The Punjab & Haryana High Court has held an 81-year-old litigant guilty of criminal contempt for levelling scandalous, uncorroborated allegations of corruption and collusion against sitting and former judges and judicial officers, holding that fair criticism of a judicial order is distinct from imputing dishonest motives to the judge who passed it.
The Bombay High Court has initiated contempt proceedings against Dilip S. Ghumare, Secretary and Senior Legal Advisor of Maharashtra's Law and Judiciary Department, after he responded to the Bench in an "aggressive, high-pitched tone (bordering to shouting)" and publicly blamed the High Court administration during a PIL hearing on judicial appointments.
Hearing a bail application, Rajasthan High Court finds that routinely calling for full case diaries was adding 15-20 days to routine bail matters, and directs the Government Advocate's office to instead obtain a factual report on the FIR within 3-7 days for petty-offence cases.
MP High Court upholds the conviction but commutes to life imprisonment the death sentence of a man found guilty of raping and murdering a two-year-old girl in Shahdol district, holding the case did not meet the "rarest of rare" threshold for capital punishment.
Hearing a contempt petition over delay in proceedings against a former minister and IAS officers accused of favouritism in municipal tenders, Madras High Court remarks that it is "very difficult" to get corruption cases registered against powerful men in the country.
Bombay High Court directs Maharashtra's DGP to personally explain why the Deputy Chief Minister's son was not made an accused in a case over 40 acres of government land in Pune acquired by his firm at far below market value, despite records showing him as a company director.
Rajasthan High Court holds that confiscation proceedings under mining law and a criminal complaint under the Motor Vehicles Act are legally distinct, so a magistrate cannot order a seized vehicle released without first calling for a report from the Mining Department.