A three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that Section 4(1) of the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 does not apply to suits, claims or actions filed before it came into force on 19 May 1988, and that Section 4(2) does not bar a benami defence already allowed in a pending suit (para 21). It held that Mithilesh Kumari v. Prem Behari Khare does not lay down correct law on this point (para 21).
The Supreme Court set aside the NDPS conviction of a Kuwaiti national because, before he was searched, he was not given the option of a search before a gazetted officer or a Magistrate under Section 50 (paras 5, 10). Following Balbir Singh, it refused to reconsider that ruling and held that Pooran Mal does not allow contraband seized in an illegal search to establish unlawful possession (paras 6-9).
In this 1994 ruling the Supreme Court set out how the arrest and search safeguards of the NDPS Act work. An officer searching a person on prior information must tell him of his right to be searched before a Gazetted Officer or a Magistrate, and Section 50 is mandatory (paras 17, 21, 26). An arrest or search under the Act by an officer who is not empowered is illegal, while lapses under Sections 52 and 57 are tested for prejudice (paras 14, 25-26).
In this 1990 ruling the Supreme Court held that officers of the Department of Revenue Intelligence invested with police-station powers under Section 53 of the NDPS Act are not "police officers" under Section 25 of the Evidence Act, so confessions made to them are not barred (paras 1, 21-22). The decisive test was the power to file a police report under Section 173 of the Code (para 21). The ruling was later overruled by a majority of the Supreme Court in Tofan Singh v. State of Tamil Nadu (2020).
The Supreme Court gave its reasons for setting aside a school lecturer's conviction under Section 4 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1985 for an alleged inflammatory speech (para 1). Finding the evidence of two police witnesses unreliable, it held that because the Act has drastic penalties and appeals lie directly to the Supreme Court, investigation under it "has not only to be thorough but also of a high order" (para 17).
The Supreme Court upheld a search under Section 37 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973, after examining the officer's file and finding material for a reasonable belief (para 7). Section 37(2) applies the Code's search provisions only "so far as may be", so the grounds need not be stated in the warrant (paras 11-12). Even an illegal search does not vitiate the evidence seized, though courts must be cautious with it (para 14).
The Supreme Court held that the 1976 central amendment to the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act impliedly repealed West Bengal's 1973 amendment, which had made adulteration punishable with life imprisonment, so the High Court's order that pending cases proceed under Section 16A stood, with the reduced punishment (paras 4, 15, 17, 26). "The rule of beneficial construction requires that even ex post facto law of such a type should be applied to mitigate the rigour of the law" (para 22).
The Supreme Court held that Section 52(2) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which let the Income-tax Officer take a capital asset's fair market value as the sale consideration where it exceeded the declared price by 15%, applies only where the consideration is understated, and that the Revenue must prove the understatement (para 18). Reading the provision literally would produce absurd results, and "a statutory provision must be so construed, if possible that absurdity and mischief may be avoided" (para 6).
The Supreme Court upheld a murder conviction resting on two eyewitnesses and a prompt FIR, but commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment (paras 17, 23). It held that "Defence witnesses are entitled to equal treatment with those of the prosecution", that an alibi must show the physical impossibility of the accused's presence at the scene, and that where witnesses withhold the whole truth the court must weigh all reasonable possibilities when sentencing (paras 19, 22).
The Supreme Court held that a Railway Protection Force officer inquiring under Section 8(1) of the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966 is not a "police officer" under Section 25 of the Evidence Act, so confessions recorded by him are not excluded by that section (para 59). A person questioned before any formal accusation is also not a person accused of an offence under Article 20(3) (paras 70-71).
Allowing the State's appeal, the Supreme Court restored a conviction for keeping smuggled gold. An illegal police search does not vitiate the seizure or the trial on a customs complaint (para 10). Even where the Section 123 presumption is unavailable, the prosecution may prove from circumstances that gold was smuggled and that the accused knew it (paras 16, 19-23). The words "acquires possession" in Section 135(1)(b) are not limited to an owner or purchaser (para 23).
The Supreme Court acquitted a bus driver convicted under Section 304A IPC after a four-year-old girl ran across the road and was killed (paras 1-2, 39). Res ipsa loquitur cannot be used in a criminal trial to shift the burden of proving negligence onto the accused (para 28), though it may aid permissive inferences under Section 114 of the Evidence Act, subject to the rules governing circumstantial evidence (paras 29-30).