High Court judgments and orders from across India, with the legal point made clear.
Justice Madhu Jain dismissed all five appeals, holding that the beat constable who knew the accused placed them at the front of an armed mob shouting maaro maaro, and that Section 149 does not require proof of who struck the fatal blow.
Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad held that a terminal operator drawing incidental benefit from a Special Railway Project does not turn the acquisition private, that Section 20-D gives landowners a hearing and not a veto, and that alignment is for the engineers, not the court.
Justice Ritesh Kumar held that an unsupplied anonymous complaint the inquiry officer never relied on, the refusal of a retired government servant as defence assistant, and a brief appellate affirmation did not vitiate a departmental inquiry that found nine of ten charges proved against a Power Grid Corporation employee in Patna.
Justice Sanjeev Narula found no perversity in the concurrent findings that three Rs 10 lakh cheques were issued under a 2016 settlement, rejected the Section 87 alteration plea on the third cheque, and reduced the sentence in view of Rs 21 lakh already deposited.
Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas affirmed the charge under Section 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Dr Narayan Prasad Pandey, holding that claims that the properties belonged to relatives or were bought with GPF loans are defences for trial, and that a thirteen-year investigation delay does not quash a charge.
Justice Ritesh Kumar held that Bihar could not swap the Rs 6500-10500 scale advertised in 2006 for fixed remuneration merely by calling the appointments contractual, but limited relief to the petitioners whose appointment letters carried no fixed-pay clause and to a Muzaffarpur accountant whose salary was cut from Rs 54,344 to Rs 16,105 a month.
Chief Justice M. S. Sonak and Justice Manoj Prasad held that an executive rule under Article 162 cannot dictate which lawyers statutory boards and corporations engage, upheld the practice thresholds and the bar on Law Research Officers appearing in court, and gave the State three months to reconsider a retainer that is below the minimum wage for highly skill
Justice Sanjeev Narula set aside the May 2015 Director of Education order that found Bindu Khanna a TGT from 1994 and a PGT from 2006, sent her arrears claim back on a narrower footing, closed the contempt case, and refused to order restitution of the half deposit released to her in 2017.
A Division Bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Bharat Parashar held that the arbitral tribunal answered the wrong question on consignment CJ-27 and made collection of returned jewellery a condition of recovery on CJ-1, severed those two rejections as patently illegal, and left the other three claims and a no-money result intact.
Justice Amit Mahajan upheld the Tribunal finding that Mool Chand Hospital abolished an Assistant Housekeeper post during a pending industrial dispute without a Section 9A notice, but held that the 2026 termination during the writ petition is a fresh cause of action outside Section 33.
Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Ranjan Sharma found that a promotion file ready for the Screening Committee was parked with a Please speak note while a parallel file carried the Chief Minister approval through in a single day, with no public interest shown and the notes of the Department itself pointing the other way.
A Division Bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Bharat Parashar held that consumption, not generation, is the taxable event under Section 113(2)(d) of the DMC Act, that Bye-Law 3(3) only names the person liable, and that a demand raised in 2021 for the years 2006 to 2018 was not barred by delay.
Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad held that eleven hearing dates do not amount to natural justice if the expenditure material the colleges filed was never actually examined, set aside the refund directions and sent the matter back to the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee with a three-month timeline.
Justice Ajay Digpaul refused to interfere with a Rent Controller order that declined to take on record withdrawn eviction petitions and disputed shop-for-rent banner photos, holding that other shops in the same premises are not the same property under the 2010 disclosure direction and that the material did not eclipse the landlords bona fide need.
Justice Sanjeev Narula held that a magistrate cannot infer abscondence from an unexecuted warrant when the CBI had the accused Australian address and never tried it, and that cheating and forgery are not Section 82(4) offences. The arrest warrants, the Red Notice and the extradition request stand.
Justice Inderjeet Singh and Justice Sandeep Taneja held that the May 2022 amendment to Rule 19 of the Collegiate Branch Rules cannot govern a recruitment advertised in November 2021, that Ajay Hasia does not control public employment, and that Dr Rachita Mathur concealed an earlier Jodhpur petition on the same point.
Justice Aryak Dutt found the 36-minute film titled How Modi and Adani Stole India to be a dramatised narrative asserting facts that no authority has found, and held that a repost after the Government had it disabled showed a want of good faith.
Justice Vinay Saraf at Indore held that the twelve-year limitation for executing a January 2000 award ran from the day the Section 34 objections were dismissed in 2002, not from the second appeal decided in 2019, because the doctrine of merger has no application to arbitral awards.
Justice Rakesh Kainthla held that testimony about two other girls the accused allegedly molested the same night was inadmissible under Sections 5 and 14 of the Evidence Act, and that the Sessions court relied on it to uphold the conviction.
Justice Alok Awasthi at Indore set aside a two-year sentence under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, holding that a complainant who already faced police action, a memory card with no Section 65B certificate and notes found under an open register did not prove demand or acceptance. The Lokayukt plea for leave to appeal the partial acquittal was d
Justice Yash Paul Bourney held that a landlord who spent about Rs 25 lakh refitting a Srinagar commercial block on the strength of a tenant's claimed university credentials and corporate clients had alleged more than a rent default, and that the dispute could not be written off as civil at the threshold.
Justice A.D. Maria Clete found the two four-letter marks phonetically similar yet held that pain-relief tablets bought at pharmacies and incubators bought by hospital procurement teams are too far apart for confusion, and dismissed the pharma company appeal against the Registrar.
Justice Rakesh Kainthla held that every occupant of a vehicle is prima facie in conscious possession of contraband found in it, that the Section 37 twin conditions were not met, and that the Supreme Court made its grounds-of-arrest ruling prospective.
Justice Rakesh Kainthla found that Firoz Khan should have been charged under Section 21, not Section 22, because dextropropoxyphene is not a scheduled psychotropic substance, but held the error caused no prejudice and that 202 capsules put him 0.2 grams over the small-quantity line.
