High Court judgments and orders from across India, with the legal point made clear.
Justice S.V. Pinto dismissed the State appeal against the acquittal of two men accused of forcing a young woman to drink poison in a maize field in April 2014, finding material omissions in her complaint, no eyewitness to the act, a hospital history naming unknown persons, and an aluminium bottle that the police seized but never had analysed.
On remand from the Supreme Court, Justice Samit Gopal dismissed the appeals of the brother of a petrol pump employee who died after a glass door was smashed into his neck, holding that the Special Judge had granted bail on detailed orders after two prosecution witnesses were examined and that nothing showed misuse of liberty, tampering or non-cooperation.
Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal dismissed the Raipur Municipal Corporation petition under Article 227, holding that a Commercial Court can execute an arbitral award in a commercial dispute of specified value even if no Section 34 challenge was ever pending before it, and that a municipal body enjoys no blanket immunity from execution merely because its funds
Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt at Indore held that the Sub Divisional Officer misread a High Court direction to verify documents and instead opened a fresh Section 250 proceeding for occupants who were never found on the land at demarcation, dismissed five writ petitions by those occupants as an abuse of process, and told the revenue authorities to hand over the 0
Justice T.M. Nadaf at the Dharwad Bench quashed the Town Municipal Council auction notification of 6 October 2026 so far as 11 petitioners shops are concerned, holding that a municipality cannot sidestep the Public Premises Act by auctioning premises still occupied by its old licensees. The shopkeepers must clear their rent within two weeks or lose the order
Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal set aside a ten-year-old conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act, finding that the complainant had dealt only with another clerk, that the ACB told him whom to name in the complaint, and that an unclear tape recording with no voice identification and no Section 65-B certificate could not prove demand.
A Division Bench of Justice D. K. Singh and Justice H. Shanthi Bhushan held that the Special Land Acquisition Officer did weigh the Devanahalli alternative, that his Section 5A report binds nobody, and that a Section 6 declaration needs neither recited reasons nor a separate prior order. The Naganathapura landowners lose the 2025 quashing.
A Division Bench of Justice Avneesh Jhingan and Justice Shail Jain held that a go-ahead for mass production of stubs and templates was not a waiver of prototype inspection for transmission towers, that the award contradicted itself on when the 10 per cent advance fell due, and that the scrap-sale finding ignored the supplier having called the same goods stan
Justice Biraja Prasanna Satapathy quashed the 2019 order by which the bank rejected the claim of its temporary drivers, sweepers, messengers and IT workers, and gave it four months to frame a scheme on the lines of the one Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank adopted after its own staff won in the Andhra Pradesh High Court and the Supreme Court. Regularisation
Justice Sanjay Kumar Mishra harmonised two Full Bench rulings, held that the 15 clear days under Section 24(2)(c) of the Odisha Grama Panchayats Act run from the day the notice is posted, found a one-day shortfall in the notice to Tikhiri Sarpanch Chameli Ojha, rejected a 42-gram envelope as proof that the requisition and resolution were enclosed, and asked
A Division Bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Bhupesh Sharma held that the Electricity Act vests suitability in the Selection Committee headed by a retired High Court judge, that the Government may only pick one of the two names recommended, and that rejecting the panel for want of apex-scale seniority was arbitrary and a case of legal mala fide
Applying the Supreme Court test in Home Care Retail for an unsuccessful party seeking post-award relief under Section 9, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela held prima facie that the arbitrator branded a Rs 5.20 crore NBFC loan sanction letter a sham without a single question on its genuineness being put to the witness from the lender, and that the amended Specific Re
Answering a reference that split three single-judge rulings, Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Bhupesh Sharma held that the statutory bond form makes forfeiture the immediate consequence of the absence of the accused, that the show-cause notice belongs to the recovery stage, and that a chance to produce the accused is judicial discretion, not a right.
Justice Jasmeet Singh held that the six-month limitation in Section 53B of the Delhi Development Act does not reach a pure contract claim, that DDA could not sit on a 20-page final bill by calling it an abstract, and that every delay-related claim fell to the undertaking the contractor himself gave in his extension application that he would not claim any ext
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.
