High Court judgments and orders from across India, with the legal point made clear.
Six men have been in Model Central Jail since 2021 on a murder and atrocities case that has barely begun. The Himachal Pradesh High Court asks who the delay belongs to, and enlarges them on bail.
That is why the Delhi High Court believes it. A life sentence for a 1995 murder is quashed on a finding of juvenility, the conviction left standing, and a man who had already served nearly eight years is released.
Thirteen years after conviction, the Delhi High Court sets it aside: an MLC history that contradicted the charge, a forensic report that found no blood on clothes said to be soaked in it, and an age proved by a school register nobody could vouch for.
A bribe for releasing a judo coach's kit allowance, and a defence built on the sequence of events. The Delhi High Court finds the demand continued after the work was done, and upholds the conviction.
Sixteen years after the FIR, the Delhi High Court refuses to quash an order on charge over forged supply certificates — those weaknesses go to appreciation of evidence, not to whether a trial should happen.
The Delhi High Court dismisses an appeal against a decree for possession, holding that a claim of title from a date and adverse possession from the same date cancel each other — and that long occupation, without more, stays permissive.
Bihar cancelled their candidature for failing to join in time. The Patna High Court holds the delay was beyond their control, sets the cancellations aside, and orders them taken on within thirty days.
He complained to the police repeatedly and got nothing but reference numbers. The Madras High Court upholds the order sending him back to them with a court behind it.
The revenue record showed a well and the department's own witness admitted the land was irrigated. The Madhya Pradesh High Court revalues it at Rs 10.5 lakh a hectare and removes the 20% development deduction.
A victim's appeal under Section 413 BNSS against a Juvenile Justice Board's acquittal, and a reminder from the Gujarat High Court that a possible view cannot be overturned merely because another was available.
Seven years' debarment for unfair means, upheld by nobody who compared two documents. The Delhi High Court says a court must test the allegation candidate by candidate — and this one collapses on a MAC address.
The Delhi High Court holds that Section 93 of the CGST Act lets proceedings begin after death, not merely finish — and upholds the provision. It then asks the Department to justify, rupee by rupee, the Rs 15.40 lakh it has been holding since 2020.
A time-barred debt cannot support a Section 138 conviction — but limitation runs from when the last instalment fell due, not from when the borrowing began. The Himachal Pradesh High Court works through the dates.
The Himachal Pradesh High Court sets aside a cheque-bounce conviction affirmed on appeal, holding that the trial and appellate courts simply never engaged with the one witness who rebutted the presumption.
The defence said oral dying declarations made to a wife, a son and a brother-in-law cannot carry a murder conviction. A Division Bench of the Patna High Court disagrees and affirms a life sentence.
The same two judges, on the same day, upheld one detention under the same Act and quashed this one. The difference is what the State did with the ordinary law before reaching for the extraordinary.
The Payment of Wages Act assumes an employer and an employee. Where the man guarding the pipeline was engaged by contractors and not by the department, the Assistant Commissioner of Labour had nothing to adjudicate.
A toddy tapper knocked down in 2017 was valued by the Tribunal at Rs 5,000 a month. On an oral cross-objection with no appeal of their own, his family walk away with Rs 11.43 lakh.
The Gauhati High Court affirms the conviction of three men for the rape and murder of two minor girls, and declines to confirm the death sentence — because the prosecution led no evidence at all on whether they could be reformed.
The witness had said so on affidavit and was never asked about it in the box. The Himachal Pradesh High Court holds that the objection came far too late, and upholds the cheque-bounce conviction.
The bar in the Registration of Money Lenders Act stops a civil suit and the execution of a decree. It says nothing about a cheque-bounce complaint — and a revision filed in 2014 is decided on that footing twelve years later.
A conviction for aggravated penetrative sexual assault is affirmed and the sentence trimmed to the time already served plus remission. Then the Division Bench turns to a line in the West Bengal scheme nobody had applied.
A family quarrel over jamabandi and a sale deed became a forgery prosecution on a complaint filed years after the events. The Patna High Court quashes it as a civil wrong with no element of criminality.
The Board and the Sessions Court both refused, reasoning that he might offend again. Section 12 allows refusal on three grounds, and the Patna High Court holds that was not one of them properly applied.
