The Supreme Court set aside a High Court order that had remanded a cheque-dishonour case under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act for fresh trial from the defence-evidence stage. The remand relied on Mandvi Cooperative Bank v. Nimesh B. Thakore, under which an accused cannot be examined on affidavit. The Court held that the ruling must be applied with reference to prejudice, which the accused had never pleaded, and restored the revision for a decision on its merits (paras 6-9).
The Supreme Court has set aside a Patwari's conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act, holding that recovery of tainted currency alone cannot establish bribery without proof of an actual demand. Two prosecution witnesses admitted they saw neither the demand nor the money being handed over, applying the settled rule that demand is the sine qua non of the offence.
The Supreme Court held that when an accused is released because the police breached Article 22(1), by not giving written grounds of arrest, or Article 22(2), by not producing him before a Magistrate within 24 hours, the same police cannot re-arrest him on their own. Re-arrest needs the Magistrate's permission on an application made after furnishing the grounds, explaining the lapse and endorsed by a superior officer. The Court set aside the High Court's contrary order (paras 24-25, 36, 38).
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).
The Rajasthan High Court held that a DVD and pen drive of CCTV footage filed with the charge-sheet are documents that must be supplied to the accused under Section 207 CrPC. It quashed a Hindaun City trial court order of 31 July 2023 rejecting the accused's application for them (paras 3, 19). The trial court must supply a cloned copy forthwith; where the privacy of a victim or witness is involved, inspection alone may be allowed (paras 18, 20).
The Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal of two men convicted of a double murder, dismissing the State's appeal against the High Court's benefit-of-doubt finding. It held the circumstantial evidence chain was incomplete: no eyewitness, a key witness's delayed disclosure, and recoveries made days after the arrest that appeared stage-managed and artificial.
The Supreme Court has acquitted two men convicted under the NDPS Act, holding that the prosecution failed to prove the seized substance was charas. The forensic report was discarded because the chain of custody of the samples was broken, including an unexplained five-day gap, and no other admissible evidence identified the substance.
The Punjab & Haryana High Court has recalled its earlier order imposing costs of ₹5,000 on the Superintendent of Police, Mewat, after finding the order rested on a factual error — the State had in fact attempted to file its reply on the very date the Court had recorded it as failing to do so.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed, for want of territorial jurisdiction, a plea by the makers of Vimal Elaichi challenging show-cause notices issued by the Maharashtra FDA to brand ambassadors Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff over alleged product misrepresentation.
The Rajasthan High Court has stayed the declaration of final results in the recruitment process for Assistant Professor (English) posts, after the petitioner alleged that the State proceeded with the selection without considering objections filed against the model answer key.
The Rajasthan High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the deletion of the petitioner's name from the voter list for the 2026 Nagar Palika General Election, holding that Article 243-ZG of the Constitution bars judicial interference once the election process has commenced.
Madras High Court holds that converting a disciplinary charge from a serious to a non-serious provision does not relate back to the original charge-memo date, leaving the government servant's promotion barred by an intervening censure punishment.