High Court judgments and orders from across India, with the legal point made clear.
A division bench of Justice Sanjeeb K Panigrahi and Justice Murahari Sri Raman held that fraud must be pleaded with particulars and proved, and that a revision filed about 18 years late could not be decided on merits without first dealing with the delay.
Justice Rakesh Kainthla held that the disclosure by the co-accused was admissible because it led police to the petitioner, treated him as an abettor of a commercial quantity, and ruled that delay in trial cannot stand in for the twin conditions of Section 37.
Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Shail Jain held that Customs may examine whether third-party remittances are sale proceeds of the exported goods, that a civil decree against a bank does not bind Customs, and that a missing Section 14 valuation does not bar a fraud inquiry.
Justice Madhu Jain upheld the discharge of a husband and his parents on dowry death charges, set aside the charges of cruelty and abetment of suicide against the husband, and held that neither a final message nor the Section 113A presumption can supply a missing ingredient.
Hearing eight writ petitions together, Justice Maheswara Rao Kuncheam held that police have no jurisdiction to determine civil rights between parties, and left them free to act only where a cognizable offence is made out.
A Division Bench dismissed three petitions against the Kerala Administrative Tribunal, holding that the diploma or training in statistics with econometrics in the Planning Service rule applies to Economics postgraduates as well as Mathematics postgraduates. It also read a departmental relaxation as covering only the class of degree, and refused to treat a Ph
Justice Sandeep V. Marne set aside an Industrial Court order that had stopped Thane Municipal Corporation from punishing a clerk who confessed in his reply to the chargesheet, holding that no inquiry is needed once a charge is admitted, and directed three years of reversion with reduced pension.
Justice Anjan Moni Kalita held that Deepesh Bajoria met the twin conditions of Section 45 of the PMLA, finding no proceeds of crime linked to him, no scheduled offence pending against him in the Guwahati case, and no usable material in the three FIRs the Enforcement Directorate added to its case.
Justice Namit Kumar held that a bare recital that an enquiry was not reasonably practicable, with no instance of witness pressure, cannot support dismissal under Article 311(2)(b), and that an appeal left undecided for four years cannot be consigned to record without a hearing.
Justice Sandeep V. Marne dismissed the writ petition of six Junior Engineers engaged from the waiting list of a 2005 recruitment, holding that 240 days of service cannot compel a municipal corporation to create posts and that the Supreme Court exceptions for long service need about ten years.
Justice Madhu Jain dismissed an appeal against a conviction for aggravated penetrative sexual assault of a three-year-old child, holding that paralysis did not make the act impossible, that a motive of tutoring was unproved, and that a seven-month delay in the FIR was explained.
A division bench set aside the 2023 notification creating an additional committee under the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, holding that a Tahsildar affidavit filed nearly three years later cannot show the State formed the required opinion, and told the State to frame criteria for choosing its chairmen.
Justice Madhu Jain upheld the conviction of a man who took a minor schoolgirl away in December 2014 and held her for over two months, but cut the sentence under Section 6 of the POCSO Act from 30 years of simple imprisonment to 15 years of rigorous imprisonment.
Acting on a letter from jail, Justice Milind N. Jadhav released an accused held since June 2019, whose trial had made no progress for four years, holding that such custody violates the Article 21 right to a speedy trial and expressing no view on the merits.
Justice Pravin S. Patil upheld a Rs 14,77,950 award with 12 per cent interest against Confidence Petroleum India Ltd for the death of a driver employed by its Gondia distributor, holding that the premises exception in Section 12(4) of the Employees Compensation Act must be read broadly in a beneficial law.
A division bench dismissed the Bihar Public Service Commission appeal and upheld a single judge order directing it to consider a Patna gynaecologist for an Assistant Professor post in the Scheduled Caste quota, holding that the 2017 advertisement never required a married woman to produce a certificate in her father's name.
Justice Shailendra Singh dismissed the appeal of a Samastipur man convicted of his wife's dowry death ten months into their marriage, holding that his claim of an accidental wall collapse was unproven and that the demand for Rs 80,000 and a motorcycle had continued until she died with four broken ribs.
Justice Madhu Jain acquitted a neighbour of aggravated penetrative sexual assault and rape of a girl aged under six, holding that the child testimony proved sexual touching but not insertion, and upheld his conviction and five-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault under Section 10 of the POCSO Act.
Justice Deepinder Singh Nalwa dismissed an appeal by Tata AIG seeking to deduct a mediclaim payout from a Rewari tribunal award, and raised the compensation for a 14-year-old student injured in 2014 from Rs 22.2 lakh to Rs 36,14,991 by assessing his income at the skilled minimum wage and adding future prospects and marriage prospects.
Justice Rajnesh Oswal held that the failure to videograph the evidence of an 11-year-old with a severe speech impairment, as the proviso to Section 119 of the Evidence Act requires, did not vitiate the trial absent prejudice, upheld the ten-year sentences of two men, and acquitted a third whom the girl herself had exonerated.
Justice Kuldeep Tiwari set aside two Haryana Revenue Department letters of 2019 and 2021 that treated the stamp duty and registration fee waiver for farmers buying replacement land as lapsed from 1 January 2014, along with every Section 47-A notice issued on their strength, across 113 writ petitions.
Justice Jiya Lal Bhardwaj quashed the 2011 seniority list of Assistant Engineers (Civil) in the Irrigation and Public Health Department that placed Public Service Commission recruits en bloc below promotees of 2008, holding that the State could not promote Junior Engineers on 31 December 2008 beyond their quota while the recommended recruits waited.
A division bench dismissed 21 writ petitions by schools, educational societies and nursing institutes, holding that the State could bar vehicles older than 15 years from student transport under its permit rule-making power without trespassing on the Centre's power to fix a vehicle's life, and that the cap binds every educational institution.
Justice Abhay S. Waghwase dismissed the appeal of a retired medical officer against her conviction under Section 304 Part II IPC and the MTP Act, holding that a team autopsy opinion of post-abortal haemorrhage from a uterine perforation could not be discarded merely because no foetal or placental tissue was found.
