Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

The Supreme Court allowed an appeal by the State of Himachal Pradesh and permitted it to withdraw prosecution in all the remaining cases against sitting and former MPs and MLAs arising from the Covid-19 period. The High Court had allowed withdrawal in only 15 of 60 cases. The Bench found no grave offence alleged and held that continuing such prosecutions would serve neither criminal justice nor the public interest (paras 4, 6-9).

The Bombay High Court dismissed Rahul Gandhi's petition against a Mumbai magistrate's 2019 order issuing process for defamation on a complaint by a BJP member over his 2018 remarks about the Prime Minister, including the "Commander-in-Thief" post (paras 1-9, 22). Following John Thomas, it held that the complainant need not be the person actually defamed, and that whether the imputation extended to party members must await trial (paras 19-20).

The Supreme Court acquitted a man serving life imprisonment for the rape of a five-year-old girl in Ajmer district, holding that a test identification parade is only corroborative and that the child was never asked to identify him in court (paras 41, 44, 59). Medical evidence dating the injuries to before the alleged day added to the doubt; he had been in custody since February 2017 (paras 11, 51-52).

The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed a Jalandhar FIR under Section 295-A IPC against the directors, producer and actor of the film "Yaarian 2" over a song showing a clean-shaven, non-Amritdhari actor wearing the Sri Sahib (Kirpan) (paras 1-2, 18). The inadvertent portrayal, an expression of creative liberty, was not a deliberate and malicious insult to the Sikh religion, and mens rea was lacking (para 14).

The Supreme Court refused to quash the CBI's prosecution of Sanofi India over medicine supplies to BARC, holding that a company accused of an offence requiring mens rea cannot have the case quashed under Section 482 CrPC merely because no employee has been identified or arraigned (paras 187, 193, 197). The Bench laid down a three-stage framework for attributing a natural person's act and state of mind to a corporation, and dismissed the appeal (paras 171, 199).

The Madras High Court at Madurai held that a man who exposed himself to an 11-year-old boy without any physical contact could not be convicted of sexual assault under Section 7 of the POCSO Act, but was guilty of sexual harassment under Section 11(i) (paras 11-12). It altered the conviction and reduced the sentence from three years to one year of rigorous imprisonment (paras 5, 15-16).

The Punjab and Haryana High Court transferred a husband's divorce petition from the Family Court at Hisar to Sonepat at the wife's request, holding that an offer by the husband to bear travelling expenses does not, in every case, defeat a wife's prayer for transfer (paras 9, 13). The wife had no independent income, lived with her widowed mother and cared for their minor son (paras 7, 10).

The Bombay High Court quashed an FIR under Section 85(1) of the Maharashtra Prohibition Act against two men accused of shouting loudly at each other on a public street under the influence of alcohol, finding no allegation of any element of obscenity, depravity or moral offensiveness and no cognizable offence (paras 3-6). For the nuisance their shouting caused, it ordered them to pay Rs. 10,000 costs to a charity (para 9).

The Supreme Court held that the power to confiscate a vehicle seized in an NDPS case lies with the court trying the offence under Section 63(1), not with the Drug Disposal Committee, which may dispose of a conveyance only with the court's permission (paras 11-12, 14). It ordered the release of a lorry whose occupants had been acquitted, setting aside the orders refusing release (paras 16-17).

The Supreme Court upheld a ten-year sentence under Section 15(c) of the NDPS Act for about 200 kg of poppy husk found in a car. It held that an officer who received a tip-off at a naka, recorded its substance in the ruqa sent to the police station before the search, and summoned the DSP to supervise it, substantially complied with Section 42. Section 50 did not apply because nothing was recovered from the personal search (paras 33, 36, 52).

The Rajasthan High Court quashed criminal proceedings against a senior official of Hindustan Zinc over a 2005 gas leak at its Chittorgarh plant, holding that criminal liability cannot rest on designation alone (paras 19-34, 85-87). The complaint made only omnibus allegations, the forensic reports contradicted each other, and the private complaint under the Environment (Protection) Act merely duplicated a completed police investigation (paras 39-40, 57-66).

The Supreme Court dismissed the State of Himachal Pradesh’s appeal against an NDPS acquittal after examining doubts concerning the seizure and handling of the case property. The High Court had questioned the absence of independent witnesses on a busy highway and missing records of the property’s movement to and from court. The Supreme Court agreed that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. (Paras 3–6)