The Supreme Court granted bail to a man charge-sheeted for allegedly aiding a murder outside a hotel in Una by restraining the victim. Having viewed the CCTV footage, the Court found it inconclusive both on his plea that he shielded the victim and on his alleged role; with over ten months in custody and 49 witnesses to be examined, bail was the rule and jail the exception (paras 5-10).
The Supreme Court held that fees for professional courses in self-financing colleges must be notified for the whole course before a student is admitted, and may be varied mid-course only in exceptional cases such as an unforeseen rise in expenditure. It affirmed the Calcutta High Court's directions that West Bengal's October 2023 fee revision does not apply to students already admitted to the 2023-27 B.Tech batch, though not on the High Court's grounds of retrospectivity and estoppel (paras 32-36).
The Supreme Court set aside orders rejecting a Waqf trust's objection to the execution of an ex parte specific-performance decree for shops at Pathergatti, Hyderabad, and remanded the matter to the Executing Court. The courts below had rejected the objection as filed under the wrong provision and for want of proof of title; the Court directed fresh pleas and a fresh inquiry in the light of Periyammal v. V. Rajamani (paras 7-8, 12-13).
The Supreme Court granted bail to Sanjay Sureka, accused in the Enforcement Directorate's money-laundering case arising from the Concast Steel and Power insolvency. It rejected his plea that a five-day delay in forwarding the arrest order and material to the Adjudicating Authority under Section 19(2) of the PMLA vitiated the arrest, but held that 20 months' custody, completed investigation against him and a trial unlikely to end soon outweighed the Section 45 twin conditions (paras 10-13).
The Supreme Court set aside the Madhya Pradesh State Mining Corporation's cancellation of the 2025 sand auctions for Shahdol and Katni, where the two contractors who had surrendered those groups emerged highest at lower rates than their earlier bids. A bidder's own earlier bid is not a continuing measure of market value; without material showing the fresh competitive bids were below obtainable value, rejecting them was arbitrary. The 2025 process was restored on the same bids (paras 85-87, 99, 108-111).
The Supreme Court decreed a title suit filed in 2007 against a gift deed, holding that the Telangana High Court and the trial court had ignored a 1959 family settlement and a 1986 compromise recorded by the High Court. Under those, the donor had no share in the gifted lands, which had been allotted to his mother and later given up by him. None of the respondents appeared despite a status quo order (paras 9, 12-14).
The Supreme Court held that a Manav Bharti University graduate, admitted against an allotted seat and shown in the University's own Green Sheet Register, could not be denied verification of his degree because the University had left his name out of the admission disclosure list. A mismatch in two semesters' marks, both showing a pass, needed only a check of the records, not a civil suit, so the High Court's order relegating him to a civil court was set aside (paras 16-19).
The Supreme Court dismissed the GST department's appeal against an NCLAT order as time-barred, holding that limitation for an appeal under Section 62 of the IBC runs from the date the NCLAT pronounces its order, not from receipt of the certified copy. Only the time taken by the Registry to prepare the copy is excluded; the 35 days before the copy was applied for and the 41 days after it was received took the appeal 16 days past the 60-day ceiling (paras 12-16).
The Supreme Court acquitted a Chhattisgarh man whose murder conviction rested wholly on circumstantial evidence. A WhatsApp message describing a fight, disowned by both its supposed sender and its recipient, created only suspicion; the blood-stained recoveries were never linked to the deceased by DNA, a seizure witness contradicted the recovery, and death in a motorcycle fall remained probable (paras 10.3-10.8, 12).
In execution of an arbitral award over the Uhl hydro-electric project in Himachal Pradesh, the Supreme Court held that its earlier order restoring the award's interest component revived only 9% interest from the date of claim to the award and 18% thereafter, each capitalised annually. It did not restore the compound interest the award had built into the pre-claim expenses (paras 2, 14-16).
The Supreme Court held that a nephew is not a member of the 'family' under Section 3(g) of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972, even if brought up by the tenant since childhood, so a tenant's partnership with his nephew in a Varanasi shop amounted to sub-letting. It ordered eviction from that shop alone within six months (paras 5-12).
The Supreme Court granted bail to a man held for almost a year in a 100 kg ganja case in Malkangiri, Odisha, because his arrest memo stated only that he was involved in the case. Merely saying so does not meet the requirement of Article 22(1) of the Constitution, the Court held, setting aside the Orissa High Court's refusal of bail (paras 10-12).