The Rajasthan High Court quashed a 1990 conviction for 8.5 kg of opium, holding that police who set out to search a shop and house needed a warrant or recorded grounds under Section 42 of the NDPS Act, even though the accused was caught on the road outside. The Court found the recovery proved and Section 50 complied with, but the Section 42 breach made the search void (paras 32, 48, 53-61).
The Rajasthan High Court dismissed an Environment Engineer's writ petition against the sanction to prosecute him under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Anti Corruption Bureau had sent a draft sanction order, but the sanctioning authority had weighed the witnesses' evidence and the documents, and its order was not a verbatim copy of the draft (paras 6, 15). Trivial errors in dates and names caused no failure of justice, so the cognizance order stood (paras 12, 16-17).
A Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur held that a woman claiming a post reserved for divorcees must hold a divorce decree from a competent court on the cut-off date. A customary divorce, even in Scheduled Tribe/Tribal Sub Plan communities, cannot replace the decree, because a custom cannot supersede the terms of a recruitment process (paras 14-15). The appeals of the Public Service Commission and the State were allowed and the Single Bench judgments set aside (para 17).
The Rajasthan High Court allowed 56 State appeals against Indus Tower Ltd. and held that the stamp duty concession notification of 05.03.2003 covers only leases where the rent is fixed and no premium is paid or delivered, the class in clause (a) of Article 33 of the Schedule to the Rajasthan Stamp Act, 1998. A lease that stipulates a security deposit falls under clause (c) and outside the notification; holding otherwise would add words to it (paras 28, 30, 32).
In a reference order, the Rajasthan High Court found that a co-ordinate Bench, when it dismissed a finance company's connected appeal against the same motor accident award in 2012, had not been shown Sections 146 and 168 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 or the Supreme Court's ruling in Godavari Finance Company (paras 10-11). Instead of taking a contrary view itself, it referred two questions to a Special/Larger Bench and sent the matter to the Chief Justice (paras 19-21).
A Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court dismissed Jaipur National University's challenge to the second proviso to Regulation 3(A) of the UGC (Open and Distance Learning Programmes and Online Programmes) Regulations, 2020, which let only institutions that had applied to NAAC by 29.02.2020 continue distance-learning programmes for 2020-21 (paras 19, 48-49). It held that compliant and non-compliant institutions formed distinct classes, the cut-off date had a rational basis, and the proviso caused no prohibited retrospective prejudice (paras 40-41, 44-45).
The Rajasthan High Court set aside the confiscation of a truck seized with Khair wood under the Rajasthan Forest Act, 1953. Confiscation proceedings run parallel to the trial and need not await a conviction, it held, but Section 52(5) bars confiscating a vehicle used without the owner's knowledge or connivance. The Authorised Officer had recorded exactly that finding and still confiscated the truck because forest offences were rising, an order the Court called void (paras 22, 24, 28-30).
The Rajasthan High Court quashed a second Anti Corruption Bureau FIR against a Biofuel Authority CEO, registered six days after a trap case against him, alleging another bribe. Because Section 219 CrPC allowed the two like offences, committed within twelve months, to be tried together, and both FIRs alleged the same conspiracy, the second FIR was an abuse of process (paras 15-16). Without Section 17A approval it could not be investigated either (para 18).
The Rajasthan High Court quashed the Regional Passport Officer's rejection of a woman's passport application. An email gave her 21 days to respond while a show-cause notice of the same date allowed only 7; the Court held this self-contradictory and a sign of predetermination (paras 37-39). Her case fell within none of the grounds in Section 6(2) of the Passports Act, 1967, and the passport authority could not treat as fraudulent a birth certificate issued by the competent authority once the earlier one had been cancelled (paras 43-48).
On a newspaper report that the State planned to shrink the Eco-Sensitive Zone of Tal Chhapar Wildlife Sanctuary to 3 km, the Rajasthan High Court registered a suo moto PIL and barred any attempt to reduce the sanctuary's area (paras 2-3, 23). Finding a dire need to enlarge the 7.19 sq. km. home of about 4000 blackbucks, it struck down the renotification of a road through it and ordered land merged into forest (paras 17, 23). Compliance monitoring continues.
The Rajasthan High Court allowed an accused husband, on trial under Sections 304-B and 498-A IPC, to undergo a voluntary narco-analysis test at the defence stage. Section 233 CrPC gives an accused who is not acquitted under Section 232 an indefeasible right to lead defence evidence, and refusing a scientific technique that Selvi permits on a voluntary basis would deprive him of his right to defend himself (paras 14-16). The trial court's refusal was set aside (para 17).
The Rajasthan High Court dismissed two writ petitions by 16 students admitted to the 2017 MDS course at a private dental college outside NEET counselling, most without the qualifying score, and upheld the Dental Council of India's 2018 decision to discharge them (paras 71, 88-91, 135). Such per se illegal admissions cannot be regularised, and students who gave false NEET information could not claim a hearing (paras 91, 119-121, 134). The College must pay each student Rs.10 lakh as compensation (para 135).