 July 1999, a Constitution Bench held that an empowered officer about to search a person under the NDPS Act must inform the suspect of the right to be searched before the nearest gazetted officer or magistrate, and that this safeguard is mandatory.
On 16 May 2024 the Supreme Court held that once the Special Court takes cognizance of a PMLA complaint under Section 44(1)(b), the ED is powerless to arrest under Section 19; an accused who appears on summons is not in custody, so the Section 45 twin conditions are not attracted, and the court may instead take a bond under Section 88 CrPC.
On 28 January 2016, the Supreme Court confronted warehouses of seized drugs rotting and being pilfered, and laid down the Section 52A NDPS regime — inventory, photographs, magistrate-certified representative sampling, and a scheme for early disposal.
On 11 October 2022 a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court answered two questions on the sanction to prosecute a public servant under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988. It held that the three-month period for deciding a sanction request — extendable by one month where legal consultation is required — is mandatory, yet that a failure to sanction in time does not vitiate or quash the prosecution. The consequence of delay is the accountability of the defaulting officer, subject to judicial review and CVC action, not the acquittal of the accused.
In 2010 a Constitution Bench settled a running conflict, holding that Section 50 of the NDPS Act is mandatory and demands strict compliance — 'substantial compliance' will not do.
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.
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 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.
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 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 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.
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 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 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 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.
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.
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.