Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

The Supreme Court has discharged a man accused of rape, cheating and marriage offences under Sections 376, 420, 493, 494 and 495 IPC by a woman who lived with him for years after a temple ceremony. It held that she learnt of his earlier marriage within months yet stayed, so the case showed a consensual relationship, and that intimacy in a relationship that later soured cannot be recast as rape (paras 42-44, 61-64).

The Supreme Court has held that when a trial court summons a person as an accused under Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, it is not automatically expected to order that person's arrest; the question is whether detention is required for the conduct of the trial. Setting aside an Allahabad High Court order of 12.03.2025 refusing anticipatory bail, it granted the appellant anticipatory bail, noting that the principal accused had already been acquitted (paras 7-9).

A Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court, led by Chief Justice Sanjay K. Agrawal, has referred three parole questions to a Larger Bench without deciding nine connected petitions on merits (paras 1, 5). The questions are whether the 1958 or the 2021 Rajasthan parole Rules govern a prisoner convicted before 2021, whether parole amounts to a temporary suspension of sentence, and how the replacement of the Code of Criminal Procedure by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita affects the 1958 Rules (para 5).

The Rajasthan High Court upheld a revisional order directing a receiver to be appointed over disputed land under Sections 145 and 146 CrPC (paras 1, 17-18). Pending civil or revenue proceedings do not by themselves bar such preventive proceedings where no effective interim protection has been granted; Amresh Tiwari v. Lalta Prasad Dubey lays down no absolute bar (paras 9-11, 14). The Commission Report, revenue records and earlier preventive proceedings showed a continuing dispute over possession (paras 13, 15).

The Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur set aside a husband's life sentence for the 2014 death of his wife in Alwar district and acquitted him (para 21). The eyewitnesses had turned hostile and nobody placed him at home that night. The Division Bench held that the presumption under Section 106 of the Evidence Act could not be invoked until the prosecution proved that he was with her when she died (para 18), and found the chain of circumstances broken (para 20).

The Supreme Court held that two life sentences imposed in a single trial for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old, under Section 302 and Section 376 read with Section 342 IPC, cannot be directed to run consecutively. Applying the Constitution Bench ruling in Muthuramalingam, it set aside the Trial Court's consecutive-sentence direction, confirmed by the Bombay High Court, and directed that the two life sentences be superimposed, so that remission or commutation of one does not ipso facto remit the other (paras 15-18).

The Supreme Court held that the bail bar in Section 43D(7) of the UAP Act applies only when the prosecution prima facie shows that the accused is not an Indian citizen and entered India unauthorisedly or illegally. A visa overstay after a lawful entry does not qualify. Dismissing the Union's appeal, it upheld the Madras High Court's order restoring an alleged Sri Lankan national's default bail (paras 30-31, 47, 50).

The Supreme Court set aside a Madhya Pradesh High Court order that had quashed a rape and SC/ST Act case on a compromise, reiterating that a heinous, non-compoundable offence cannot be quashed solely on a settlement. Speaking to the survivor by video, the Bench found its apprehension justified: she said she had been coerced into the settlement. The trial will proceed, but the accused, Gopal Lodhi, was granted anticipatory bail on the Trial Court's conditions (opening paragraph, para 2).

The Supreme Court set aside directions of the Orissa High Court which, after refusing anticipatory bail to the accused in a 2010 murder FIR from Rayagada, told them to surrender and directed the trial court to release them on regular bail on fixed terms. Once anticipatory bail was refused, it was not for the High Court to direct how the future should unfold. The magistrate's bail order fell with those directions, and the accused must surrender within two weeks (paras 3-6).

A Rajasthan High Court Division Bench set aside the conviction of four men sentenced to life imprisonment for gang rape under the IPC and the POCSO Act, and acquitted them (paras 1, 57). It held the FIR hit by Section 162 CrPC because the complainant's first report at a police chowki was never produced, found her minority unproved, and rejected the DNA report because the chain of custody of the samples was not established (paras 19-20, 29, 44).

The Rajasthan High Court dismissed four appeals by ten accused in an NIA case over explosive material allegedly seized from a car at Nimbahera in 2022, upholding the order of 31 July 2024 framing charges (paras 2, 59-60). An accused's absence from the car or the lack of recovery from him does not answer an alleged prior conspiracy at the charge stage; the evidence is for trial. The dismissal is not a finding of guilt (para 60).

The Supreme Court directed the State of Uttar Pradesh to pay Rs 6,00,000 within a month to Arun @ Deepak, who spent six years as an undertrial in a kidnapping and murder case before his acquittal. Calling it a classic case of how an investigation should not proceed, the Court found no evidence against him, deprecated the slipshod investigation and haphazard prosecution, and sent its judgment to the State's Director General of Police and Home Secretary (opening paragraph, paras 14-16).