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 13 April 2026, a two-judge bench held that the safety of commuters on national highways is an integral facet of the right to life with dignity under Article 21, and issued sweeping directions under Article 142 to NHAI, MoRTH, NHIDCL and State PWDs — including a ban on highway-shoulder parking and 75-day compliance reporting.
On 9 April 2026 a Karnataka High Court division bench led by Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru dismissed a PIL against the MHA's 'Vande Mataram' school-recitation advisory as premature, holding that the advisory's permissive 'may' formulation, absence of penal consequence, and lack of any actual coercive enforcement against the petitioner left no live constitutional grievance to adjudicate.
On 9 January 1991, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court — Justices K.N. Singh and N.D. Ojha — articulated the right to enjoyment of pollution-free water and air as part of the right to life under Article 21, and held that PIL standing in environmental matters does not require a personal-injury showing. On the facts the petition was dismissed as not bona fide and ₹5,000 costs imposed, but the legal principles — though technically obiter — have been treated as authoritative in every subsequent environmental Article 21 case.
On 12 December 1996, a two-judge Bench of Justice J.S. Verma and Justice B.N. Kirpal in W.P.(C) 202/1995 held that the word 'forest' in the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 must be understood according to its dictionary meaning, irrespective of ownership or classification. The order constituted State Expert Committees, imposed felling moratoriums in the Northeast, J&K and other hill regions, protected workers in closed saw mills, and — through the formula 'this order is to continue, until further orders' — inaugurated what has become the longest-running environmental public interest litigation in Indian history. A digest of the foundational order, the 'deemed forest' doctrine, the subsequent architecture (CEC came in 2002, not 1996), and the doctrine's continuing engagement through 2026.
On 18 December 1997 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice J.S. Verma, hearing the Jain hawala public interest litigation, issued a set of structural directions to insulate the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate from executive interference. The judgment fixed a two-year tenure for the CBI Director, gave the Central Vigilance Commission statutory status, struck down the 'Single Directive', and operationalised continuing mandamus as a tool of monitored investigation. It is the foundational case in modern Indian PIL practice.