New decisions of the Supreme Court: what was decided, and the principle behind it.
In a civil revision under Article 227 of the Constitution, the Madras High Court (Justice N. Anand Venkatesh) set aside a trial court order allowing amendment of the plaint in a 2005 suit, holding that a party transposed from defendant to plaintiff cannot amend the very plaint he did not originally file.
Allowing a Letters Patent Appeal, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court (Justices Harsimran Singh Sethi and Minderjeet Yadav) set aside a single judge's dismissal of a part-time sweeper's claim for regularisation against the Bhakra Beas Management Board, where she had worked continuously since 1991 but was denied regularisation under the Board's policies solely because her engagement was described as part-time.
Dismissing the State's appeal against the acquittal of two men in a 2000 murder case, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court (Justices Archana Puri and Harmeet Singh Deol) reaffirmed that an extra-judicial confession is ordinarily a weak piece of evidence, and can found a conviction only if it is voluntary, true, and made to a witness who appears unbiased and credible, with no circumstance suggesting a motive to falsely implicate the accused.
Hearing a petition by an accused seeking speedy trial in a Prevention of Corruption Act case pending since 2023 with only two witnesses examined, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court (Justice B. Pugalendhi) read Section 4(4) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, which requires Special Judges to hold trials, as far as practicable, on a day-to-day basis and to conclude them within two years, recording reasons for any extension.
The Delhi High Court has refused to disturb a Family Court order that proceeded against a wife ex parte in her husband's divorce petition, holding that her refusal to accept summons did not defeat service on her.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed a defendant's bid to reopen a trademark suit it lost by default, rejecting its claim that the fault lay entirely with its lawyer.
Hearing a second appeal arising from a suit for specific performance, the Madhya Pradesh High Court's Gwalior Bench refused to let the original parties dispose of the case by a compromise under Order XXIII Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, after third parties were impleaded on the strength of a later agreement to sell the same land in their favour.
The Delhi High Court has set aside an order of the Appellate Tribunal under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), and directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to release a property it had provisionally attached, holding that Section 32A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) extinguishes such an attachment once a resolution plan is approved for the corporate debtor.
The Delhi High Court has partly allowed a criminal appeal, altering a conviction under Section 304 Part II of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) to one under Section 325 IPC (voluntarily causing grievous hurt).
In ongoing proceedings over eviction and rehabilitation in Tamil Nadu's Agasthyamalai forest landscape and the Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve, the Supreme Court clarified how claims under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) must be handled before encroachers are evicted.
The Supreme Court has dismissed appeals by two Chhattisgarh government employees who challenged their compulsory retirement from the Legal Metrology Department.
The Supreme Court has restored a 2014 recovery suit that two courts below had thrown out as time-barred.
Disposing of miscellaneous applications filed by the Union of India seeking clarification of its own judgment of 11 March 2026, the Supreme Court held that its ruling on how the 'creamy layer' is determined for the Other Backward Classes will not operate retrospectively to reopen selections, appointments, cadre allocations, seniority or admissions already concluded before that date.
Dismissing a civil appeal, the Supreme Court held that a minor son could not claim a half share, as a coparcener by birth, in land that his father had earlier obtained through a partition decree following the death of the son's grandfather.
Resolving a reference, the Supreme Court held that the National Book Trust, India is an 'other authority' within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution and is therefore a 'State' bound by the fundamental rights in Part III.
Deciding an Original Suit filed in 1996 under Article 131 of the Constitution, which gives the Supreme Court exclusive original jurisdiction over disputes between the Union and the States, a three-judge Bench led by the Chief Justice brought to a close Himachal Pradesh's claim to a share in the power generated by the Bhakra-Nangal and Beas hydel projects.
Allowing an appeal by the National Investigation Agency under Section 21 of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court set aside a trial court order granting bail to a former Assistant Police Inspector facing trial for offences including murder and conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
Sujit Das, Suman Das and Rupak Sarkar were accused under several sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, including 21(C), 22(C), 23(C), 25, 25A, 28 and 29.
Sunitabai, married to Shamkant, was allegedly ill-treated by her husband's family over dowry demands and the absence of children, and was set on fire on 10 April 2005.
G. Pazhanivel claimed ownership of a plot settled on him by his son, and said he had registered a sale deed in favour of S. Thilagavathy's husband only as security for a Rs.25,00,000 loan at 24% monthly interest, while remaining in possession.
Mangala Bhimrao Ingle's election as Sarpanch of Kakoda Gram Panchayat was set aside on the ground that she had more than two children, in violation of Section 14(1)(j-1) of the Maharashtra Village Panchayats Act, 1959.
Lieutenant General (Retired) M.C. Bhandari was appointed Chairman of the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission in 2006 after retiring from the Army; his salary of Rs.26,000 basic pay was fixed after deducting Rs.17,627, the pension he drew for his earlier Army service, under Regulation 7(2) of the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (Conditions of Service) Regulations, 2004.
A Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant answered a long-pending reference on whether a State Legislature can validly levy additional sales tax on a dealer measured by the quantum of sales tax the dealer already owes, rather than directly on turnover — a levy challenged as an impermissible 'tax on tax'.
The Bombay High Court dismissed a writ petition by Alpine Ethanol Private Limited seeking a direction to let it access and bid in a tender floated by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) for the procurement of about 1,100 crore litres of Denatured Anhydrous Ethanol for 2026-27 under the Ethanol Blending Programme.
The Delhi High Court dismissed a petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 filed by M/s Winner Construction Pvt. Ltd., challenging a 2015 arbitral award arising from a contract to build an office building for the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee, Azadpur.
The Madras High Court's Division Bench, led by Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan, set aside an interim order of a Single Judge that had stayed a Tamil Nadu government order, G.O. (Ms.) No.181 dated 9 October 2026, restructuring solid waste management across 147 Urban Local Bodies under a new 'Category II' direct-management model.
The Delhi High Court decided eight connected petitions under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, filed by four Zee Group companies and by Religare Finvest Limited, each challenging a common interim arbitral award of 28 February 2026 on a single question: whether four loan agreements of 15 March 2014 between Religare and the Zee Group companies were chargeable to stamp duty under the Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958 or the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, and which rate applied.
The Bombay High Court, in Teklal Kumar Das v. Secretary, Union Public Service Commission, set aside a Central Administrative Tribunal order and remanded for fresh consideration the case of a Scheduled Caste candidate with 55% disability in both legs, who had cleared all three stages of the UPSC's Combined Geo-Scientist Examination, 2022 for a Geophysicist, Group 'A' post reserved for candidates with locomotor disability.
The Karnataka High Court, by an oral order dated 3 November 2026, directed its Registry to register a Suo Motu Public Interest Litigation after the Advocates' Association, Bengaluru and the Karnataka State Bar Council brought to its notice the murders of Advocates Sriram V. on 9 October 2026 and Manjunath on 18 October 2026, and an attempt to murder Senior Advocate Venkataramanappa Sannakki on 28 October 2026.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore Bench, in Rajesh Achaliya v. State of Madhya Pradesh, quashed an FIR, a chargesheet and an order taking cognizance against a student who had joined six others of the Jay Adivasi Yuva Shakti in protesting at a police station against the registration of an FIR against tribal community members.
The Bombay High Court set aside an Industrial Court order that had quashed disciplinary action against a Thane Municipal Corporation clerk who admitted misappropriating Rs 2,77,116 collected towards water bills over three months in 2004.
The Bombay High Court dismissed a writ petition by six former contract Junior Engineers of the Pune Municipal Corporation who sought permanent appointment and regular pay after completing 240 days of service.
The Delhi High Court upheld the conviction of a man for kidnapping a minor neighbour and repeatedly raping her over roughly two months in 2014-15, but cut his sentence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 from thirty years to fifteen years' rigorous imprisonment.
The Delhi High Court dismissed an appeal against the conviction of a man for the aggravated penetrative sexual assault of his three-year-old daughter under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, upholding a sentence of twenty years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld the conviction of a Liberian national under Section 21 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, for possessing 400 grams of heroin recovered near a public park in Khanna, Punjab, in 2019.
The Chhattisgarh High Court dismissed a writ petition by Umesh Pathak, a retired Accountant Grade-I in the State's Higher Education Department, challenging a fresh order recovering Rs.1,56,865 paid to him in excess because of an erroneous pay fixation.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed a writ petition by a Northern Railway e-auction contractor seeking a Rs 24,10,000 refund of her security deposit, holding that the dispute should go through arbitration rather than a writ court.
Hearing a writ petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution and Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the Punjab & Haryana High Court quashed a District Magistrate's order denying parole to a convict serving twelve years under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
The Punjab & Haryana High Court dismissed a Letters Patent Appeal by Indira Gandhi National College, Ladwa, which had sought to revive a challenge to a 1994 assessment order under the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.
In a common order on three writ petitions filed under Article 226, the Madras High Court decided whether a 2022 Tamil Nadu government order on darshan timings at the Nataraja Temple, Chidambaram, was a colourable attempt to override the Podhu Dikshitars' constitutional right as a religious denomination to administer the temple under Articles 25 and 26.
The Madras High Court, hearing a public interest litigation under Article 226, examined how far public criticism of a judgment can go before it becomes an attack on a judge.
On 30 October 2026, the Bombay High Court dismissed a criminal revision filed by an accused in a case arising from an armed assault linked to a land dispute in Dahisar, Mumbai.
The Delhi High Court dismissed a habeas corpus petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution read with Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, by a man arrested in a POCSO case who claimed his arrest memo falsely recorded the time of arrest and that no family member had signed it, as Section 36(b)(i) of the BNSS requires, or been informed of the arrest as Section 48 requires.
The Delhi High Court set aside a Sentence Review Board (SRB) decision that had refused the premature release of a life convict sentenced in 2016 for gang rape, kidnapping and dacoity.
A contractual Administrative Officer at a central government training institute, whose services had been repeatedly extended on the strength of 'satisfactory' confidential reports, challenged the rejection of her claim for regularisation after a five-member committee downgraded three of her assessment periods to 'average' and a fourth to 'poor', relying on an undisclosed note sheet she was never shown or asked to answer.
A State-owned medical supplies corporation that had deducted liquidated damages from a generator supplier's bill was taken to arbitration by the supplier under Section 18 of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006, before the Uttar Pradesh State Micro and Small Enterprises Facilitation Council, which awarded a refund with statutory compound interest.
A company facing a show-cause notice under the central GST law sought to quash an adjudication order after the department passed it without responding one way or the other to the company's email seeking ten more days to file additional material.
A guarantor who had stood surety for a hire-purchase loan challenged, under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, an arbitral award of 2012 that enforced the guarantee more than four and a half years after arguments had closed.
The Delhi High Court upheld a husband's conviction under Sections 498A and 306 of the Indian Penal Code, while agreeing that he was rightly acquitted of dowry death under Section 304B.
The Delhi High Court quashed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered by the Directorate of Enforcement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) against Godrej Properties Ltd. The ECIR rested solely on a May 2024 FIR under Sections 406, 420 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, which the company said arose from a commercial dispute with the complainant company, since settled.
The Delhi High Court set aside a 2014 order declaring an accused in a CBI case a Proclaimed Offender, while refusing to halt his extradition from the Philippines.
A contractor whose technical bid was rejected in a municipal water-supply tender challenged the qualification of two rival bidders before the Gauhati High Court, pointing out that their 'available bid capacity' — an eligibility threshold computed under the tender's Clause 4.7 formula — had been calculated using the wrong value for the number of years of work, inflating their capacity well above what the stipulated 90-day completion period actually allowed.
Can a woman be charged with gang rape? The Delhi High Court has answered yes, under Section 376D of the Indian Penal Code and Section 70 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS).
The Delhi High Court dismissed a petition by a couple living in Singapore who wanted to adopt a baby girl referred to them by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), even though the mistake was CARA's own.
The Delhi High Court set aside an order discharging a man accused under Sections 354C and 376 of the Indian Penal Code and sent the question of charge back to the trial court.
The Delhi High Court held that the absence of a Minority Status Certificate is not, by itself, conclusive against a school's claim to be a minority institution.
The Delhi High Court ordered an unaided private school in Delhi to reinstate four regular teachers with full salary from the date they were terminated in May 2019.
The Delhi High Court dismissed a petition by a nurses' union challenging the recruitment rules of the Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, an institution maintained by the University of Delhi, and its March 2021 advertisement for a Nursing Superintendent.
The Delhi High Court rejected a challenge to two questions in the Delhi Higher Judicial Service preliminary examination of July 2026, in a ruling that matters to anyone sitting a test with a published answer key.
The Delhi High Court restored an advocate's name to the rolls of the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD), while censuring her for submitting a fabricated caste certificate.
The Delhi High Court dismissed a petition by Japan Tobacco Inc. and an affiliate seeking removal of a 1997 registered copyright in a 'CAMEL' artistic work from the Register of Copyrights under Section 50 of the Copyright Act, 1957.
Ruling on petitions under Section 482 CrPC to quash a decade-old CBI prosecution over alleged illegal mining, the Karnataka High Court's Dharwad Bench framed a recurring question: when an order taking cognizance of an offence on a police report does not itself disclose reasons or application of mind, must the higher court always set it aside and remand the matter to the Magistrate for fresh consideration?
A stockbroker registered with NSE and BSE challenged, under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, an appellate arbitral award that had upheld an earlier award directing it to pay about Rs. 15.92 lakh to a client over a dispute arising from their Member-Client Agreement.
A cooperative housing society challenged a 'No Objection Certificate' that the Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Mumbai, had issued permitting a member to use a ground-floor residential flat for commercial purposes, which the Divisional Joint Registrar had confirmed in revision.
Deciding two writ petitions together, a Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Gwalior struck down a 2002 amendment to Schedules II and IV of the Madhya Pradesh Public Prosecution (Gazetted Services) Recruitment Rules, 1991, which had carved out a 10% promotional quota to the Class-II gazetted post of Assistant District Prosecution Officer (ADPO) for serving clerical staff (CrPC Clerk/Assistant Grade-III/APCD Grade-III) who additionally held an LL.B. degree.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur quashed an order of the State-Level High Powered Caste Scrutiny Committee that had, in 2025, cancelled a Scheduled Tribe 'Meena' caste certificate issued to the petitioner in 1991 for a village in the Sironj Sub-Division of Vidisha district, where the 'Meena' community alone, among Madhya Pradesh's districts, was then notified as a Scheduled Tribe.
A government surveyor, compulsorily retired after disciplinary proceedings found him complicit in preparing a survey report and sketch used to issue a bogus land patta, challenged both his retirement and the consequent reduction of his pension before the Madras High Court.
The Chhattisgarh High Court allowed a writ petition by a woman whose autonomous college had refused to correct her name and parentage in her degree and diploma certificates.
The Chhattisgarh High Court quashed a decision of Government Medical College, Ambikapur to cancel its 2022 recruitment advertisements for Class III and Class IV posts and shift the process to the State's Professional Examination Board (VYAPAM).
The Bombay High Court dismissed a commercial appeal challenging a trial court's order appointing one partner of a two-partner construction firm as Court Receiver over a housing society redevelopment project, during the pendency of a suit for dissolution and accounts between the partners.
In an appeal from an interim order in a suit under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats (Regulation of the Promotion of Construction, Sale, Management and Transfer) Act, 1963 (MOFA), the Bombay High Court modified a trial court's injunction to protect flat purchasers' rights over Transferable Development Rights (TDR) linked to a Mumbai redevelopment project.
In a civil revision arising out of a damages suit by a former Consulting Editor of Times Network against Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd and its officials, the Madhya Pradesh High Court (Jabalpur) upheld a trial court's refusal to reject the plaint for want of territorial jurisdiction.
In Union of India v. Narender Kumar, the Supreme Court dismissed the Ministry of Defence's appeal against concurrent findings of the Armed Forces Tribunal and the Punjab and Haryana High Court granting a soldier War Injury Pension, rather than ordinary Disability Pension, for Rheumatoid Arthritis he developed while posted at Kargil during Operation Rakshak.
Deciding connected appeals in South Bihar Power Distribution Company Ltd. v. India Power Corporation Ltd., the Supreme Court held that an application to extend the time for an arbitral tribunal to make its award under Section 29A(4) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 must be made to the 'court' as defined in Section 2(1)(e) of the Act, generally the Principal Civil Court of Original Jurisdiction or a High Court with original civil jurisdiction, and not to the Chief Justice of the High Court or his designate acting under Section 11.
In Royal Construction Company Pvt. Ltd. v. National Projects Construction Corporation, the Supreme Court set aside a Delhi High Court order that had allowed parties to seek fresh 'clarification' from it on an execution dispute arising from a 2002 international arbitral award.
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, in Chellammal v. Vivek, dismissed two connected first appeals filed under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 against a trial court's decree in a property dispute from Madurai.
The Supreme Court, in ECL Finance Ltd. v. Abhinav Mukherjee, dismissed appeals by a debenture trustee (IDBI Trusteeship Services) and a debenture holder/lender (ECL Finance) against NCLAT orders affirming that they were 'related parties' of the corporate debtor, Palm Developers Pvt. Ltd., under Section 5(24) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, and so could not sit on the Committee of Creditors formed under Section 21.
Deciding a bunch of writ petitions and three connected contempt petitions arising from encroachment-removal proceedings under Section 250 of the M.P. Land Revenue Code over land at village Khajrana, Indore, the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore (Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt) allowed the writ petition of the original landowner, M/s Shree Ram Builders, and dismissed the connected petitions filed by persons claiming to be in possession.
The Supreme Court held that where a trial court convicts an accused of two offences carrying life imprisonment in a single trial, it cannot direct that the life sentences run consecutively, one after the other.
The Supreme Court held that the special restriction on bail for foreign citizens accused under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) does not take away an accused's statutory right to default bail when the investigating agency fails to file a chargesheet in time.
Allowing three connected writ petitions, the Bombay High Court held that recovery proceedings against a company for disputed GST interest demands, while its appeals against those very demands were pending before the GST Appellate Tribunal, breached the automatic stay under Section 112(9) of the Central/Maharashtra GST Act.
The Bombay High Court declared the arrest of a businessman by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 illegal and in violation of Section 19(1) of the PMLA and Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, and ordered his immediate release.
In a civil revision petition under Article 227 of the Constitution, the Madras High Court (Justice R. Sakthivel) set aside a trial court's refusal to grant police aid to plaintiffs who had been forcibly dispossessed of suit property despite holding a temporary injunction in their favour.
Deciding an application to restore possession pending a civil first appeal against an eviction decree passed under Sections 12(1)(a) and 12(1)(f) of the M.P. Accommodation Control Act, 1961, the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore (Justice Vinay Saraf) held that the executing court was not legally required to issue prior notice to the judgment-debtor before executing the eviction decree, since, by the Madhya Pradesh amendment to Order XXI Rule 22 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, no execution order is invalid merely for omission to issue such notice.
In a criminal revision against a Family Court order awarding monthly maintenance of Rs. 8,000 to a wife and Rs. 5,000 to her minor daughter under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur (Justice Dwarka Dhish Bansal) held that the Family Court had committed an illegality by closing the husband's right to cross-examine the wife and her witness after he failed to deposit interim maintenance.
Deciding two appeals together, the Supreme Court addressed when a High Court can order restoration of an electricity connection disconnected for alleged theft under Section 135 of the Electricity Act, 2003, while a provisional assessment under Section 126 is challenged.
The Supreme Court set aside a land acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, holding it vitiated by fraud and a colourable exercise of the power of eminent domain.
Deciding three connected writ petitions, the Bombay High Court held that the Reserve Bank of India did not have to establish any ground, such as its own bona fide requirement, to evict three Reunion Group companies from premises in Mumbai's Amar Building under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971.
Dismissing a writ petition by a developer and two individuals seeking renewal of a letter of intent and cancellation of a termination notice over a redevelopment project in Mumbai, the Bombay High Court (Chief Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Advait M. Sethna) held that a developer cannot use the writ jurisdiction under Article 226 to conduct a full fact-finding exercise against a cooperative housing society when the underlying dispute is adversarial and riddled with disputed facts.
The Madras High Court, in a common order disposing of a contempt petition and two review applications arising from its earlier direction to the State's Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Directorate to register and investigate a case, held that a person named in material gathered by an investigating agency has no right to a hearing before a court directs that a case be registered against him.
The Supreme Court directed the State of Uttar Pradesh to pay Rs 6,00,000 to a man who spent six years in custody as an undertrial before being acquitted of kidnapping and murder, after finding the police investigation and prosecution deeply flawed.
Restoring a permanent injunction in favour of the Telangana State Wakf Board over land adjoining a mosque, dargah and graveyard, the Supreme Court held that a dispute over whether property is wakf property must be raised within one year of the publication of the list of wakfs under Section 5(2) of the Wakf Act, 1954, running from the date of knowledge of that publication.
The Supreme Court has held that once the Committee of Creditors (CoC) approves a resolution plan under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) and the plan is placed before the Adjudicating Authority, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the CoC cannot thereafter withdraw either the plan or the resolution application — even by a unanimous vote — merely because the corporate debtor's finances have since improved.
The Supreme Court has held that payment of property tax, by itself, shows only possession and not title, in a decades-long dispute over a plot in Bengaluru fought under Order XXI, Rules 97 to 101 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC).
The Supreme Court has held that information held by a private cooperative society can be 'information' under the Right to Information Act, 2005 if a statutory authority can access it, even though the society itself is not a public authority.
The Chhattisgarh High Court at Bilaspur has held that a plaintiff need not serve the mandatory notice under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) on the State Government where no substantive relief is sought against it.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Gwalior has set aside two lower-court decrees that had declared a buyer under an unregistered agreement to sell as entitled to stop the seller from transferring the land to anyone else.
The Delhi High Court permitted a 17-year-old rape survivor, about 29 weeks pregnant, to terminate her pregnancy, even though the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 ordinarily caps termination at 24 weeks.
A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court dismissed writ petitions by owners and occupants in Mumbai's Bhendi Bazaar area who challenged the acquisition of their land for a cluster redevelopment (urban renewal) scheme undertaken by a private trust under Regulation 33(9)(3)(5) of the Development Control and Promotion Regulations, framed under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 (MRTP Act).
The Bombay High Court dismissed a petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 by a developer, Kumar Urban Development Pvt Ltd, challenging an arbitral award that had gone against it in a long-running dispute with a cooperative housing society over a redevelopment agreement.
Deciding an application under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for appointment of an arbitrator, the Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore Bench held that two of the three respondents, who had not signed the underlying agreement, could not be referred to arbitration along with the signatory respondent.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore Bench dismissed an appeal against the dismissal, as time-barred, of an application under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 to set aside an ex parte arbitral award.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore Bench allowed a writ petition by a Junior Supply Officer who had been appointed in 2013 on a two-year probation, but whose case for confirmation was held up because of a minor penalty (withholding of two increments) imposed in 2017 whose effect lasted till 2019.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Gwalior Bench (Ashish Shroti, J.), in a judgment pronounced on 23 October 2026, dismissed a second appeal by Gram Panchayat, Veerpur against a decree declaring the respondents' title to a small plot of land that their grandfather had purchased from the local zamindar in 1937.
A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (Manish Pitale and Shreeram V. Shirsat, JJ.), on 23 October 2026, dismissed two writ petitions challenging acquisition of properties in Mumbai's Bhendi Bazaar for a Cluster Development Scheme (CDS) under Regulation 33(9)(3)(5) of the Development Control and Promotion Regulations (DCPR), framed under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 (MRTP Act).
The Bombay High Court quashed a notice reopening Grasim Industries Limited's income-tax assessment for 2020-21 over its subscription to over 230 crore rights equity shares of Vodafone Idea Limited at Rs. 12.50 per share.
The Bombay High Court set aside an order of the Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (REAT) that had decided to rule on the merits of a flat-buyers' complaint itself, instead of sending it back to the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA).
The Bombay High Court has set aside the continued attachment of properties worth Rs. 25 crore belonging to builder Avinash Bhosale, his wife Gauri Bhosale and their company Samit Realty Pvt. Ltd., holding that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) failed to show any link between the properties and 'proceeds of crime' under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).
The Bombay High Court has set aside a single judge's refusal to grant interim protection under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, to a group of doctors who had invested Rs. 60 lakh in 2005 under a Memorandum of Understanding with a builder and others for commercial premises to be constructed on a plot in Goregaon, Mumbai.
The Bombay High Court set aside an order of the District Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Mumbai, granting 'deemed conveyance' of a Vile Parle plot to a housing society, because the order failed to address the objector's material submissions or record reasons for rejecting them.
The Bombay High Court set aside an order invalidating the Scheduled Tribe caste certificate of a Maharashtra government employee after her retirement, and directed release of her pension, gratuity and other retiral dues with 8 percent annual interest.
The Karnataka High Court at Dharwad quashed a Lokayukta FIR against municipal officers of Ballary Municipal Corporation for want of prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
The Bombay High Court has ruled that a notification restricting the import of certain goods takes legal effect only from the moment it is published in the Official Gazette, and cannot be applied to goods already dispatched from the exporting country before that moment, even if they reach India afterwards.
The Bombay High Court has quashed provisional attachment orders that froze the bank accounts of a Reserve Bank-licensed payment aggregator, holding that the power under Section 83 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 was exercised without the material the law requires.
The Madras High Court has dismissed a government lecturer's challenge to his transfer from Chennai to Ramanathapuram, holding that an administrative transfer does not become punitive merely because it follows a disciplinary charge memorandum.
The Supreme Court has set aside three orders of the Patna High Court granting anticipatory bail or regular bail to accused in a murder case arising from poll-day violence during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, and sent the bail applications back for fresh consideration.
The Madras High Court has quashed a Pondicherry University order that suspended a professor from service for two years and demoted him, following a sexual harassment complaint by a research scholar, and has remitted the matter for a fresh inquiry.
The Madras High Court has set aside a 2022 order of Tamil Nadu's Forensic Sciences Department that revised, on the basis of merit, the seniority of Scientific Assistants recruited through the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) in 1996 and 1999.
The Supreme Court has upheld the Chandigarh Administration's cancellation of a hospital's winning e-auction bid for a nursing-home plot, holding that no enforceable contract existed at the time of cancellation.
The Supreme Court has upheld the cancellation of a ryotwari patta granted in 2011 over land in Thirumullaivoyal village, Tamil Nadu, that revenue records had recorded as a government tank, Kanakkan Pillai Kuttai, since a 1911 settlement register, while softening the consequences for flat buyers who had relied on it.
The Supreme Court has held, settling a previously undecided question, that a private citizen can file a criminal complaint against an elected candidate for furnishing false information in the affidavit accompanying a nomination paper, without routing the complaint through the Election Commission or another public servant.
The Supreme Court has sent back to the Karnataka High Court a bail order granted to a trader accused of a scheme involving fraudulent input-tax credit of about forty-three crore rupees under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, after finding he had pursued parallel remedies before different courts without disclosing material facts to any of them.
The Karnataka High Court has quashed a Lokayukta investigation against several Ballary and Vijayapura municipal officers accused of corruption and forgery, because it was launched without the prior approval required under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
The Supreme Court has restored a Madras High Court writ court's order quashing the dismissal of R. Saravanan, a Deputy Registrar of Periyar University, after a Division Bench had reversed that order on an intra-court appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent of the Madras High Court.
The Bombay High Court has quashed a decision treating a NEET-UG candidate as a 'migrant' and excluding him from the Scheduled Tribe merit list for an MBBS seat in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
The Supreme Court has dismissed appeals by the promoters of two hotel-owning companies against the admission of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) applications under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
The Supreme Court has passed detailed follow-up directions in Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish, its 2024 ruling on child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) circulating on social media.
The Supreme Court has dismissed a civil appeal arising from a 1975 suit for possession of property that the plaintiffs claimed to have acquired under an unregistered 1960 Agreement to Sell, holding the suit hopelessly barred by limitation and the underlying claim unsustainable in law.
The Supreme Court has struck down a 2017 gift deed by which land belonging to a Hindu temple was gifted to the Government of Tamil Nadu, holding that the State, acting as statutory custodian of religious endowment property, cannot make itself the donee of that very property.
The Supreme Court has held that the requirement of prior approval before investigating a public servant under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 applies only to acts connected with an official 'decision' or 'recommendation', not to an independent act of corruption such as a bribe demand.
The Bombay High Court has directed a complete, year-round ban on bursting firecrackers on public streets and roads during any festival — not only Diwali — and an absolute restraint in designated silence zones such as near hospitals, courts, schools and government offices, in a suo motu public interest litigation on noise and environmental pollution.
The Supreme Court has enhanced motor accident compensation awarded to two claimants with high degrees of permanent disability, reiterating that 'permanent disability' and 'functional disability' are distinct concepts under the Motor Vehicles Act compensation scheme.
The Supreme Court has held that a person who belonged to a Scheduled Caste, Most Backward Class or Backward Class community before converting to Islam cannot carry that reservation status forward by claiming to belong to a notified 'Backward Class Muslim' community after conversion.
The Supreme Court has ordered a flat buyer's refund in a stalled housing project, grounding the relief in the Indian Contract Act's provisions on quasi-contractual obligations rather than in the loan or sale agreements themselves.
The Supreme Court has held that a contractual bar on interest, phrased to cover 'any balance payments... or otherwise', is wide enough to bar an arbitrator from awarding pre-reference and pendente-lite interest.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court, Jabalpur Bench, has set aside a Family Court order that dismissed a minor daughter's application for interim maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure solely because the application had been filed through her maternal grandmother, who the Family Court held was not her recognised legal guardian.
The Madras High Court upheld a notification that moved two grades of Baryte — a mineral used mainly in oil and gas drilling — from the "Free" to the "Restricted" export category, rejecting a mineral exporter's challenge that the change was arbitrary and violated Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court dismissed appeals by Yes Bank Limited, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Union of India against a Bombay High Court judgment that had quashed the write-down of Yes Bank's Additional Tier-I (AT-1) Bonds, worth over Rs. 8,514 crore, during the bank's 2020 reconstruction.
The Supreme Court set aside a Madhya Pradesh High Court judgment and restored two sand-mining e-tenders that the Madhya Pradesh State Mining Corporation had cancelled.
The Supreme Court dismissed, as barred by limitation, a Civil Appeal filed by the Assistant Commissioner of Central Tax, CGST Division, against a Resolution Plan the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) had confirmed under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC).
A group of seasonal clerks, peons and sweepers engaged by the Haj Committee of India's Mumbai office over several years had their engagements discontinued in November 2023.
Phantom Studios, producer of the 2014 film 'Queen', sued JioStar India, Trigger Happy Entertainment and Digital 18 Media over their upcoming film 'Queen Full Power', alleging passing off because it shares the word 'Queen', the same lead actress and director, and a similar theme of a woman's self-discovery and empowerment, and alleging breach of a co-production agreement by treating the new film as an undisclosed 'spiritual sequel'.
Jagdish Prasad had obtained a compromise decree in 2008 declaring him Bhumiswami of land at village Tanda on the basis of adverse possession.
Damodar Prasad Dubey, elected President of the Nagar Panchayat at Bilaigarh, was removed from office and disqualified for the next term by a State Government order under Section 41-A of the Chhattisgarh Municipalities Act, 1961, over alleged illegal land transactions and later conduct during his tenure, including refusing to let the Council proceed with a resolution on the matter.
Candidates for teaching posts challenged a recruitment advertisement of 4 May 2023 because it applied a reservation roster traced to a 2012 notification that the same High Court had already declared unconstitutional in a 2022 judgment, a ruling now under appeal before the Supreme Court.
Students admitted to the B.Tech course at Dr. B.C. Roy Engineering College for 2023-27 through West Bengal's joint counselling challenged the college's attempt, after their first semester, to apply a revised fee notified by the State's fee fixation committee on 16 October 2023 to their entire batch.
A charitable trust, Alladin Charities and Zakat Wakf, claimed possession of shops at Pathergatti, Hyderabad, tracing its title to a 1943 Nizam-era Farman and a 1976 trust deed.
Sanjay Sureka was arrested on 18 December 2024 by the Enforcement Directorate in an ECIR linked to an earlier CBI case alleging that, during the insolvency of M/s Concast Steel and Power Limited, he orchestrated fraudulent transactions through 62 shell companies and 34 dummy directors to inflate the company's turnover, secure bank credit and divert funds, with proceeds of crime pegged at about Rs. 6,210.72 crore.
In a partition suit filed in 1976, Banubai claimed to be the legally wedded second wife of Baburao Saste, who died in 1953, and sought a share of the family's joint property on behalf of herself and her sons.
A doctor accused of continuously stalking and harassing a woman who later died by suicide sought discharge from charges under Sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 376, 354-A and 354-D of the IPC, arguing there was no suicide note, the relationship was consensual, and mere harassment or a quarrel cannot amount to 'instigation' under Section 107 IPC.
A lecturer at an unaided college in Nagpur was terminated in 1999 after a departmental enquiry; the Bombay High Court in 2015 quashed the termination and directed the Joint Director of Higher Education to absorb him elsewhere, with Rs. 10 lakh compensation, even though the State of Maharashtra itself had never been made a party to the writ petition — only the Joint Director, an officer, had been impleaded, 15 years after the petition was filed.
Girija sued for a half share in a house site she claimed to have jointly purchased and built with her husband, John Panneerselvam, relying partly on the argument that since he had not specifically denied her plea about the property's market value, that fact stood 'deemed admitted' under Order VIII Rule 5 of the CPC.
The Income Tax Department had refused to approve Breach Candy Hospital Trust's claim to exemption under Section 10(23C)(via) of the Income-tax Act, available to a hospital existing 'solely for philanthropic purposes and not for purposes of profit,' after computing a recurring surplus from the Trust's accounts across several assessment years.
Candidates for Stenographer and Assistant posts in several district judgeships challenged a minimum graduation-percentage criterion the recruiting authorities had used to shortlist candidates for the written examination, arguing that since they met the basic educational qualification advertised, and neither the recruitment rules nor the advertisement mentioned any such screening, they had an unqualified right to sit the examination.
A civil court had decreed specific performance of an agreement to sell land described as Survey No. 79/1, measuring 0.80 hectare.
The Supreme Court clarified its own earlier common judgment of 12 February 2026, which had held ex-servicemen entitled to disability pension with a 'broad-banding' benefit and interest, after the Union Government complained that High Courts and the Armed Forces Tribunal were mechanically extending that judgment to dozens of unrelated pending cases, including ones where entitlement itself was still disputed rather than merely its re-computation.
Tregum Remedies applied to register 'THE SKIN COMPANY' as a trademark for cosmetic goods.
The legal heirs of a man who had sued in 2009 for declaration of title, possession and rectification of two sale deeds over land in Cuttack later discovered that the defendants relied on a compromise decree the original plaintiff was never a party to, and obtained certified copies of the relevant records only in June 2020.
A commercial property in Worli, Mumbai originally belonged to a partnership formed in 1977.
Hardev Construction Private Limited bid for a railway engineering, procurement and construction project but had its bid rejected for not submitting the "original" of the Bid Security required by the tender's Request for Proposal.
Arcis Clean Energy Pvt. Ltd. and Parshva Innovation had signed a franchise agreement whose arbitration clause named Delhi as the place for appointing a sole arbitrator but said arbitration proceedings "will be held in Goa," while a separate clause gave courts in Goa exclusive jurisdiction over the agreement.
Two accused attacked a man with a sharp weapon and a gun, causing grievous cut and gunshot injuries.
The Kolhapur Municipal Corporation challenged a 2019 arbitral award of about Rs. 24.06 crore plus 18% interest and Rs. 1.5 crore in costs, made in favour of Fairdeal Construction, the agent the Corporation had appointed in 1995 to collect octroi duty and later terminated, alleging non-payment of the agreed fee.
In a batch of special leave petitions arising from the 1987 Shatabdi Nagar Housing Scheme land acquisition in Meerut, the Supreme Court dealt with the gap between an original compensation award and a much larger enhanced one.
The Bombay High Court allowed an appeal by a woman injured in a 1996 road accident near Karla, where a tempo-trax travelling the wrong way struck the jeep in which she was a passenger.
A villager from Chekkanoorani in Madurai district sued the State of Tamil Nadu and police officers for a mandatory and permanent injunction, claiming a strip of land next to the police quarters was a pathway used by villagers from time immemorial, which the local sub-inspector was obstructing with new construction.
The Supreme Court restored the 1999 discharge of a Sabarmati Central Prison constable accused of helping an undertrial repair a mobile phone during a 1998 police raid that recovered arms, explosives and phones.
Deciding a batch of over a hundred writ petitions filed since 2019, the Madhya Pradesh High Court struck down the Madhya Pradesh Lok Sewa (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes Reservation) Amendment Act, 2019, which had raised the reservation for Other Backward Classes in public employment and education from 14% to 27%.
The Supreme Court acquitted a man convicted under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 for aggravated sexual assault on a minor, holding that the prosecution's evidence fell short of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
BGR Energy Systems sought appointment of an arbitrator under Section 11(5) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 to resolve disputes over a Rs. 2,600 crore power-plant construction contract with Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO), relying on a dispute-resolution clause that let a contractor dissatisfied with the Engineer's decision appeal to TANGEDCO's Chief Engineer.
The Supreme Court restored the acquittal of a former cashier-cum-counter clerk at the Telephone Department, Aurangabad, who had been convicted by the Bombay High Court under Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 for criminal breach of trust, after the trial court had earlier acquitted him.
A batch of Tamil Nadu government-service appeals required the Supreme Court to fix inter se seniority among three categories of employees: direct recruits of the 1983 batch, 'special appointees', and 'compassionate appointees' who had first served on an ad hoc or temporary basis before being regularised.
The dispute concerned about 45 bighas of agricultural land in Bhawana village, Delhi, held by Khajano, who was declared a Bhumidhar -- a protected tenant with inheritable rights -- under the Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954, after her first husband Mauji Ram's line ended.
Modern Asset and KNK Construction Pvt. Ltd. had a Rs. 133.68-crore construction contract with an arbitration clause.
Seven petitioners occupying hutments on railway land at Kurla, Mumbai, challenged notices issued under Section 4 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, after Central Railway sought to clear encroachments within a 10-metre safety buffer along the Kurla-Trombay line.
Irfan Ahmad Hakak, waitlisted for the post of Librarian under Jammu & Kashmir's Advertisement Notice No. 1 of 2014, held the required M.LIS degree and claimed part of the advertised '3 years' experience' from work as an Assistant Librarian during his two-year M.LIS course.
Deciding two connected Section 11 petitions under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, the Supreme Court appointed an arbitrator in a dispute between an Indian water-treatment company and its South Korean technology partner, despite the existence of three separate agreements between them with three different arbitration clauses — one providing for arbitration in Mumbai under Indian law, another also in Mumbai, and a third, in an earlier 'licence agreement', for arbitration in Seoul under Korean law.
Deciding a 2021 writ petition by the Federation of Medical & Sales Representatives Association of India, the Supreme Court held that the regulation of unethical pharmaceutical marketing practices bears directly on the right to health under Article 21, even though the petitioners had no enforceable statute to point to — the voluntary Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) having proved ineffective against inducements like gifts, sponsored travel and hospitality offered to doctors to influence prescriptions.
The Supreme Court dismissed a special leave petition challenging the Madras High Court's rejection, at the threshold, of an election petition against a winning candidate in the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, because the petition had been presented by the petitioner's counsel rather than by the petitioner in person.
The Supreme Court held that an electricity subsidy an industrial unit received under a Pondicherry government scheme was a taxable revenue receipt, not an exempt capital receipt, under the Income Tax Act, 1961.
Hearing a suo motu petition taken up after a spate of rape incidents in Delhi NCR, the Supreme Court passed further directions on preventive policing.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore (Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt) set aside an order of an Additional District Magistrate (ADM) that had refused Canara Bank's application under Section 14 of the SARFAESI Act, 2002 for assistance in taking physical possession of a secured asset.
Dismissing a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, the Chhattisgarh High Court (Justice Bibhu Datta Guru) held that although no limitation period is prescribed for filing a writ petition, it must still be filed within a reasonable time, and stale claims are liable to be dismissed on the ground of delay and laches.
Allowing an appeal against a Bombay High Court (Goa Bench) judgment, the Supreme Court (Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M. Pancholi) held that a candidate who does not meet an essential eligibility qualification prescribed by recruitment rules cannot be made eligible merely because he scored higher marks than another candidate, or because some educational body recognises his alternative qualification generally.
Acting on its own motion, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (Justices G.S. Kulkarni and Dr. Neela Gokhale) dealt with a man found video-recording court proceedings on his mobile phone without permission, who then tried to delete the recording before it was retrieved by the court's IT department.
Allowing a writ petition by Rose Villa Co-operative Housing Society Ltd. against the Mumbai District Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies, the Bombay High Court (Justice Sandeep V. Marne) held that a developer's insolvency proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 do not bar a flat purchasers' society from obtaining a unilateral deemed conveyance under Section 11(3) of the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act, 1963.
Dismissing a Section 34 petition by the Union of India (Central Railway) to set aside a Rs. 2.46 crore arbitral award in favour of Inspirisys Solutions Ltd. over a ticket-vending-machine maintenance contract, the Bombay High Court (Justice N. J. Jamadar) held that the three-month limitation period under Section 34(3) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 runs from the date a party actually receives a signed copy of the award under Section 31(5), not from any later, formal 're-publication' of the award after arbitration fees are paid.
Disposing of a writ petition by Narendra Pal Barman, a waitlisted Constable (GD) candidate, the Chhattisgarh High Court (Justice Bibhu Datta Guru) held that truthfully disclosing a pending criminal case in a recruitment attestation form does not, by itself, give a candidate a right to be appointed, even though non-disclosure or false disclosure can disqualify him.
Acting on its own motion after a man was seen secretly video-recording live court proceedings on his phone during a hearing on 5 October 2026, the Bombay High Court (Justices G. S. Kulkarni and Dr. Neela Gokhale) held that unauthorised recording of live-streamed proceedings can attract criminal contempt, besides offences under the Copyright Act, 1957 and the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Allowing an appeal by the Tamil Nadu Health Department against a Single Judge's order, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court (Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan) held that a claim of medical negligence, where the facts are disputed, cannot be decided in a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution and must instead be pursued through a civil suit.
Quashing an FIR for cheating and forgery under Sections 420, 423 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code against a power-of-attorney holder for a group of landowners, the Supreme Court (Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh) held that an essentially civil dispute over a land sale cannot be dressed up as a criminal offence.
Allowing a criminal appeal by the in-laws of a woman who had filed a complaint under Section 498A and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, the Supreme Court (Justices Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh and N. V. Anjaria) quashed the entire criminal proceeding against them, holding that the chargesheet contained only vague, omnibus allegations with no specific act attributed to any of them individually.
Allowing four connected writ petitions filed by partners of the same firm (lead matter: Atul Enterprises v. State of Maharashtra and another, Writ Petition No. 9358 of 2016), the Bombay High Court held that 2012 conveyance deeds executing earlier 1985 Development-cum-Sale Agreements over slum-declared land were not independent, fresh sale transactions attracting stamp duty at 2012 market values.
Dismissing a batch of writ petitions by retired employees of Janpad Panchayats (lead matter: Urmila Panigrahi and others v. State of Chhattisgarh, WPS No. 11820 of 2025, with nine connected matters), the Chhattisgarh High Court at Bilaspur held that Section 131 of the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Raj Adhiniyam, 1993 is only a saving clause that protects pension rights an employee already held before the Adhiniyam came into force; it does not itself create a fresh right to pension.
Deciding a batch of connected civil revisions arising from a common land-acquisition notification for the Indore-Dahod railway line (lead matter: Civil Revision No. 997 of 2026, Sanjay v. State of Madhya Pradesh and others, with over thirty connected petitions), the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore held that Section 64(2)(b) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 contains a drafting error.
The Supreme Court dismissed two appeals by the Madhya Pradesh commercial tax department seeking to tax "GRD Powder" and "GRD Mix" as "Non-Alcoholic Drinks and Beverages" under Entry 20(ii) of Schedule II to the M.P. Commercial Tax Act, 1994, which attracts a 10% rate, rather than under the residuary entry's 8% rate.
The Madras High Court dismissed an application by a sitting MLA to summarily reject the election petition challenging his win from Ambasamudram, holding that an election petition cannot be rejected in limine merely because the allegations it makes seem unlikely to succeed.
In a decades-old family partition suit from Madurai, the Madras High Court's Madurai Bench held that a registered Will enjoys no special presumption of validity and must still be proved under Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act and Section 68 of the Indian Evidence Act.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court (Indore) dismissed a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution challenging two courts' refusal to order a DNA test in a mutation dispute.
The Madras High Court struck off part of an election petition seeking a declaration that a losing candidate be declared duly elected in place of a successful MLA whose election was challenged on grounds of corrupt practices under Sections 123(1) and 123(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court set aside a trial court's order confiscating properties linked to a Sub-Registrar and his wife convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 for amassing wealth disproportionate to known income.
The High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore dismissed a writ petition by the State of Madhya Pradesh against an order of the Board of Revenue that had restored three private respondents as recorded cultivators (Adhipati Krishak) of land otherwise entered as belonging to a temple deity in Jhabua district.
The Supreme Court dismissed Himachal Pradesh's appeal against the acquittal of a woman, Anchla alias Chanchla, in the 2011 murder of her stepmother and minor stepbrother at Diur.
Ruling on a batch of writ petitions by government doctors in Chhattisgarh seeking an extra year of study leave, the High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur held that a later government order relaxing the maximum period of study leave from 24 to 36 months could not retrospectively enlarge study leave already sanctioned and availed before that order was issued.
The Supreme Court acquitted a man convicted of rape and murder of his minor niece under Sections 376(2)(i), 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 4 and 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012, after the Sessions Court and the Sikkim High Court had both upheld his conviction on circumstantial evidence.
In a case where a father accused of sexually assaulting his child under the POCSO Act was eventually cleared after a CBI investigation found the FIR fabricated to help regain the child's custody, the Supreme Court laid down nationwide safeguards to prevent misuse of the Act in matrimonial disputes, while stressing that these must not dilute the Act's protective purpose.
In a Death Sentence Reference arising from the rape and murder of two minor girls in Kokrajhar, whose bodies were hung afterward to simulate suicide, the Gauhati High Court affirmed the conviction of three men under Sections 376D, 376DA, 376A, 120B and 302 of the Indian Penal Code, read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012 and provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, based on DNA matches linking each accused to the victims and medical evidence of peri-mortem hanging.
The Gauhati High Court set aside a conviction under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and acquitted the appellant after ten years of imprisonment, holding that his conviction had rested unsafely on the sole testimony of the prosecutrix.
The Gauhati High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging a Foreigners Tribunal opinion that had declared a woman a foreigner who entered India after 25 March 1971.
The High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore dismissed the State's appeal against an order discharging a man, Iqbal, from charges of kidnapping under Section 363 IPC, penetrative sexual assault under Sections 7/8 of the POCSO Act, 2012, and an aggravated offence under Section 3(ii)(v) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, arising from Dhar district.
The Supreme Court acquitted a man convicted under the Chhattisgarh Agricultural Cattle Preservation Act, 2004 for allegedly transporting 32 bullocks toward Odisha in a truck escorted by a car in which he was travelling.
The Supreme Court cancelled the bail of an elected municipal Corporator and three others accused of assaulting and verbally abusing doctors on duty in a hospital labour ward in Kalyan, Maharashtra, over a dispute about shifting a patient in labour.
A 135-year-old trust deed executed in 1891 created two charities: a "Chathiram" endowed for feeding the poor, students and travellers, and a "Kattalai" endowed for temple worship.
A finance company enforced a mortgage over a hill resort under the SARFAESI Act, 2002, issuing an auction notice fixing a reserve price of Rs. 20 crore.
A cheque for Rs. 3,00,000, issued to repay a loan, was dishonoured, and the payee sent a statutory demand notice under proviso (b) to Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 by registered post to the drawer's correct address; the notice was received by his mother.
A real-estate developer's project, Greenopolis in Gurgaon, was pushed into corporate insolvency resolution in 2019 after an operational creditor's Section 9 petition under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 was admitted.
A contractor executing PMGSY road-building packages for the Chhattisgarh Rural Road Development Agency had running bills withheld, and the Executive Engineer separately ordered Rs. 84,17,003 to be deducted from three ongoing, unrelated contracts to recover an alleged overpayment of over Rs. 2 crore found by a committee probing an earlier, distinct set of road contracts.
A police Sub-Inspector attached to the Special Armed Force (SAF) was sent to the Special Task Force (STF) in 2019 and repatriated to SAF in 2020.
A writ petitioner's son, who ran a licensed liquor shop, alleged that an Excise Assistant Commissioner had extorted money from him over several months and threatened to falsely implicate him, and that he died by suicide after recording a video statement.
A Revenue Department employee's promotion to Tahsildar was denied because her tenure as Firka Revenue Inspector fell three months and thirteen days short of the two years mandated by service rules, a shortfall that arose only because she was transferred to a different post when she rejoined duty after six months of maternity leave, a transfer she had not sought.
The appellant was detained under Section 3(2) of the National Security Act, 1980 after being implicated, though not named in the original FIR, in the November 2024 violence during a mosque survey in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, in which four people died.
A suit for specific performance based on an alleged oral agreement for sale of land was decreed by both the trial court and the High Court, largely because the defendants' witnesses gave evasive answers under cross-examination, which the courts treated as supporting an adverse inference in the plaintiff's favour.
In 47 connected civil appeals arising from acquisition of contiguous farmland across six villages in Fazilka, Punjab for a drainage canal, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had graded the compensation using a 'radial step-down' model, paying less to land farther from the border and more to land closer to it, even though all the land was acquired under the same notification.
A bank had taken possession of a mortgaged house under the SARFAESI Act after the borrower defaulted on his loan.
Years of rivalry between trade unions at an MRF tyre factory in Arakkonam over which union should be recognised as the workers' collective-bargaining agent led the Tamil Nadu Commissioner of Labour to verify union membership under the tripartite Code of Discipline in Industry, by personally scrutinising each union's membership records and interrogating claimed members over a defined period, rather than by a ballot.
Taking suo motu notice of a series of sexual offences in Delhi-NCR, including an alleged gang rape in a public park near a women's college and the alleged rape and murder of a teenager, the Supreme Court held that the right to live with dignity, free from fear of violence in public spaces, is part of the guarantee of life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Deciding a second appeal under Section 58 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA), the Bombay High Court upheld an order directing a builder, Sanklecha Constructions, to refund the entire amount paid by home buyers, with interest, because the promised occupation certificate for the project had still not been obtained.
The Bombay High Court quashed a nearly three-decade-old eviction order passed by an Estate Officer under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971 against tenants occupying premises owned by Oriental Insurance Company in Mumbai.
The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by ASJ Finsolutions, the successful bidder for a plot of land sold in the liquidation of a company under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, after it failed to pay the balance sale consideration within the time allowed.
Ruling in a writ petition brought by an association of semi-government employees, the Supreme Court closed a long-running dispute over unpaid dues owed to workers of five state-owned corporations that were split between Bihar and Jharkhand after the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000 divided the state.
Hearing petitions filed by a wife seeking to transfer her matrimonial and criminal proceedings out of Odisha, the Supreme Court found that the parties, having reached a settlement, were in fact agreeable to ending their marriage by mutual consent, with the husband having already paid the agreed permanent alimony in full.
When a private CBSE-affiliated school in Karaikudi mixed up the order of subjects on its own submission to the Board, twenty families found their children's college admissions suddenly at risk.
The Madras High Court ordered the Tamil Nadu police to appoint a young man as a Jail Warden, four years after his selection was cancelled solely because of a criminal case arising from the 2017 Jallikattu protests, in which he had been named as an accused only as an afterthought and was never identified by a single prosecution witness.
The Supreme Court acquitted a man convicted of rape after holding that a court cannot disbelieve a prosecutrix's testimony for one charge while relying on the very same testimony to convict on another.
The Bombay High Court directed authorities to issue a Scheduled Tribe caste certificate to a woman whose claim to belong to the Thakur tribe had been challenged and re-litigated for close to thirty years, through three rounds of scrutiny-committee proceedings, two earlier remands by the High Court, a Division Bench that once dismissed her case, and finally a Supreme Court order sending it back for a fresh, individual decision.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court, Jabalpur, upheld a Rs. 3,000 monthly maintenance order for a wife after her husband tried, years into the case, to argue that the Family Court which passed it never had jurisdiction to hear it at all.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court, Jabalpur, refused to throw out a family's suit over ancestral property, holding that a purchase made in a child's name by a parent falls outside the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988.
The Madras High Court acquitted three men convicted of murder over a dispute that began with an argument over four kilograms of beef and escalated into a double stabbing in Coimbatore.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld the State Bank of India's classification of a former company director as a fraud account, but only after confirming that the bank had actually given him a fair hearing first, a requirement it read into RBI's Master Directions on fraud classification even though those Directions do not expressly mention one.
The Bombay High Court upheld a life sentence for a man convicted of murdering his wife, in a case built entirely on circumstantial evidence with no eyewitness and no forensic report on the exact cause of death.
The Bombay High Court dismissed a wife's suit for divorce and Rs. 5 crore in alimony against her husband, holding that Indian courts had no jurisdiction because the couple's marriage was never solemnised in India under the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court, Gwalior, dismissed a husband's petition asking it to use its supervisory power under Article 227 of the Constitution to quash his wife's application under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, for restitution of conjugal rights, which he called an abuse of process filed only to counter his own divorce petition.
The Madras High Court dismissed a legislator's challenge to a Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly resolution on the Mekedatu dam project, holding that Article 212(1) of the Constitution bars courts from reviewing an irregularity of procedure inside a state legislature.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed a NEET-UG 2026 qualifier's plea to gain priority admission to MBBS and BDS courses under Punjab's one per cent reserved quota for migrants displaced from Jammu and Kashmir by militancy, holding that a domicile waiver granted to that special category cannot be cut down by reading it together with an unrelated residence condition for ordinary state-quota seats.
The Karnataka High Court refused to quash a cluster of criminal and money-laundering proceedings against a real-estate developer, Ozone Urbana Infra Developers, and its promoters, over allegations that funds collected from home buyers under subvention-scheme arrangements with banks were diverted.
The Gauhati High Court upheld a Foreigners Tribunal's finding that a man from Nagaon district, Assam, is a foreigner who entered India after 25 March 1971, the cut-off date under the special citizenship regime for Assam, after his decades of voter-list evidence failed to convincingly connect him to a father whose own presence in India before that date was never properly proved.
The Gauhati High Court dismissed an insurance company's appeal against a motor-accident compensation award, holding that an insurer cannot resist paying by disputing a technical point on which it offered no evidence of its own.
The Bombay High Court granted Parle Agro Private Limited (PAPL) interim relief under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, against two of its bottled-water franchisees after an audit found them manufacturing and selling a competing brand, "SURE", from the franchise premises.
The Bombay High Court quashed an order of the Director of Town Planning that had rejected a landowner's Purchase Notice under Section 49 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 (MRTP Act).
The Supreme Court dealt with appeals against a Division Bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, which had allowed a public interest litigation (PIL) and quashed the award of a Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana road-upgradation contract (Matiana-Mahori-Chhaila road) to O.P. Mehta, directing a re-tender.
The Supreme Court set aside the conviction of Jaswinder Singh, a Patwari, under Sections 7 and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, for allegedly demanding and accepting Rs. 9,500 as a bribe for mutating a property.
The Supreme Court set aside a Kerala High Court order that had remanded a cheque-dishonour trial under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, back to the stage of defence evidence, and restored the accused's criminal revision petition for the High Court to decide afresh on its merits.
The Supreme Court restored a criminal complaint against a neighbour accused of forging a building plan, setting aside a Bombay High Court order at Goa that had discharged her under Sections 468, 471 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code.
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant vacated the arrest of the vessel M.V. Nereus Progress at Tuticorin Port, setting aside a Madras High Court judgment.
The Supreme Court restored an award of ₹8 lakh with interest to the parents of a young man who fell from the general compartment of a train between Sabarmati and Ahmedabad on 27 September 2017 and died of his injuries a month later.
In a custody dispute between a father ('R') and mother ('E'), the Supreme Court found that a POCSO Act complaint filed by the mother against the father, alleging sexual assault of their child, was engineered to regain custody after the Court had earlier confirmed custody with the father.
A batch of writ petitions under Article 32 — led by Dr. Jaya Thakur and including the Association for Democratic Reforms and the People's Union for Civil Liberties — challenge Sections 6, 7 and 8(2) of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 as ultra vires Articles 14 and 324.
Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd had a works contract with GSCO Infrastructure Pvt Ltd that contained no arbitration clause.
A Division Bench of the Madras High Court, led by Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari, dismissed a public interest petition against six Tamil Nadu MLAs who resigned soon after the 2026 Assembly elections, forcing bye-elections under Section 151A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
The Chhattisgarh High Court acquitted a man convicted in 2011 under Section 304 Part I IPC for a death in Bilaspur district, holding that the trial court had used its questioning power under Section 165 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 improperly.
Hearing the State's appeal against an acquittal, the Chhattisgarh High Court partly reversed a 2016 judgment in a case against the doctors and operator of a hospital in Korba district.
In an appeal against a death sentence imposed for the sexual assault and killing of a minor child by her stepfather, punishable under Sections 302 and 376AB of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the two-pronged test from the Constitution Bench decision in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab for deciding whether a case falls within the 'rarest of rare' category warranting death.
Two men convicted of murdering a woman and her two young daughters, under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, had been sentenced by the Trial Court to rigorous imprisonment for life with a direction that they 'remain in prison till rest of their life' — that is, life imprisonment excluding the ordinary remission regime.
The Supreme Court set aside an Allahabad High Court order that had reinstated a Railway Protection Special Force constable removed from service in 1983.
The Chhattisgarh High Court quashed an order withholding one annual increment, without cumulative effect, of an Assistant Draftsman in the Rural Engineering Services at Korba.
Deciding cross-appeals in a bitter custody dispute between separated parents over their two minor children, the Supreme Court held that the 'Tender Years Doctrine' — the presumption that very young children should ordinarily be placed with their mother — cannot be applied as a determinative principle in Indian custody law.
A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court quashed a 2013 order of the Medical Council of India that had removed two doctors' names from the medical register, one for six months and the other for three years, on a patient's complaint of medical negligence in treating urinary stone and urethral stricture problems between 2005 and 2007.
Deciding a special leave petition filed by the father of a patient who died in hospital care, allegedly due to the negligence of a doctor and a nurse, an offence under Section 304A read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, the Supreme Court clarified which forum hears a victim's appeal against an acquittal under the new Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023.
Deciding an appeal arising from a matrimonial dispute in which a husband had obtained an anti-suit injunction from an Indian trial court restraining his wife from pursuing divorce and maintenance proceedings she had filed before a UK Family Court, the Supreme Court restated the principles that govern when an Indian court may grant such relief.
In a dispute traced back to a 1996 public-works contract for a Gas Turbine Power Project in Tripura, the Supreme Court examined whether an Arbitral Tribunal was competent, under Section 31(7)(a) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, to award pre-reference interest despite a contract clause restricting interest.
In a dispute among the heirs of one Gangaram, who died in 1949 leaving a son through his first wife and a second wife, Kashibai, with two daughters, the Supreme Court upheld a second appeal that had gone in favour of the daughters against the son's claim to be the sole owner of the family's house properties.
A Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed a Letters Patent Appeal by a father and his family against a single judge's order that allowed a mother's habeas corpus petition and directed that her son, aged about four years and five months, be handed to her.
The Karnataka High Court constituted a Special Investigation Team to investigate afresh alleged malpractice in recruitments by the Karnataka Public Service Commission.
The Supreme Court referred to a larger bench a conflict between the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Commercial Courts Act, 2015.
The Supreme Court ordered a de novo investigation into the 2012 rape and murder of a 17-year-old college student in Belthangady, Karnataka.
The Supreme Court set aside a Bombay High Court judgment that had granted default bail to accused persons arrested by Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad in September 2022 on charges under Sections 120B, 121A and 153A IPC and Section 13(1)(b) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
The Supreme Court resolved a conflict among High Courts on a question of civil procedure.
The Supreme Court declared Rules 18A and 18B of the Maharashtra Poisons Rules, 1972 unconstitutional as violating Articles 14 and 19(1)(g).
The Supreme Court acquitted a man whom a Delhi trial court had convicted under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and Section 363 IPC, a conviction the Delhi High Court had confirmed.
The Supreme Court acquitted a former Railway Protection Force officer who had been convicted in two CBI prosecutions under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
The Supreme Court held that a Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal does not get territorial jurisdiction merely because the insurer carries on business within its limits.
The Supreme Court dismissed a batch of appeals by the Union of India against orders of the Armed Forces Tribunal and several High Courts granting the disability element of pension to retired service personnel.
The Gauhati High Court decided two linked petitions by two women who described themselves as erosion-affected and landless and who had occupied government land in Guwahati, having bought possession of plots there in 1992 under unregistered sale deeds.
In a public interest petition by 3S and Our Health Society, the Supreme Court examined the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India's proposal for front-of-package labelling on packaged foods.
The Supreme Court set aside an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal that had rejected an appeal by the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner against the approval of a resolution plan for Rolta India Limited under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari, who sought release on the ground that he had completed 25 years in custody once remission was counted.
The Supreme Court partly allowed an appeal by a man convicted in Meghalaya under Section 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and sentenced to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment.
The Allahabad High Court has circulated to all district and sessions judges, family courts, commercial courts and tribunals in Uttar Pradesh a handbook titled 'Judgments and Gender (Sensitivity and Compassion in Writing Judgments)', directing that it be shared with every judicial officer for information and strict compliance.
The Supreme Court set aside the compulsory retirement of S.S. Das, an Indian Trade Service officer who was retired under Fundamental Rule 56(j) on 10 May 2018, a little under five years before superannuation.
The Supreme Court partly allowed appeals by the Securities and Exchange Board of India against a Securities Appellate Tribunal ruling in favour of Vedanta Limited and three individuals.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court, sitting at Jabalpur, set aside a Family Court order in Katni that had awarded a wife ₹30,000 a month in maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The Supreme Court decided whether solatium, interest and interest on solatium for land acquired under the National Highways Act, 1956 should be computed under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 or the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
The Supreme Court set aside a National Green Tribunal judgment that had quashed the environmental clearance and consent to establish granted to Punahchakran Private Limited for a common bio-medical waste treatment facility in a rural area of Uttar Pradesh.
The Supreme Court quashed an FIR registered in Vadodara under Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which punishes sexual intercourse obtained by deceitful means, including a false promise to marry.
The Supreme Court dismissed Sanofi India Ltd.'s appeal against the Karnataka High Court's refusal to quash a CBI case over medicine supplies to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
The Supreme Court upheld the Reserve Bank of India's supersession of the board of directors of Abhyudaya Co-operative Bank Limited, a multi-State co-operative bank, and dismissed appeals by its elected directors against a Bombay High Court judgment.
The Supreme Court set aside a penalty of over ₹425 crore imposed under Section 114 of the Customs Act, 1962 on a trader accused of declaring natural diamonds as lab-grown diamonds to pay a lower tariff.
Hearing its ongoing suo motu case on "digital arrest" scams, where fraudsters posing as police or enforcement officers coerce victims over video calls into transferring money, the Supreme Court recorded that complaints on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal had fallen from 1,23,672 in 2024 to 16,377 by mid-2026, but held that the mechanisms already in place need wider adoption rather than a pause.
Deciding an application under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (the provision replacing Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), the Allahabad High Court's Lucknow Bench (Justice Brij Raj Singh) upheld a Magistrate's decision to treat a woman's application for FIR registration, over an alleged molestation, as a complaint case under Section 200 of the Code of Criminal Procedure instead of directing the police to register an FIR.
Disposing of an application under Section 529 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) seeking early disposal of a four-year-old execution case, the Allahabad High Court (Justice Jai Prakash Tiwari) issued detailed directions to enforce maintenance orders passed under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (now Section 144 BNSS).
Ruling on a writ petition, a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court's Lucknow Bench (Justices Shekhar B. Saraf and Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary) held that Lok Adalats and District Legal Services Authorities have no power to grant a divorce, even in a pre-litigation settlement, since divorce matters cannot be referred to a Lok Adalat at all.
A woman, Ritu Rai, had applied for maintenance from her husband, an Army Lieutenant Colonel, under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, before the Family Court at Kanpur Nagar.
