High Court judgments and orders from across India, with the legal point made clear.
Justice Rana Vikram Singh quashed a 2016 cognizance order against an advocate of 35 years standing who gave two title opinions in 2002 and 2003, holding that no ingredient of breach of trust, cheating, forgery or conspiracy was alleged against him and that a magistrate cannot take cognizance by filling a blank in a clerk-drafted order.
A Chief Justice-led bench held that a person named in material forwarded by the Enforcement Directorate has no right to be heard before a court directs an FIR, found the Minister had sixteen days to act and did nothing, and closed the contempt petition once the case was registered.
Justice A.D. Maria Clete held that a 2015 letter about serving a rejection order was not an acknowledgment of debt, that a 2019 promise to decide after permission from higher authorities was neither an acknowledgment nor a promise to pay, and that the machinery supplied to nine training institutes was defective.
Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad declined to pick between rival claimants to the secretaryship of an Ambikapur agriculture college society, and instead ordered the Registrar of Firms and Societies to finish its inquiry and rule, after which the State Bank of India must let the winners operate the account.
Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar held that the statutory ceiling in the MTP Act does not constrain a constitutional court, relied on the Medical Board finding that the minor was medically and psychologically fit, and ordered the State to pay for the procedure and preserve foetal tissue for the rape investigation.
Deciding twelve VAT writ petitions together, Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas held that the right of appeal, and the fee it carries, vests when the assessing officer first questions a return, and that the 2016 notification raising the Legal Benefit Fund levy from 0.5% to 1% has no retrospective reach.
Justice Rakesh Kainthla held that Section 50 of the NDPS Act had no role where nothing was taken from the body of the accused, that the driver and conductor were independent enough, and that three years for 28 grams was disproportionate when 250 grams is the commercial line.
A division bench of Justice A.S. Supehia and Justice Vaibhavi D. Nanavati agreed the refund claim was late on the ordinary statutory clock, but refused to let a summary uploaded two years after the appellate order revive a demand that had already been set aside.
A division bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Justice Ram Sharma set aside the NIA special court's refusal, finding that Ramjit Nagesiya was placed in the observing team rather than the attacking party, has been in custody since November 2020, and stands on the same footing as two co-accused already released.
Justice Purushottam Kumar Chintalapudi set aside a Narasaraopet executing court order that threw out a decree-holder because the mortgaged plot was assigned land, and sent the matter back for a reasoned finding on whether the house site can lawfully be sold.
Justice A.D. Maria Clete held that a ledger entry showing a Chennai leather firm received Rs 24.15 lakh from its own banker on 1 July 2016 could not extend limitation under Section 19 of the Limitation Act, and refused to lift the corporate veil against the tannery directors and their family.
Justice Pranjal Das put the Guwahati Municipal Corporation commissioner's 17 September 2026 demolition direction on hold until the returnable date, noting that the Guwahati Municipal Act requires notice and a chance to object before an unsafe building is pulled down, and that the writ papers showed no such notice.
Justice S.V. Pinto held that the Juvenile Justice Board and the Children Court treated the drugs as recovered from the boy when the FIR and chargesheet said nothing was found on him, and that none of the three bars to bail under Section 12 of the JJ Act was made out.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora found that the shop a Patna jeweller says he was cheated out of was later bought by a company his son once promoted and his family had been funding, and ordered him to pay Rs 50,000 in costs to each of the six people he had dragged in.
Justice Vinay Saraf upheld the dismissal, as time-barred, of a challenge by an Indore cloth trader to a Rs 2.27 lakh ex parte award, holding that once she obtained a certified copy from the arbitration board, the three-month limitation ran from that day despite the admitted failure to deliver a signed copy under Section 31(5).
Justice Ashish Shroti dismissed a Gram Panchayat second appeal pending since 2004, holding that under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act a sale of property worth under Rs 100 is complete on delivery of possession, and an unregistered deed written at the time does not take that title away.
A division bench of Justices M. Dhandapani and N. Dilipkumar held that a plan-marked channel or pathway running through private land is a public utility whose possessory rights shift to the Government while title stays with the landholder, and that a 2023 challenge to a rule amended in 2000 came two decades too late.
A division bench of Justices Mohit Kumar Shah and Sourendra Pandey acquitted a widow convicted of murdering a schoolboy in her marital family, finding the last-seen account changed with every telling, the bloodstained saree was never seized, no weapon was recovered, and the trial court put none of the incriminating circumstances to her.
Justice Prateek Jalan found that 71 swallowed capsules recovered in a hospital were never weighed or sampled on the spot, that the sealed containers changed hands 21 times before a formal seizure, and that the Section 37 bar must be read alongside Article 21.
Justice M. Nirmal Kumar set aside a three-year sentence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, holding that the complainant improved his story in the witness box, phone calls were never corroborated, and the sanction order recited a signal that no witness described.
Justice Neena Bansal Krishna upheld the dismissal of a specific performance suit over a 300 square yard plot, but held the seller had no right to forfeit the payments because the agreement named no forfeiture sum and he proved no loss.
A division bench of Justice A.S. Supehia and Justice Vaibhavi D. Nanavati held that the Finance Act 2023 proviso to Section 151 is prospective, so a Principal Commissioner had no power on 1 April 2022 to approve a Section 148 notice for assessment year 2018-19.
Justice Vinay Saraf referred a developer and the one brother who signed a 2.358-hectare development agreement to arbitration, but refused to rope in his two co-owner brothers, finding nothing on record, not even the invocation notice, that connected them to the deal.
A three-judge bench held that every first appeal under Section 96 CPC must be heard by the Bench under Order 41 Rule 11 before the respondent is noticed, and that the 1965 Appellate Side Rule directing the Registrar to issue notice forthwith stands repealed to that extent.
