The Rajasthan High Court dismissed six Revenue revisions under Section 84 of the RVAT Act and upheld the Tax Board's view that the plant-and-machinery investment of an assessee's two small enterprises at Sri Ganganagar and Alwar could not be clubbed to deny the 0.25% concessional CST rate under the notification of 14 February 2008. The Explanation added in 2017 and the Industries Department's clarifications bar such clubbing, and the Revenue showed no common funding or financial flow-back between the units (paras 15-22).
On remand from the Supreme Court, the Rajasthan High Court quashed an Anti-Corruption Bureau FIR against a police inspector and an ASI of Bikaner, holding that the recorded demand-verification conversations showed no demand or attempt to obtain an undue advantage, and that the complaint, filed by a REET-2021 cheating-case accused soon after his bail, was prima facie actuated by vengeance (paras 10-14).
The Rajasthan High Court dismissed five appeals by the Revenue against Hindustan Zinc Ltd., holding that the company was entitled to CENVAT credit of the 1%/2% additional duty of customs (CVD) paid on imported steam coal under Customs Notification No. 12/2012-Cus (para 16). It upheld the Tribunal's finding that the conditions attached to excise-duty credit under Rule 3(1)(i) had wrongly been read into the credit of CVD (paras 12-13).
The Rajasthan High Court quashed criminal defamation proceedings pending since 2003 against Rajasthan Patrika and its Editor-in-Chief over a local news report, holding that neither the complaint nor the evidence attributed any specific role or intention to them, and that a newspaper company is not liable without proof of its management's knowledge. Cognizance without the ingredients of defamation undermines press freedom (paras 35-42, 49-50).
On a State appeal against sentence, the Rajasthan High Court held that Section 21 of the Juvenile Justice Act bars only death and life imprisonment without the possibility of release for a child in conflict with law, so life imprisonment with the possibility of release remains available. The Children's Court had imposed ten years' rigorous imprisonment for murder without giving any reason, so the sentence was set aside and the matter remanded for fresh sentencing (paras 6-7).
The Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur discharged an accused charged under Section 8/29 of the NDPS Act. It held that statements of co-accused recorded under Section 67 cannot be used as confessions after Tofan Singh, and that a bare allegation that the accused ‘cooperated’ in the narcotic trade, with no overt act, transaction or recovery attributed to him, does not disclose abetment or conspiracy. The ₹68,500 found on him showed no nexus with the offence (paras 9-21).
The Rajasthan High Court refused a complainant's plea to cancel anticipatory bail granted by a Sessions Judge in a cheating and forgery case, holding that a bail-cancellation plea is not an appeal over the bail order. The Sessions Judge had weighed the fifteen-year delay in lodging the FIR, rulings of other forums in the accused's favour and his antecedents (paras 6-7.1, 9-14).
The Rajasthan High Court granted anticipatory bail to a woman sought to be added as an accused in the 2018 Supervisor (Women Empowerment) recruitment paper leak case. She was not named in the FIR, in witness statements or in two charge-sheets, and the material against her rested on a chain of disclosures, which cannot by itself justify depriving a person of liberty (paras 5-5.4, 6).
The Rajasthan High Court has restored full pay and allowances to LIC employee Ram Pal Meena for his suspension period after his acquittal in a criminal case. Justice Anand Sharma rejected LIC’s reliance on the absence of an “honourable acquittal” label to withhold benefits under its staff rules. No departmental inquiry had been initiated. The Court quashed the adverse orders and restored LIC’s earlier decision treating the period as duty. (Paras 22–34)
The Rajasthan High Court set aside a Magistrate's order, passed on a protest petition, taking cognizance only for culpable homicide in an assault death case, and the revisional order upholding it, because the Magistrate had weighed the medical evidence to rule out an intention to kill. Whether the case is murder or culpable homicide is for trial, not the cognizance stage (paras 14, 17-20).
The Rajasthan High Court dismissed a second bail application in a murder case filed soon after the first was rejected on merits, noting that the earlier dismissal was not disclosed. A successive application must show a substantial change in circumstances or new material; it cannot be used to re-argue the same case (paras 2-8).
The Rajasthan High Court upheld a Pali magistrate's order allowing the complainant in a cheque dishonour case to exhibit a bank return memo bearing the bank's seal and signature as Exhibit-9, although an unsigned computer-generated memo had already been marked Exhibit-2. This corrected an inadvertent error and did not fill a lacuna (para 8.4). Marking a document as an exhibit is not proof of it, and the accused can still cross-examine and object to its admissibility (paras 9.3, 12).