A Sunday Sitting Puts Delhi's Protest Crackdown Under Article 32

Welcome to this week’s issue of the Indian Legal Brief (ILB). Here are the judgments, orders, regulatory changes, and developments that matter to your practice — without the noise.

A full five-day week, and then a sixth. On Saturday the Delhi Police shut forty-five Metro stations and detained thousands on their way to a protest against the Chief Election Commissioner, lawyers among them; on Sunday morning Justices Bagchi and Mohana sat specially, issued contempt notices to the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of Police, and dictated interim directions that put transport, movement, internet and assembly back to the legal default. Earlier in the week the Chief Justice’s bench issued notice on the petition to suspend the Chief Election Commissioner — “this protection is perhaps only for the President; it does not apply even to judges” — said in open court that it had never approved the Commission’s modified Form 6, and spent three days asking whether the Election Commission’s legislative-majority test can survive in the Shiv Sena matter. A seven-judge Constitution Bench convened on Tuesday and dispersed the same morning, its 2003 reference infructuous since 2004. Three Chief Justices became Supreme Court judges on Tuesday afternoon. Justices Nath and Mehta gave the Union two weeks to constitute a committee on pharmaceutical marketing; Justices Pardiwala and Chandran made Delhi’s two most senior officers personally answerable for women’s safety; a three-judge bench appointed an arbitrator over a “mother agreement” objection; and the Court closed a set of election petitions, tax classifications and criminal appeals we take in turn below. Outside Delhi, the Madhya Pradesh High Court struck down the State’s 27 per cent OBC quota after seven years, the Kerala and Punjab & Haryana High Courts turned Enforcement Directorate letters into FIRs against two Chief Ministers’ offices, the Delhi High Court closed six years of riot and Jamia litigation, and Patna held a pre-printed arrest memo to be no compliance with Article 22. The Reserve Bank raised rates for the first time since 2023 and then, on Saturday, rewrote the hedging rules; the GST Council voted to drop the power of arrest; and SEBI’s new Settlement Regulations started a ninety-day clock. Here’s what happened.

Supreme Court Highlights

Protest Crackdown: A Sunday Sitting Puts Delhi’s Detentions, Metro Closures and Barricades Under Article 32

Bench: Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana — October 11, 2026

The week ended with the Court sitting on a Sunday. The Cockroach Janta Party and several opposition parties had called a protest at Jantar Mantar for Saturday, 10 October, demanding the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner over the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls; the Delhi Police refused permission. On Friday, the Chief Justice’s bench — Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Bagchi and Mohana — heard a challenge to the announced closure of fifty-seven Metro stations and the cancellation of trains. “Everybody does not have a car,” the Chief Justice said. “This cannot be done.” And: “that does not mean you should use a hammer to kill a fly.” The authorities were told to reconsider the closures, publish the revised decision and issue fresh advisories, the Union was asked to consider whether Jantar Mantar should remain the designated venue, and a compliance report was called for Tuesday, 13 October — with the clarification that none of this was permission for the protest.

On Saturday, by the Solicitor General’s own account on Sunday, entry and exit were restricted at forty-five of the network’s 303 stations. Petitions filed overnight said that thousands had been detained — the party’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, on an aircraft after landing; opposition leaders including four former Chief Ministers; and lawyers, among them Senior Advocates Dinesh Dwivedi, Uttara Babbar and Shadan Farasat. Internet access was cut within a radius of the venue, and a Section 163 BNSS notice went up near the Supreme Court itself. The Supreme Court Bar Association and the Advocates-on-Record Association wrote to the Chief Justice, who conveyed to the authorities that the detained lawyers be released. By Sunday morning there were three sets of petitions before a special bench: a contempt petition by Shailendra Mani Tripathi against the Union Home Secretary, the Commissioner of Police and the Chairperson of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation for defying Friday’s order; a habeas corpus and contempt petition by Menaka Guruswamy on the detentions; and a contempt petition by Aman Prasad over police conduct. Kapil Sibal, K.K. Venugopal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and the President of the Advocates-on-Record Association also appeared. The Solicitor General said 4,157 train trips had run on Saturday, that most of those picked up around 2 pm had been released by about 6 pm, that every station was now open and the internet restored, and that the habeas prayer “may perhaps not survive.”

“We are duty-bound under Article 32 to protect and enforce fundamental rights.”

The bench issued notice on the contempt petitions and called for show-cause affidavits and a compliance report on Friday’s order, and dictated interim directions to run meanwhile: Metro and rail services to function normally unless regulation is required for public order within Article 19(2); free movement of people and traffic to be permitted subject to traffic regulation; the need for barricades to be reviewed forthwith; internet facilities to remain undisturbed as per law, without curtailing powers under the IT Act; no detention save by procedure established by law, particularly beyond the area under restriction; peaceful assembly outside the Section 163 zone to be permitted in accordance with law; and the Section 163 notice board near the Court to come down so that citizens and lawyers can reach it. The State is to address three things in the habeas petitions — the circumstances, the manner and the justification of each detention. “Police officers do not have an independent right in maintenance of law and order over and above the State’s submission,” Justice Bagchi said; “no advocate should in any manner be hindered in discharging their professional duties”; and, declining to go further on a Sunday, “we do not wish to add to the cauldron of suspicion and concern.” Everything is tagged for Tuesday, 13 October.

Why it matters: The Court has converted a protest-policing dispute into a contempt and habeas docket with the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of Police as respondents, and has written down, as interim directions, the propositions that transport, movement, internet and assembly are the default and restriction the exception that must be justified under Article 19(2). Tuesday’s hearing will test whether the Court holds that line against the State’s compliance affidavit — and the detention of senior counsel on their way to the Court is now itself on the record.

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Elections: Notice on the Plea to Suspend the Chief Election Commissioner, and a Form 6 the Court Says It Never Approved

Bench: Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana — October 5, 7 and 9, 2026

Rakesh Kumar Singh’s Article 32 petition, argued by Vikas Singh, alleges some fourteen decisions taken by the Chief Election Commissioner over the recorded objections of the two Election Commissioners and seeks his suspension. On Monday the bench declined to suspend him ex parte — “Who will conduct the elections?” — but issued notice to the Union, the Commission, the Chief Election Commissioner, both Election Commissioners, a Deputy Election Commissioner and the Commission’s Director General (IT). The exchange on Section 16 of the 2023 Act, which protects the Commissioners from legal proceedings for acts in office, will be quoted: “This protection is perhaps only for the President,” Justice Bagchi said. “It does not apply even to judges.” The Chief Justice: “There is a mandatory law, and we expect them to follow it. If there is any violation, we will undo.” In the same hearing the bench contradicted the Commission’s 26 September press note on the revised Form 6 — “Any modified Form 6 has not been approved by us” — and said it would examine the record to see who had modified it.

On Wednesday, Gopal Sankaranarayanan mentioned an application to recall the 23 September split verdict on the Election Commissioners Act, on the ground that Justice Satish Chandra Sharma’s son has been the Commission’s standing counsel before the Madhya Pradesh High Court since July 2024; the Chief Justice said, “We’ll examine and then we’ll take a call on what to do.” A curative petition has also been filed in a connected matter. The same morning the Chief Justice and Justice Mohana — Justice Bagchi having recused on Monday, having appeared in the Nandigram cases at the Bar — dismissed West Bengal’s challenge to Milan Pradhan’s interim bail: the High Court’s object was to let him contest and attend the count, and “one should not feel that he has been unfairly denied an opportunity to contest the election.” On Friday the bench heard five voters deleted in the West Bengal revision who want their appeals decided before the Kolkata and Howrah municipal polls; the Commission’s counsel said that of about a lakh of appeals decided, 93 per cent had restored the voter; the Chief Justice indicated that inclusion appeals should be prioritised and would try to list the matter on 16 October. Also on Friday the bench held that the revision cannot delay Andhra Pradesh’s local body polls — if the Commission’s final roll is published before the State Election Commission’s notification it must be used, otherwise the existing rolls — and dismissed, on locus, a non-legislator’s challenge to the Tamil Nadu Speaker dropping Tenth Schedule proceedings against twenty-one AIADMK MLAs. Justices Datta and Nagu, the same day, refused Andhra Pradesh special leave against the High Court’s quashing of its 34 per cent backward-class quota in local bodies: “Very reasonable approach by the High Court.”

Why it matters: The Commission is now a respondent on its own internal decision-making, with the Court having said in open court that a statutory immunity broader than a judge’s will not stop it from undoing decisions that were not taken as the law requires. Every Commission order since the 2023 Act that was not unanimous is potentially in play, and the Form 6 finding puts the Commission’s public statements on the record against the Court’s.

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Shiv Sena: “A Death Sentence on the Party” — the Court Questions the Legislative-Majority Test

Bench: Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana — October 6–8, 2026

The Sunil Prabhu petitions against the Election Commission’s 2023 allotment of the Shiv Sena name and bow-and-arrow symbol to the Eknath Shinde faction were heard across three days, with Neeraj Kishan Kaul for Shinde. Justice Bagchi pressed the sequencing problem on Tuesday: if the Court reverses the Speaker’s disqualification decision, what happens to a symbol order built on the same legislative majority? A reserved symbol, he suggested, is a “continuing right,” and the Commission’s allotment may need revisiting if the Speaker’s decision is found erroneous. On Wednesday he turned to the test itself: “If none of these tests appear to be strong, then what else? Why give a prize to one? Cancel it.” Freezing a symbol, he said, is “the rarest of rare situations, because we are pronouncing a death sentence on the party.” On Thursday Kaul argued that the Commission had only the 2011 party constitution on record and, having found the Shinde faction to be the party, was bound to allot the symbol. The matter is part-heard; the Commission’s side is next.

Why it matters: Three years after Subhash Desai left the legislative-majority test standing while disapproving the Governor’s conduct, the Court is asking whether the test can be applied at all when the majority that supplies it is itself under challenge. The answer will govern the Trinamool dispute the same bench put on a four-month clock a fortnight ago.

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Privileges: The Seven-Judge Reference Closes in a Morning, Infructuous Since 2004

Bench: Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Aravind Kumar, Prashant Kumar Mishra, Joymalya Bagchi, Vipul M. Pancholi, Shree Chandrashekhar and V. Mohana — October 6, 2026

The 2003 reference in N. Ravi v. Speaker, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly — on how Articles 19(1)(a) and 21 sit with the privileges in Article 194, arising from the Assembly’s resolution sentencing journalists of The Hindu to imprisonment — had been listed for two weeks of argument from Tuesday. It lasted a morning. On Monday, Raju Ramachandran for the State disclosed that the Assembly had revoked the resolution in 2004, a fact that had escaped notice when the reference was made. On Tuesday the seven-judge bench disposed of the reference as infructuous. The Solicitor General said the issue was academic; Kapil Sibal said the misuse of privileges remained of “great significance.” The Chief Justice declined to undertake a purely academic exercise — “If the issue survives, we will decide. If it doesn’t, we can wait for a proper opportunity” — left the questions of law open, and proposed to discharge the bench so that its time could go to other part-heard matters.

Why it matters: The privileges question stays where it was in 2003, and the Court has shown that it will not keep a Constitution Bench on a dead dispute to produce an advisory ruling. The interveners who had lined up — Kunal Kamra among them — will need a live case.

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Pharma Marketing: Judicial Restraint “Cannot Mean Indifference” — the Union Must Constitute a Committee in Two Weeks

Bench: Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta — October 8, 2026

The Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives Associations of India has been before the Court since 2021 asking that the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices be given statutory force — that the inducements to doctors which Apex Laboratories (2022) made non-deductible for the company be made unlawful for the company as well. In Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives Associations of India v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 1097, the Court declined to write the code into law itself or to lay down its own guidelines — the choice of a statutory framework is for the executive and the legislature — but found that the voluntary framework had “not proved entirely effective” and that efficacy depends on enforcement, not on the existence of norms.

“Judicial restraint cannot be understood as requiring this Court to remain indifferent.”

Exercising Articles 32 and 142, the Court directed the Union to constitute a committee within two weeks to examine unethical pharmaceutical marketing holistically, hear the petitioners, intervenors and stakeholders, and report within two months of its first meeting; the Union is then to take a reasoned decision having regard to Article 21 and file a compliance affidavit. The matter is listed on 29 January 2027.

Why it matters: The asymmetry that has defined this field — a doctor who takes the gift faces the Medical Council, the company that gives it faces nothing but a tax disallowance — is now before a government committee on a court-fixed timetable, with the Court retaining seisin. It sits alongside the same bench’s 16 per cent retail-margin question in the drug pricing matter, which returns on Monday.

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Public Safety: “Preventive Policing Must Become an Institutional Practice” — the Delhi-NCR Suo Motu Returns

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — October 5, 2026

A week after taking suo motu cognisance of the three Delhi-NCR rape cases, the Court heard the Solicitor General, three Joint Commissioners and the amicus, Liz Mathew, and issued a second round of directions in In Re: Recent Rape Incidents in Delhi NCR, 2026 INSC 1096. Beat patrolling is to be enhanced around schools, colleges, coaching centres and paying-guest accommodation; every driver and helper of a bus, app cab or auto is to be verified, with names and photographs displayed inside the vehicle and the transport authorities responsible; the vehicle-tracking directions in S. Rajaseekaran are to be implemented; heavy vehicles habitually parked to create blind spots are to be removed; unlicensed liquor outlets and loitering outside them are to be acted on; the SOS response protocol is to be placed on record; the Shishtachar squads are to file weekly diaries for three months; and the Commissioner of Police and the Chief Secretary are to report jointly on whether control-room “war rooms” exist — and are “personally answerable.” Notice went to the Home Ministry and the Delhi Transport Department.

“Public safety, therefore, cannot be viewed solely through the prism of a response to a crime after it has occurred.”

The Court also cautioned that preventive policing cannot justify arbitrary exercise of police power. A consolidated district-wise status report is due by 6 November; the matter returns on 16 November.

Why it matters: The docket has moved from audit to operational direction — driver verification and in-vehicle identification are now court orders, not advisories — and the two most senior officers in the city have been made personally answerable for compliance. Transport operators and aggregators in Delhi have a month to show the paper trail.

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Election Petitions: “By” Means the Petitioner — a Petition Presented by Counsel Is No Petition — Paneerselvam

Bench: Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar — October 7, 2026

The petitioner challenged the return of the DMK’s S. Regupathy from Thirumayam in the 2026 Tamil Nadu election, alleging a false Form 26 declaration of his spouse’s assets. The petition was presented at the Madras High Court Registry on 16 June 2026 by his counsel; the security deposit receipt was in counsel’s name. Rule 7 of the High Court’s Election Petitions Rules, 1967 requires personal presentation, and the High Court dismissed the petition in July. In V. Pon. Paneerselvam v. S. Regupathy, 2026 INSC 1092, the Supreme Court dismissed the special leave petition.

Section 81(1) of the Representation of the People Act says an election petition may be presented “by any candidate … or any elector”; Section 86(1) compels dismissal for non-compliance; and the 1966 amendment deliberately deleted the former Section 81(2), which had allowed presentation by an authorised person or by post. The requirement is mandatory and the defect incurable. Sheo Sadan Singh (1969), where the petitioner stood beside the clerk who handed over the papers, was distinguished — here a security pass and CCTV showed only that the petitioner was somewhere in the premises. Rule 7 is a valid incident of the High Court’s jurisdiction.

“An election petition is a serious proceeding which may result in the vitiation of an electoral process.”

Why it matters: The forty-five-day window does not forgive this. Election counsel in every High Court with a personal-presentation rule should walk the client to the Registry and put the deposit receipt in the client’s name; a 2026 petition has now been lost on nothing else.

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Arbitration: A “Mother Agreement” Is No Reason to Refuse a Reference — Shubham Equipment

Bench: Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana — October 8, 2026

A Thane company and a Korean water-treatment company had three contracts: a 2019 Licence Agreement seated in Seoul under Korean law, a 2021 Joint Venture Agreement seated in Mumbai, and a 2023 Memorandum of Understanding, also seated in Mumbai. The Indian party terminated the joint venture alleging a breach of the non-compete through the incorporation of a rival, claimed ₹20 crore and a further ₹4.24 crore, and filed two Section 11 petitions. The Korean party said the Licence Agreement was the “mother agreement” whose Seoul clause governed everything, and that a non-signatory could not be bound. In Shubham Equipment Pvt. Ltd. v. Rothwell Water Company Ltd., 2026 INSC 1098, a three-judge bench appointed a sole arbitrator.

Under Section 11(6-A) the referral court’s inquiry is confined to the prima facie existence of an arbitration agreement. The three agreements prima facie operate in different fields and each carries an entire-agreement clause; disputes arising exclusively under the joint venture and the memorandum go to their own Mumbai-seated clauses. That some claims might overlap with the Licence Agreement “cannot constitute a ground to refuse a reference at the threshold” — that is the arbitrator’s question. The non-signatory point was left open. Justice Ramesh Dhanuka, former Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, was appointed sole arbitrator.

“Once the prima facie existence of an arbitration agreement is adduced before the Referral Court, it ought to appoint an arbitrator and refer the parties to arbitration.”

Why it matters: The post-Interplay minimalism at the Section 11 stage now has a three-judge, Chief Justice-authored application to multi-contract, multi-seat structures. Respondents who want to argue that one contract’s dispute-resolution clause swallows the rest will argue it before the tribunal, not the referral court.

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Tax: Classify the Good in the Form It Is Sold, and Read a Subsidy for Its Operative Purpose

Bench: Justices Manmohan and Arun Palli (Cadila); Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar (Mepco) — October 5 and 7, 2026

Two revenue appeals, two tests restated. In Additional Commissioner, Commercial Tax v. Cadila Health Care Ltd., 2026 INSC 1078, Madhya Pradesh wanted to tax “GRD Powder” and “GRD Mix” at 10 per cent as “non-alcoholic drinks and beverages” because the pack tells the consumer to mix the powder with milk or water. The Court dismissed the appeals: the taxable event is the sale, and classification turns on the form of the good at that moment, not on what the buyer does with it afterwards; “beverages” in the entry sits ejusdem generis with syrups, cordials and juices — liquids — and a powder is not one. Pioma Industries rested on an express deeming provision for powders that this statute lacks.

“The tax authorities are bound to levy tax based on the form of the good at the time of sale.”

In Mepco Industries Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income Tax, Madurai, 2026 INSC 1090, a potassium chlorate manufacturer treated ₹16.2 lakh of electricity subsidy under Pondicherry’s power-subsidy scheme as a capital receipt. Four authorities had held it revenue, and the Supreme Court agreed, applying the Sahney Steel and Ponni Sugars purpose test: the purpose is read from the scheme as a whole, not from a preamble about industrialisation; a subsidy quantified as a percentage of actual energy charges for five years from the start of production meets an operating cost, and nothing earmarked it for capital assets. Chaphalkar Brothers was distinguished.

“It is this immediate and operative purpose of the financial assistance that determines its character in the hands of the assessee.”

Why it matters: Cadila is a clean point-of-sale rule for every “mix”, premix and concentrate dispute, including the GST rate-schedule fights that have replaced it. Mepco is the current word on State industrial incentives: a scheme’s stated policy goal will not make an operating subsidy capital.

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Corruption: A Served Sentence Does Not Make the Appeal Academic, and a Recovery Does Not Prove a Demand — Ajit Kumar

Bench: Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar — October 5, 2026

An assistant in a district education office in Jharkhand was trapped in 2010 on a school orderly’s complaint that he had demanded ₹5,000 to release a salary; the notes were recovered from under a pillow at his house and the phenolphthalein test was positive. He was convicted in 2021 under Sections 7 and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and sentenced to four years; the High Court affirmed in 2022. By the time the appeal reached the Supreme Court he had served the sentence and paid the fine, and the State argued the appeal was academic. In Ajit Kumar v. State of Jharkhand, 2026 INSC 1084, the Court heard it, and acquitted him.

No witness had seen the demand or the handover; the trap team and the investigating officer contradicted each other on where the arrest took place; and the case rested on the complainant’s uncorroborated word. Applying Neeraj Dutta, demand is a fact in issue to be proved, and “mere recovery of tainted money, by itself, is insufficient to establish the charges against an accused under the PC Act.”

“Ajit Kumar is thus cleared of the said charges.”

Why it matters: The right to clear one’s name survives the sentence, and the Neeraj Dutta standard applies with full force to trap cases with a positive chemical test — the recovery proves the money was there, not that it was demanded.

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Quashing: Civil Disputes “Colourised” Into Crime, and Omnibus 498A Allegations Against In-Laws

Bench: Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and N. Kotiswar Singh (Sudha Rakesh); Justices N. Kotiswar Singh and N.V. Anjaria (P v. West Bengal) — October 5, 2026

Two Monday quashings on the same theme. In Sudha Rakesh v. State of Karnataka, 2026 INSC 1086, landowners acting through the petitioner as their power-of-attorney holder had agreed in 2012 to sell land near Bengaluru to a buyer who never completed; the land was sold to a third party in 2016; the buyer sued for specific performance and also lodged a cheating FIR. The High Court quashed the FIR against the landowners in 2017 but in 2022 refused to quash it against the attorney, because she had received the money and signed the deed. The Supreme Court called that “a grave” error: her culpability could not exceed that of the principals whose deed it was; deception must exist when the money changes hands, and a later sale cannot retrospectively make 2012 a cheating; Section 423 is not attracted where there is no false recital of consideration.

“The tendency of litigants to colourize civil disputes into criminal offences is an open secret in the present times.”

In P v. State of West Bengal, 2026 INSC 1087, a husband’s parents faced Sections 498A, 406 and 506 and the Dowry Prohibition Act on a complaint lodged after the wife left in November 2023; the Calcutta High Court had quashed only the hurt charge and sent the rest to trial. The Supreme Court quashed the FIR against the in-laws in full: the allegations were general, attributed no overt or specific act to either of them, and the chargesheet contained no independent material. The case against the husband, and any civil remedy, is untouched.

Why it matters: The attorney point is new and useful — an agent cannot be left holding a criminal case after the principals are cleared on the same facts — and the 498A ruling adds that an High Court which quashes part of an omnibus FIR against relatives has not finished the job Bhajan Lal requires.

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Service Law: A Clear Rule Is Not Relaxed for Marks, and a Vague Advertisement Is Read for the Candidate

Bench: Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M. Pancholi (Naik); Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar (Hakak) — October 5 and 6, 2026

Two recruitment appeals that bracket the rule. In Santosh B. Naik v. State of Goa, 2026 INSC 1089, the Recruitment Rules for a Vocational Instructor (Plumber) required a pass in the 10th standard “under 10+2 system of education.” The candidate who topped the written test, 96 to 94, held a National Institute of Open Schooling certificate that the Goa Board treats as equivalent to the 10th; the Selection Committee found him ineligible and the High Court reversed. The Supreme Court set his appointment aside: the words “under 10+2 system” are integral and cannot be ignored, general recognition of open schooling does not amend a specific eligibility clause without an equivalence provision, higher marks cannot cure ineligibility, and judicial review cannot add to or alter an essential qualification. “Comparative merit can be considered only amongst candidates who satisfy the prescribed eligibility conditions.”

In Irfan Ahmad Hakak v. Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, 2026 INSC 1104, a 2014 advertisement for a Librarian required a Master’s in library science and three years’ experience, without saying what kind or at what level. The first wait-listed candidate’s experience as Assistant Librarian overlapped with his degree course; he was refused in 2020; the Tribunal ruled for him and the High Court reversed. The Supreme Court restored the Tribunal’s direction to offer him the post: an advertisement that does not specify the nature of the experience is vague, and “any ambiguity or vagueness in the prescribed qualification should be construed to the benefit of the candidate”; the High Court erred in expanding the case into an eligibility inquiry the employer had never raised.

Why it matters: Together the two judgments give recruitment counsel both edges of the blade: a specific textual condition will be enforced against the better candidate, and a loosely drafted one will be read against the employer who drafted it.

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Hindu Succession: A Widow’s Limited Bhumidhari Estate Became Absolute in 1956 — Sultan Singh

Bench: Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria — October 9, 2026

Khajano, a Hindu widow in Bhawana village in Delhi, inherited a limited interest from her husband and son, was recorded as Bhumidhar under the Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954, and died in 1973. Her sons by a second marriage sought mutation; the male lineal descendants of the earlier holder objected under Section 50 of the Act, which routes a female’s limited estate back to the last male holder’s line. In Sultan Singh (D) through LRs v. Financial Commissioner, Government of NCT of Delhi, 2026 INSC 1107, the Court held that Section 14(1) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — in force at her death — had converted her limited estate into an absolute one, the Explanation’s words “by inheritance … or in any other manner whatsoever” being wide enough to take in bhumidhari rights. Personal law is applied as it stands at the date of death; succession therefore ran through the 1954 Act’s own table for a female Bhumidhar’s own heirs, not through Section 50.

“Legislation looks to the future, not to the past. It is progressive, not retrogressive.”

Why it matters: Mutation disputes over pre-1956 female holdings in Delhi’s villages have turned for decades on whether the land-reform code displaces Section 14(1). It does not: the widow’s estate enlarged in 1956, and her heirs are her heirs.

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Criminal Law: Refusing to Marry Is Not Abetment, and a Search-Rule Breach Weakens a Seizure Without Voiding It

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran (Chittibarika); Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar (Dongardive) — October 5 and 8, 2026

In Chittibarika Chandra Shekar v. State of Telangana (order of 5 October), six accused faced Section 306 IPC after a woman in a live-in relationship took her life when her partner declined to marry her. The Court quashed the case: a refusal to marry, even one followed by suicide, is not by itself abetment — “the refusal to marry was not with an intention to drive the woman to death by suicide” — and the mens rea Section 107 requires was absent on the complaint’s own terms.

In Ramkrushna Prahllad Dongardive v. State of Maharashtra, 2026 INSC 1099, a cashier-cum-counter clerk in the Telephone Department at Aurangabad was acquitted of criminal breach of trust over 1993 collections and then convicted by the High Court on documents seized from his house — though both panch witnesses turned hostile and no seizure list was supplied. The Supreme Court restored the acquittal. Entrustment was unproved because the cash book, daily registers and audit records were never produced despite request; a seizure cannot be proved on the investigating officer’s word alone where Sections 100(4) and 100(7) CrPC were breached; the High Court had wrongly shifted the burden to the accused; and he had been sentenced without a hearing on sentence. The breach of Section 100 is an irregularity, not a nullity — but it counts.

“Non-compliance of the requirements of Section 100 of the Code by itself would not vitiate a seizure.”

Why it matters: Chittibarika closes a line of Section 306 prosecutions that treat the end of a relationship as instigation. Dongardive fixes the consequence of a search-procedure lapse at the evidentiary level — the seizure stands, but it needs corroboration the officer’s deposition alone cannot supply, and in an appeal against acquittal that gap is usually fatal.

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Other Notable SC Orders This Week

• Robbery needs proof of robbery — Appa v. State of Maharashtra, 2026 INSC 1091 (Mishra and Chandrashekhar JJ, October 7) — a 1993 farmhouse attack; identification upheld, but with no recovery and nothing linking the appellant to the jewellery, the Section 394 conviction was altered to Section 325 (a tooth knocked out is grievous hurt) and the sentence reduced to the ten months undergone.
• Attempt to murder is about intent, not the wound — Abhishek v. State of Rajasthan, 2026 INSC 1093 (Aravind Kumar and Pancholi JJ, October 7) — the High Court had deleted a Section 307 charge in revision because axe injuries were on non-vital parts; restored: the test is intention or knowledge inferred from the weapon, the persistence and the manner, there is no mini-trial at framing, and Section 216 CrPC remains available later.
• Eligibility is tested at appointment — State of Bihar v. Nandeshwar Kumar, 2026 INSC 1094 (Datta and Nagu JJ, October 7) — a teacher appointed in 2007 on a 1995 certificate from an institution the NCTE never recognised was ineligible under the 2006 Rules; the Patna High Court’s reinstatement set aside.
• The 30 June retiree’s increment, for regularised daily wagers — Chhaganbhai Kohyabhai Pateliya v. State of Gujarat, 2026 INSC 1088 (Sanjay Kumar and Sachdeva JJ, October 6) — irrigation workers made permanent under a 1988 Resolution get the increment that fell due the day after retirement for pension, on Mundinamani and Siddaraj; arrears from three years before the writ, payment in thirty days or 6 per cent interest.
• Seniority runs from regularisation — M. Prema v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2026 INSC 1105 (Bhatti and Chandrashekhar JJ, October 9) — 1983 Public Service Commission direct recruits rank above special-absorption and compassionate appointees; stop-gap service before regularisation confers no seniority over regularly selected officers.
• A discharge from 1999 stays — Rajnikant Dudhabhai Parmar v. State of Gujarat, 2026 INSC 1101 (Datta and Nagu JJ, October 5) — the Gujarat High Court had revived a prosecution of a jail sipahi by faulting the 1999 Sessions Court for ignoring a 2010 precedent; a court cannot be faulted for not following a judgment that did not exist, and a trial twenty-seven years on is not in the interest of justice.
• Land acquisition — JK Paper Ltd. v. Bipinchandra Natwarlal Shah, 2026 INSC 1095 and Meerut Development Authority v. Parmeshwar Dayal, 2026 INSC 1106 (Datta and Nagu JJ, October 7 and 8) — in the first, the Court declined to find facts on possession under Article 136, continued the stay for two months against a further ₹15 crore deposit, and barred the company from arguing at the appellate stage a waterlogging point it had known since 2005; in the second, the full enhanced compensation is to be deposited with the Allahabad High Court, 8.33 per cent released, and the roster bench asked “to make a sincere endeavour” to decide first appeals pending since a coordinate bench asked for priority in April.
• POCSO acquittal — Charming Rupon v. State of Meghalaya, 2026 INSC 1102 (Nath and Mehta JJ, October 9) — a ten-year sentence under Section 6 set aside: the child and her cousin did not identify the accused in court, the FIR came ten days late, the teacher who was the crucial witness was never examined.
• Bench clerks are not law clerks (October 6) — the Chief Justice’s bench dismissed a district-court bench clerk’s plea to count her service toward the one-year practice requirement for judicial service; “Law clerks have a unique role to play and cannot be equated with bench clerks,” Justice Bagchi said.
• Lakhimpur Kheri (October 5) — the Chief Justice’s bench placed the Allahabad High Court’s vigilance report on the trial judge before the High Court’s Chief Justice for an appropriate decision, with no finding against the judge; Uttar Pradesh said a new Special Public Prosecutor with sixteen years’ standing had been proposed, which Prashant Bhushan disputed.
• Great Nicobar (October 5) — the Chief Justice’s bench declined the Union’s challenge to the Calcutta High Court’s ruling that the Forest Rights Act PIL is maintainable; the High Court proceeds on 25–26 November. Justice Bagchi: preservation of culture is a constitutionally protected right.
• Execution of decrees (October 7) — Justices Pardiwala and Chandran flagged the Delhi High Court’s Division Bench ruling in Delhi Chemicals (2021) as impeding execution of money decrees; part-heard, orders after fresh pendency data.
• A “cryptic and casual” reduction (October 8) — the same bench issued notice to an accused whose murder conviction the Madhya Pradesh High Court had reduced to Section 304 Part II, to show cause why it should not be restored; returnable 18 November.
• Fake accident claims (October 9) — Justices Amanullah and Varale directed the Union and the States to interlink the VAHAN, SARATHI, eDAR and insurance-bureau portals within four weeks, with contempt notices to insurer heads; listed 27 November.
• Jantar Mantar FIRs (October 9) — the Chief Justice’s bench dismissed a PIL for an independent probe into the July student-protest FIRs as an attempt to reopen the 1 September Article 142 order; the Court did not want students “entangled” in prolonged proceedings.
• Also this week — judgment reserved on whether a High Court can be approached directly for anticipatory bail (October 8) and on the Delhi High Court’s dilution of law-student attendance norms (October 6); notice on vacancies in State Human Rights Commissions (October 5) and in electricity regulatory commissions in fifteen States and Jammu and Kashmir (October 9); the Union told to sensitise fishermen against crossing into Sri Lankan waters (October 6); trial in Ramesh Bidhuri’s criminal defamation cases against TV Today stayed (October 9); Justice Nagu recused from Punjab’s plea against the CBI probe into the Chief Minister’s office (October 9).

Insolvency & Corporate

IBC: After a 99 Per Cent Haircut, the Creditor May Set Off Its Whole Claim When the Resolution Applicant Sues on the Same Contract — Modern Asset

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — October 8, 2026

A ₹133.68 crore construction contract of 2018 carried an arbitration clause. The contractor went into insolvency in December 2019; the counterparty’s claim of ₹12.26 crore was admitted and paid at 0.72 per cent — ₹8.82 lakh — under a plan approved in April 2022. The successful resolution applicant was the company’s own erstwhile promoters. They then invoked the arbitration clause against the creditor to recover sums they said the company was owed under the same contract, and the Karnataka High Court appointed a tribunal, leaving the plan’s effect to the arbitrator. In Modern Asset v. KNK Construction Pvt. Ltd., 2026 INSC 1103, the Supreme Court upheld the appointment but rewrote its terms.

The clean slate under Section 31 binds the resolution applicant as much as anyone, and it does not stop the applicant pursuing the company’s own receivables; the arbitration clause survives for that purpose. But the Court refused to leave the clean-slate question to the arbitrator — it is settled law — and, following Ujaas Energy, directed that the creditor may plead a counterclaim for the sole purpose of set-off, up to the full ₹12.26 crore, against whatever is found due to the applicant. No affirmative recovery on the extinguished claim, even if the applicant’s own claim fails entirely. Three things drove the equity: the size of the haircut, promoters returning as applicant, and both claims arising from one contract.

“The SRA is deemed to have accepted the entire claim of the appellant/OC.”

Why it matters: Tata Steel v. Varsha said admitted claims abate on approval; this says that when the resolution applicant itself sues on the contract, the abated claim comes back as a shield at its pre-haircut figure. Counsel defending arbitrations started by a resolution applicant should plead set-off expressly and quantify it at the full admitted amount.

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NCLAT: Elect Within Thirty Days or Stay Inside the Liquidation, and a Going-Concern Sale Dates From the Order

Bench: Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma, Arun Baroka and Indevar Pandey (Tata Capital); Justice Mohd. Faiz Alam Khan and Naresh Salecha (Chamber Constructions) — October 6 and 8, 2026

In Tata Capital Ltd. v. Sanjay Mahajan the secured creditor’s Form D at the start of liquidation showed no possession and no relinquishment; it attended and voted in the stakeholders’ consultation committee four months later; and only in February 2025, some six months in, did it email its election to realise the security outside the liquidation under Section 52. The Appellate Tribunal held that Regulation 21A means what it says: a secured creditor that does not communicate its decision within thirty days of the liquidation commencement date waives the right to stand outside, and cannot participate in the liquidation while keeping the assets as a fallback if revival fails.

In Debashis Nanda v. Gokul Anil Kumar (Chamber Constructions), the question was when a going-concern sale “commences” for the savings clause of the October 2025 amendment that deleted Regulation 32A. The Appellate Tribunal held it commences on the date of the liquidation order directing that route — here February 2024 — not on issue of an auction notice, following SBI v. Garden Court Distilleries; the ninety-day period is directory and extendable. The Mumbai bench’s July refusal was set aside, and the parties return on 26 October. The Ahmedabad bench, in a matter reported the same week, went the other way and ordered a piecemeal sale — a conflict that will need the Principal Bench or the Supreme Court.

Why it matters: Liquidators have a clear answer to secured creditors who vote in the committee and later claim their security back, and going-concern sales ordered before October 2025 can proceed under the old regime — in Delhi, at least, until the Ahmedabad view is reconciled.

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Other Notable Insolvency Orders

• A record quarter (October 7) — the National Company Law Tribunal’s press release reports 107 resolution plans approved in July–September, worth about ₹11,071 crore, the highest for any second quarter; Mumbai led with 35; 335 plans await approval and the Tribunal has 48 members against 62 sanctioned. Two days later (order of October 9) the Mumbai bench suspended Court VI from 13 October for want of members and redistributed its board across Courts I–V.
• Personal guarantor’s estate — Manju Sirohi v. Assets Care & Reconstruction Enterprise (Khan J and Salecha, October 7) — the test is statutory vesting in the bankruptcy trustee, not the bankrupt’s knowledge of the moratorium; post-commencement bank credits and jewellery sale proceeds are estate property, and the exclusion for personal ornaments does not cover money; the order to return ₹19.17 lakh upheld.
• No second CIRP for a single project — Earth Towne (Khan J and Salecha, October 7) — after the Supreme Court restored the Earth Infrastructures plan in May and lifted the veil over its project SPVs, a homebuyers’ Section 7 admission against one SPV was set aside: no separate default survived, and a parallel CIRP would fragment a single-project resolution; remedy is enforcement of the restored plan.
• Excluding time is not modifying the plan — Krystal Stone Exports (October 9) — the Appellate Tribunal refused to recall its July order excluding a period of unauthorised occupation from the resolution applicant’s ninety-day payment timeline; a shareholder-guarantor had no standing to seek it.
• IBBI discipline (October 6) — authorisation for assignment of insolvency professional Jitendra Palande suspended for six months for admitting and then revising a claim without due diligence, failing to inform the creditor and the committee of the reduced voting share, and holding no stakeholders’ meeting in 2024. No regulation or circular issued this week; the personal-guarantor safeguards proposed in September remain unnotified.
• Still reserved — the Committee of Creditors’ power to withdraw an approved plan (Bank of India v. Kamal Pasha, Pardiwala and Chandran JJ, reserved 30 September). No report of the lenders’ appeal in the Subhash Chandra insolvency, listed 7 October, could be found; Chandra’s own appeals are listed 29–30 October.

From the High Courts

Delhi Riots: Six Years of Writ Petitions End — No FIRs Against Politicians, No SIT, “An Element of Political Selectivity”

Bench: Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain, Delhi High Court — October 5, 2026

The batch began before Justice Muralidhar in February 2020 and was heard for the last time in July 2026. In Shaikh Mujtaba Farooq v. Union of India (2026:DHC:8710-DB) and six connected petitions — including those by Lawyers Voice, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and Brinda Karat — the petitioners sought FIRs against politicians for speeches around the north-east Delhi riots, a court-monitored Special Investigation Team or transfer of the investigation, and a compensation and rehabilitation framework. A separate judgment the same morning disposed of the batch on the December 2019 police entry into Jamia Millia Islamia. Colin Gonsalves and Kirti Uppal led for the petitioners; Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju for the State. Both batches were dismissed.

On the speeches, the Court found that “only portions or excerpts of the purported speeches have been placed on record” and that their “completeness and authenticity … have not been established”; the statutory route through Lalita Kumari, Sakiri Vasu and Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay was open and no exceptional circumstance warranted a direction to register cases; and it recorded, without deciding motive, that “the record before us does indicate an element of political selectivity in the manner in which certain individuals and particular speeches have been targeted for action by respective petitioners.” On the investigation: “no specific material has been placed before us to demonstrate that an Investigating Officer, senior police officer or supervisory authority entrusted with the investigation was himself implicated,” and allegations against some police personnel, even if assumed correct, “cannot automatically lead to the conclusion that the entire investigative machinery of the Delhi Police is institutionally incapable.” The figures on record: 757 FIRs; as of February 2026, 369 chargesheets, 212 trials pending, 249 investigations open, 22 convictions, 108 acquittals, 16 discharges. On Jamia, the Court held that the police “did not enter the University premises at the outset to deal with an otherwise peaceful assembly” but after violence outside, and ordered no fresh inquiry or compensation. Individual remedies were preserved; no costs.

Why it matters: The Delhi High Court has now written its template for declining Article 226 directions on hate-speech FIRs and on transferring politically charged investigations — the petitioner must show the particular officer compromised, not the force — and the riot trials go on where they are, with the conviction count on the record at twenty-two.

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Reservation: Madhya Pradesh’s 27 Per Cent OBC Quota Is Struck Down, Seven Years and Ninety-Two Petitions Later

Bench: Justices Anand Pathak and Vinay Saraf, Madhya Pradesh High Court — October 9, 2026

The 2019 Ordinance and the amending Act that raised Other Backward Class reservation in Madhya Pradesh from 14 to 27 per cent — taking total vertical reservation to 73 — were challenged by NEET-PG aspirants in the middle of the 2019 counselling and were stayed for admissions within days. The Supreme Court declined in February 2026 to decide the batch under Article 32, sent it back and asked for a decision within three months. In Ashita Dubey v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2026:MPHC-JBP:79348), after fifteen days of hearing and a judgment reserved in August, the Division Bench declared both the Ordinance and the Act ultra vires.

“This case is not about grant of reservation but extent of reservation. OBCs are certainly entitled to get reservation to the extent of 14%. However, case is not made out for increasing the reservation from 14% to 27%.”

The Court found no “extraordinary or emergent situation” of the kind paragraph 810 of Indra Sawhney, reiterated in Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil, requires before the fifty per cent ceiling is breached; on the State’s own data from higher education and the public services it found the class adequately represented under Article 16(4); it declined to rest anything on the 1983 Mahajan Commission; and it added, as a cumulative ground, that drafting errors showed “undue haste and ill-preparedness.” The transition is detailed. Appointments made to OBC candidates beyond 14 per cent between March 2019 and 29 September 2022 — when the State began declaring results as an 87 per cent main list and a 13 per cent held-back list — are saved, with the excess to be absorbed over the next three recruitment drives. For appointments after that date, the held-back 13 per cent is to be filled by unreserved candidates within three months, and any OBC appointment beyond 14 per cent made in that period “shall have to go.” The State, which was represented by the Additional Solicitor General, says it is examining the verdict; a Minister has said it will go to the Supreme Court, and the Congress and the OBC Mahasabha say they will too.

Why it matters: Seven years of recruitment in Madhya Pradesh have run with 13 per cent of every list frozen; the judgment both unfreezes it and tells thousands of serving officers whether they stay. It is also the most detailed application yet of the Jaishri Patil adequacy test to a State’s own data, and the appeal will arrive at a Supreme Court that has already refused to take the question at first instance.

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Anti-Corruption: Two High Courts Turn Enforcement Directorate Letters Into FIRs Against Two Chief Ministers’ Offices

Bench: Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor, Punjab & Haryana High Court — October 5, 2026; Justice A. Badharudeen, Kerala High Court — October 9, 2026

Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act obliges the Directorate to share with the police any information disclosing an offence within their competence. Two High Courts this week held that what follows is not a preliminary enquiry but an FIR. In Nikhil Saraf v. State of Punjab (CWP-PIL-238-2026), decided after a judgment reserved in September, the Chandigarh Bench had before it three Directorate letters of July and August describing a “cash for transfers” racket said to run through the Chief Minister’s Officer on Special Duty, Rajbir Singh Ghuman, and an intermediary — transfers, policy favours, tenders and arms licences, with cash and chats recovered in the May searches linked to the Greater Mohali development authority. The Punjab Bureau of Investigation’s preliminary inquiry was, the Court said, “a journey with all travel and no reaching.” The Central Bureau of Investigation was directed to register a case forthwith and report in two months, and the Court recorded that the demolition action against the petitioner’s farm stay soon after he raised the allegations “does create doubt regarding intent of high-ranking State officers” and was “suggestive of malice apparent on face of the record.” Punjab filed a special leave petition in the small hours of Tuesday; on Friday Justice Sheel Nagu, a former Chief Justice of the Court below, recused, and the matter awaits reassignment. The Bureau has meanwhile registered its case and searched eight locations, including the Chief Minister’s camp office.

In Adv. K.M. Shajahan v. State of Kerala (2026:KER:78014), the information was the Directorate’s communication to the Director General of Police on the payments from Cochin Minerals and Rutile to the former Chief Minister’s daughter and her company — the CMRL–Exalogic matter — naming Pinarayi Vijayan, T. Veena and P.A. Mohammed Riyas. The State Police Chief had responded by constituting a nine-member Crime Branch team for a preliminary enquiry. The Court set that order aside — a police chief cannot constitute a special team without a Government decision under Section 21 of the Kerala Police Act — and directed the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to register an FIR “forthwith” under the Prevention of Corruption Act and investigate. Information under Section 66(2) that discloses a cognisable offence makes registration “obligatory (must do)”; it “serves as an adequate substitute” for a preliminary enquiry; and Lalita Kumari “does not make it a mandate to conduct preliminary enquiry in every case before FIR registration.” The Court made no finding on the allegations. The Home Minister said on Saturday that the Bureau will register the case on Monday and the State will not appeal.

Why it matters: Two Division Benches and a single judge, in two States governed by different parties, have now read Section 66(2) the same way — once the Directorate’s letter discloses an offence, the police lose their discretion to enquire first, and a State that sits on the letter invites a court-ordered transfer. The Lalita Kumari corruption exception has rarely been read so narrowly, and both cases are now headed for the Supreme Court, one already there.

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Arrest: A Pre-Printed Line Saying the Grounds Were Explained Is No Compliance With Article 22 — Patna High Court

Bench: Justices Rajeev Ranjan Prasad and Sunil Dutta Mishra, Patna High Court — October 6, 2026

An accused from Anantnag was arrested in a counterfeit-currency case later taken over by the National Investigation Agency, and produced on transit remand before the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Budgam in September 2024. The agency conceded that no written grounds of arrest appeared to have been furnished, and relied on paragraph 7 of the arrest memo — a printed recital that the arresting officer had explained the grounds. In Sarfaraz @ Muzaffar Ahmad Wani v. Union of India, the Division Bench held that this is no compliance with Article 22(1) read with Sections 50 and 50A of the Code (now Sections 47 and 48 of the BNSS): a copy of the written grounds must be furnished “as a matter of course and without exception,” a proforma indicating that they were conveyed is not compliance, and a template recital is not compliance. It also found the case diary and remand application had not been served two hours before production. Applying Vihaan Kumar and Mihir Rajesh Shah, the arrest could not be sustained and the appellant was ordered released. The Bench expressly confined State of Karnataka v. Darshan — where the Supreme Court declined release because the record showed the accused knew the reasons and had counsel from the outset — to its facts; nothing of the kind was shown here.

A counterpoint the same week from Jodhpur: in Shakoor Khan v. State of Rajasthan (Justice Sandeep Shah, October 6), the same Vihaan Kumar argument failed because the seizure proceedings recorded that the accused was informed of the grounds and then arrested through the memo — the record, not the recital, did the work.

Why it matters: The grounds-of-arrest line that began with Pankaj Bansal now has a High Court Division Bench holding that the Supreme Court’s “no prejudice” exception in Darshan is a narrow one, in an NIA matter. Every arrest memo that carries a pre-printed “grounds explained” line is open to this attack, and the answer, as Shakoor Khan shows, has to be in the contemporaneous record.

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Perjury: Delhi High Court Orders a Criminal Complaint Against Six CBI Officers for a False Statement to a Court

Bench: Justice Madhu Jain, Delhi High Court — October 6, 2026

In Ashok Kumar Aggarwal’s long-running proceedings for release of documents, the CBI’s reply of August 2016 told the Special Judge that correspondence with the administrative Ministry about further legal action was “underway.” The file showed that the Department of Personnel and Training had already declined a special leave petition two weeks earlier, and a handwritten alteration had inserted the “underway” line. The Special Judge refused to act under Section 340 CrPC in October 2025. In Ashok Kumar Aggarwal v. Sushil Dewan (CRL.A. 289/2026), the High Court set that order aside, allowed the application, and directed the Special Judge to make a complaint in writing against six officers — including the then Superintendent of Police, Head of Branch and Head of Zone — for offences under Sections 191 read with 193 and Section 209 IPC, and to transmit it within four weeks to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, where a dormant 2018 court complaint is to be revived.

“A deliberate substitution of that account with a materially false claim directly affects the fairness of the adjudicatory process.”

Why it matters: Section 340 directions against the prosecuting agency’s own officers for an institutional pleading are rare; this one names the chain of command. The competent court decides independently, but the standard — that an agency’s statement to a court about the status of its own file is a statement on oath — is now written down.

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Electoral Rolls: Four High Courts in One Week — a “Catch-22” in Goa, Form 7 FIRs Stayed in Karnataka, Deference in Bombay, a Question in Telangana

Bench: various — October 5–9, 2026

The Special Intensive Revision reached the High Courts from several directions. At the Bombay High Court’s principal seat on Monday, Chief Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Advait Sethna declined to restrain deletions in Maharashtra, citing the Supreme Court’s standing request that High Courts hold revision challenges in abeyance: “No purpose will be served by a parallel litigation … We will follow judicial propriety.” The same day at Goa, Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar heard a family of six whose names were dropped and whose address-change forms were then rejected with instructions to re-enrol as new voters. “Look at this, it is a complete catch 22 situation,” the Bench said. “If citizens are being removed from the list then what is the purpose of this entire SIR process?” — pointing to Rule 21 of the Registration of Electors Rules, which requires a hearing before deletion from an existing roll. In Hyderabad the same Monday, Justices P. Sam Koshy and Narsing Rao Nandikonda asked the Commission to explain a deletion made without notice and to say what happened to a voter who had replied to his notice and heard nothing; the petitioners say the automated matching behind the notices has no disclosed methodology. Next date 13 October.

In Karnataka the question was criminal. Justice Venkatesh Naik at Dharwad on Thursday barred coercive steps until 13 October against a Belagavi politician accused of filing 198 fabricated Form 7 applications to delete Muslim voters. On Friday Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde stayed FIRs against two booth-level agents in Malleshwaram who had filed Form 7 objections against 778 and 136 voters on a rival’s complaint of forged signatures: “The concerned officer will decide. Nothing to do with the police” — the Electoral Registration Officer must rule on the objections before any question of a criminal complaint arises. Next date 27 October.

Why it matters: The Supreme Court’s hold on High Court intervention is working in Bombay and being tested in Goa and Hyderabad on individual deletions, where the Rule 21 hearing point is sharpest. The Karnataka orders are the first judicial brake on criminalising bulk Form 7 filings during a revision — electoral authority first, police second — and will be cited in every such FIR.

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Other Notable High Court Orders

• “A demonstration does not become an offence merely because it was unwelcome to those in authority” (Calcutta, Anuj Singh J, October 9) — Trina Halder v. State: the FIR against six job aspirants for a 2021 protest quashed under Bhajan Lal; “mere protest and raising slogans cannot be said to be an unlawful common object.”
• ₹5.36 lakh for sixty days in jail after bail (Calcutta, Debangsu Basak and Aryak Dutt JJ, October 5) — bail granted and sureties furnished in August 2018, release in October; the detention “was not sanctioned by law”; ₹5 lakh plus ₹36,000 in lost wages, payable in four weeks.
• Contempt notice to The Hindu and Dainik Bhaskar (Punjab & Haryana, Vinod S. Bhardwaj and Ravinder Malik JJ, October 7) — in the suo motu criminal contempt that Justice Subhas Mehla initiated in September over a front-page advertisement, “What is Dera Sacha Sauda? (Facts vs Fiction)”, asking whether there was a conspiracy against “Guru Ji” while his appeals are pending, notice issued to the Dera and to the publishers and editors-in-chief of both newspapers; 25 November.
• Contempt notice to Punjab’s Chief Secretary (Punjab & Haryana, Chief Justice Mishra and Kapoor J, October 6 and 9) — in the dearness-allowance matter, the Chief Secretary’s affidavit that the State’s special leave petition defects had been cured was contradicted by the Supreme Court Registry’s report; “the State is playing hide and seek with the Court”; on Friday, with an unconditional apology offered, the matter was sent to the roster bench for 12 October.
• Uttar Pradesh law officers (Allahabad at Lucknow, Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Rajeev Bharti JJ, October 5) — see At the Bar below.
• Special Marriage Act notice waived (Allahabad, Shekhar B. Saraf and Amitabh Kumar Rai JJ, October 6) — for an interfaith couple with a child and an FIR against them, the Marriage Officer was directed not to publish the thirty-day notice or entertain objections and to solemnise on verifying identity, age and consent; “neither State nor law nor society can dictate the choice of partner.”
• “Where did this term ‘Aandolanjeevi’ come from?” (Allahabad, Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev JJ, October 7–8) — journalist Satyam Verma’s challenge to his National Security Act detention by the Noida District Magistrate over the April workers’ protest was argued and reserved; the Bench asked how the word found its way into an official document and whether ideology and association can alone ground preventive detention. The same Bench on 7 October ordered the release of a man held in Noida before his FIR was registered: “Police’s condition in this state is a mess.”
• Attire is the citizen’s choice (Kerala, P.V. Kunhikrishnan J, October 5) — a headmistress barred from her school by its manager for wearing a churidar: “What dress one wears is ordinarily a matter of personal choice of every citizen of this country”; the police to ensure she enters freely for the rest of her service.
• Digi Yatra and the Data Protection Board (Kerala, Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Syam Kumar V.M. J, October 7) — “we find that the privacy of citizens is being compromised”; the Union said the Board under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act is constituted but not functional, and the Court expects it functional within eight weeks. The same Bench the same day directed strict enforcement of the public smoking ban and gave Collectors eight weeks to constitute animal-market committees.
• Will revoked by marriage — Section 69 of the Succession Act upheld (Kerala, Sathish Ninan and P. Krishna Kumar JJ, October 8) — on a civil reference, the rule that a Christian’s will is revoked by a later marriage survives Articles 14 and 15; the object of protecting the new family is an intelligible differentia, and under-inclusion alone is not fatal.
• Preventive detention on illegible papers (Kerala, Anil K. Narendran and Muralee Krishna S. JJ, October 6) — a councillor’s detention under the Kerala Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act set aside: “several pages of those documents supplied to the detenue are illegible,” and the Government may not wait for the Advisory Board before deciding a representation.
• Zen is a religion for FCRA purposes (Madras at Madurai, G.R. Swaminathan and M.D. Sumathi JJ, October 6) — a meditation trust that did not declare itself a religious organisation was rightly refused registration; the Court said it was not alleging a conversion agenda, and that the same rule would bar “a fundamentalist Hindu Organisation engaged in Ghar Wapsi.”
• The Directorate’s “resources are not unlimited” (Madras, N. Ramesh J, October 6) — bail to the third accused in a money-laundering case arising from a private property dispute: the Act’s “stringent provisions … are not meant to be invoked where the dispute is, in its essence, between private individuals over private property,” and the agency should give primacy to “public money, public interest, corruption and scams of national consequence.”
• The Chief Minister’s election petition (Madras, V. Lakshminarayanan J, October 7–8) — on C. Joseph Vijay’s application to reject a voter’s petition over undisclosed assets, the judge asked, “Can missing out 30 crore worth of assets amount to corrupt practice?”; reserved, orders on 14 October.
• Aadhaar attendance for prosecutors stayed (Delhi, Amit Mahajan J, October 9) — the Directorate of Prosecution’s directive requiring every prosecutor to mark attendance by Aadhaar biometric or face-recognition app from 12 October, on pain of disciplinary action, stayed; notice issued, December.
• RTI — reimbursement from public funds does not unlock personal particulars (Delhi, Amit Mahajan J, October 7) — an employee’s LTC and medical-scheme details stay personal information under Section 8(1)(j) though the money was public; “the RTI mechanism cannot be permitted to become a means to settle personal scores.”
• Protest permissions (Delhi, Acting Chief Justice Sambre and Sanjay Sharma J, October 9) — urgent hearing refused on the Indian Youth Congress’s challenge to the refusal of a 150-person demonstration against the Chief Election Commissioner and on activist Nadeem Khan’s petition over his nine-hour confinement on 29 September; both listed Monday. A PIL for body-worn cameras on crowd-control duty was disposed of on 7 October with a six-month direction to decide the representation.
• Investigation extension — the accused must be produced, not merely informed (Bombay, Milind Jadhav J, October 5) — informing NDPS accused through the jail superintendent of a plea to extend the 180-day period “cannot automatically be equated with production of the accused before the Court”; a later chargesheet does not cure it; default bail to all eight.
• Sachin Waze (Bombay, Kulkarni and Gokhale JJ, October 7–8) — the National Investigation Agency argued its appeal against the special court’s bail for a day; “Since we have not yet seen an Assistant Police Inspector driving a Mercedes,” Justice Kulkarni said, while also noting five years’ custody and framed charges; the stay continues and the defence opens on 14 October. The same Bench on 5 October confiscated the phone of a man who filmed a hearing and fined him ₹10,000.
• Maharashtra Special Public Security Act (Bombay, Chief Justice Tripathi and Sethna J, October 6) — the State’s affidavit defends the Act as “not only a constitutional necessity but a well-structured mechanism,” claiming sixty-four Maoist frontal organisations in the State; petitioners to reply; 13 October.
• Deity on a saree pallu is not Section 295A (Gujarat, P.M. Raval J, October 7) — selling sarees printed with an image of the Buddha, “without any overt act, inflammatory rhetoric, or demonstrable intent to denigrate,” is not a punishable insult; FIR quashed. On Friday a Division Bench (Sanjay Gowda and Odedra JJ) upheld the dismissal of a civil judge who refused to live at her posting and wrote to the Chief Justice seeking a sitting judge’s transfer: “the highest form of indiscipline.”
• Municipal candidacy bar upheld (Rajasthan, Chief Justice Sanjay K. Agrawal and Munnuri Laxman J, October 5) — Budh Dan v. State: disqualifying a candidate once charges are framed for an offence punishable with five years or more “merely prescribes a statutory condition of electoral eligibility.”
• PMLA attachment follows the bank (Karnataka, C.M. Poonacha J, October 9) — WinZO’s US subsidiary may not move funds attached by the Directorate from Silicon Valley Bank to another American bank even under continuing attachment. The same day Justice B.M. Shyam Prasad heard a same-sex couple’s Article 15 challenge to the word “spouse” in the Income Tax Act’s gift exemption; the Solicitor General says a taxing statute is read strictly.
• IVF — the husband’s age does not extinguish the wife’s eligibility (Chhattisgarh, Amitendra Kishore Prasad J, October 6) — Section 21(g) of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act fixes separate limits for each spouse; a 47-year-old’s application could not be refused because her husband is 57; relief confined to the facts.
• Evidence in Braille (Uttarakhand, Alok Mahra J, October 6) — a blind accused on re-trial is entitled to the complainant’s examination-in-chief in Braille before cross-examination; “furnishing material in an accessible form is intrinsically connected with the accused’s right to a fair trial.”
• Cattle smuggling is not “public order” (Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, M.A. Chowdhary J, October 6) — a 65-year-old’s Public Safety Act detention on bovine-transport FIRs that provoked no communal tension quashed; grounds copied from the police dossier. The same day Justice Mohd. Yousuf Wani set aside a Special Judge’s order for “further investigation” into electrification-scheme irregularities as “the apparent trappings of a reinvestigation order.”
• Habeas for a detained protester (Madhya Pradesh, Chief Justice Kogje and Vivek Jain J, October 9) — notice returnable 13 October and the State directed to produce a woman taken off a train at Itarsi on her way to the Delhi protest.
• A level crossing must warn (Jharkhand, Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi J, October 6) — the Railways’ duty to warn of an approaching train is “implied and inherent”; ₹8 lakh for a 2014 death where the gate did not work and there was no gateman. The same judge held that a bare assertion of “association with known criminals” cannot deny a child bail under the Juvenile Justice Act.
• Christian divorce — the right statute, and a Special Officer to count the husband’s assets (Patna, Bibek Chaudhuri and Rana Vikram Singh JJ, October 5) — ₹50 lakh permanent alimony after the Court’s officer reported the husband “a man of substance.”

At the Bar

Appointments: Three Chief Justices Become Supreme Court Judges, and Three High Courts Get Acting Heads

Supreme Court of India — October 5–9, 2026

The Centre notified the Collegium’s 28 September recommendation on Monday, 5 October — a week after it was made — and on Tuesday afternoon, in a departure from the usual morning ceremony, Chief Justice Surya Kant administered the oath to Justices Sunita Agarwal, Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Aparesh Kumar Singh, until that morning the Chief Justices of Gujarat, Delhi and Telangana. The Court’s working strength is 37 against the new sanctioned 38, with three women judges and one seat still open. Justice Agarwal retires in April 2031, Justice Upadhyaya in June 2030 and Justice Singh in July 2030; none is in the line for Chief Justice.

The same Monday’s notifications under Article 223 made Justice Nitin Wasudeo Sambre Acting Chief Justice of Delhi, Justice Manash Ranjan Pathak Acting Chief Justice of Gujarat — three weeks after his own transfer there from Orissa — and Justice P. Sam Koshy Acting Chief Justice of Telangana. Judicial officer Gurvinder Pal Singh was sworn in as an Additional Judge of the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, taking it to fifty of sixty. On Friday the Ministry notified the repatriation of Justice T. Vinod Kumar from Madras to his parent Telangana High Court, five weeks before he retires. No Collegium resolution on permanent Chief Justices for the three vacant chairs was published this week.

Why it matters: The enlarged Court is now one short of full, and the Chief Justice has until February to fill that seat and the one Justice Satish Chandra Sharma vacates in November. Three of the country’s busiest High Courts, meanwhile, are under acting heads with the winter list ahead.

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Enrolment: A Forged Certificate in the File Is Not Enough to Strike an Advocate Off — Dipinder Kaur

Bench: Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, Delhi High Court — October 8, 2026

The Bar Council of India removed the petitioner from the rolls in May 2026 under the proviso to Section 26(1) of the Advocates Act, after complaints during the 2026 Bar Council of Delhi election that her 2019 enrolment file contained a fabricated OBC certificate; the Delhi Council then cancelled her candidature. In Dipinder Kaur v. Bar Council of Delhi (W.P.(C) 6895/2026), the High Court set the removal aside and ordered her name restored forthwith. The finding that she furnished the fabricated certificate stands, and she is censured and reprimanded. But the proviso requires satisfaction that the advocate “got her name entered on the roll by fraud or by misrepresentation as to an essential fact” — a causal nexus. She had 44.5 per cent in graduation; a March 2019 resolution of the Delhi Council permitted enrolment below 45 per cent for law graduates; the certificate therefore played no material role in her enrolment, and “the mere presence of a fraudulent document in the enrolment record cannot by itself be equated with obtaining enrolment.”

Why it matters: The first clear reading of the Section 26(1) proviso as a causation test rather than a character test. Bar Councils retain their disciplinary jurisdiction over the conduct; the power to erase an enrolment reaches only fraud that actually secured it.

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State Law Officers: Allahabad Writes Eight Rules for Uttar Pradesh’s Appointments, and Asks Why There Are Six Chief Standing Counsel

Bench: Justices Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Rajeev Bharti, Allahabad High Court at Lucknow — October 5, 2026

Three public-interest petitions filed from 2017 challenged the manner in which Uttar Pradesh appoints its Government Advocates, Additional Government Advocates, Chief and Additional Chief Standing Counsel, Standing Counsel and Brief Holders — the largest State law-officer establishment in the country. In Mahendra Singh Pawar v. State of U.P., reserved in July, the Division Bench declined to apply Brijeshwar Singh Chahal mechanically — the State has a Legal Remembrancer’s Manual and a scrutiny committee — but found that no reasoned assessment of need had ever been shown, no safeguard existed against appointing persons facing serious criminal cases, and no one could explain why there were six Chief Standing Counsel. Existing appointments stand. For the future, eight guidelines: a need-based assessment of numbers; objective and transparent eligibility and selection criteria; exclusion of persons with criminal antecedents; the Manual’s workload assessment extended to every category, not only criminal; publication of the process and criteria so far as permissible; adequate representation of women advocates; any FIR against a serving law officer to be forwarded to the Advocate General without delay; and a no-objection certificate, annexed to the vakalatnama, before a law officer appears against the State. The State is also to examine whether law officers may contest Bar elections while in office.

“It must be shown that the appointments were made only on the basis of the merit and not for any other consideration.”

Why it matters: Patronage in State briefs is the oldest grievance at every District Bar, and this is the first court-imposed framework for the largest panel in the country, in an election-bound State. The no-objection rule alone will change who appears on which side in Lucknow and Allahabad.

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Strikes: Meghalaya Serves Contempt Notices on Its Bar’s Leaders, Gujarat’s Bar Wins a Rent Bill’s Withdrawal, Calcutta Asks for a Report

High Courts of Meghalaya, Gujarat and Calcutta — October 5–8, 2026

In Shillong, where the Bar has boycotted courts since 1 October demanding the removal of the Advocate General over a remark that lawyers had failed to protect women colleagues, Chief Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice H.S. Thangkhiew on Thursday registered a suo motu PIL, registered a suo motu PIL, issued criminal-contempt show-cause notices under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act to the office-bearers and executive members of the Shillong Bar Association and the High Court Bar Association, directed them to appear in person on 13 October, impleaded the Bar Council of India and summoned the chairman of the State Bar Council to report what action he has taken; the abstention, the Bench said, was “completely illegal” under Harish Uppal, and “courts cannot be used by lawyers to achieve the objective of securing the Advocate General’s removal.” The Baghmara Bar, the only district bar that refused the call, was praised. In Gujarat, the Bar Council’s indefinite statewide abstention from Monday against the Gujarat Rent Bill, 2026 — which would move rent adjudication from courts to a Rent Authority and Tribunal — ended on Tuesday after the Deputy Chief Minister and the Advocate General agreed to withdraw the amendment; the Advocate General had told Justice Maulik Shelat on Monday that the Bill “will not see the light of the day.” In Calcutta, Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Om Narayan Rai, hearing their suo motu PIL on lawyer safety after the Baruipur and Bankshall attacks, asked on Wednesday why the cease-work at Bankshall and Chandannagar should continue when “the common people are being affected by it,” directed safety measures in every court in the State, and asked the Bar Council to report on 12 October.

Why it matters: Three High Courts, three answers to a strike in one week: contempt, concession and conciliation. The Meghalaya notices are the sharpest use of Harish Uppal against Bar leadership in years, and 13 October will show whether a High Court will actually punish its own Bar.

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Other Notable at the Bar

• Lawyers detained on the way to Court (October 10) — the Supreme Court Bar Association resolved that it “condemns the reported use of excessive force” against advocates detained on Bhagwan Das Road while marching to Jantar Mantar, and placed the resolution before the Chief Justice, who told reporters: “Yes, on my verbal intervention, I believe they have been released.” The Advocates-on-Record Association passed a similar resolution. See the cover story.
• Rohini (October 5) — the Rohini Court Bar Association abstained from work and barred police from the complex over the alleged assault on Advocate Kamaldeep at Mahendra Park police station on 29 September, then called off the abstention the same evening after a meeting with the Principal District Judge and the two Deputy Commissioners; two head constables face disciplinary proceedings; work resumed Tuesday.
• Wrestlers’ appeal (Rouse Avenue, October 9) — Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Vinod Tomar got time to reply to the four wrestlers’ appeal against the August acquittal; the State has still not decided whether to file its own revision and sought fifteen days; next 28 October.
• Juvenile Justice at ten (October 10–11) — at the Supreme Court Juvenile Justice Committee’s national consultation, the Chief Justice released an e-compendium of ten years of judgments and proposed a dedicated wing of trained defence counsel for children: “Ten years is a short time in the life of a statute, but it is more than half of a childhood.” Justice Nagarathna, who chairs the Committee: “When a child breaks the law, the law must not break the child.”
• Justice Vikram Nath at the National Commission for Women (October 7) — “When a woman first speaks of fear, violence or distress, that voice must not be overlooked or normalised.”
• Not heard — no report of the Bar Council of India’s answer on the five-year-course age limit, due around 9 October, or of the Attorney General’s response on raising the twenty-five-member cap on State Bar Councils for the women’s quota.

Legislative & Regulatory Watch

Monetary Policy: The First Repo Hike Since 2023 — 25 Basis Points to 5.50 Per Cent, and a Stance of “Calibrated Tightening”

Reserve Bank of India, Monetary Policy Committee — October 7, 2026

The Committee voted unanimously to raise the policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50 per cent, the first increase since February 2023; the standing deposit facility moves to 5.25 and the marginal standing facility and Bank Rate to 5.75. The stance changed from neutral to “calibrated tightening” by four votes to two, Nagesh Kumar and Ram Singh preferring to stay neutral. Growth for the year was revised up to 7.1 per cent; inflation to 5.2, with the third quarter projected at 6 per cent; the Governor cited crude from the renewed West Asia conflict, a weak south-west monsoon and broad-based food pressure. “Inflation and its outlook are not benign as they were last year,” he said; rate cuts “are off the table in the near term and policy action ahead can only be a rate hike or a pause.” The developmental statement carried two items: interoperability among account aggregators and the inclusion of bank-deposit data in the depositories’ consolidated statement by 31 December, and a Technical Consultative Committee for Financial Markets. The same day the Bank issued the final Credit Valuation Adjustment Framework Directions and amendments to the standardised approach for counterparty credit risk, both effective 1 April 2027. The next meeting is 2–4 December.

Why it matters: Every floating-rate loan, every interest-bearing award and every “prevailing rate” clause reprices from here, and the stance language says the direction of travel is up. Banking counsel should also note the two prudential Directions: a seventeen-month runway to April 2027.

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Forex: Hedging Without an Underlying Capped at $5 Million, a 20 Per Cent Reserve on Large Rupee Derivatives, and a Dollar Window for the Oil Companies

Reserve Bank of India — October 10, 2026

With the rupee closing Friday near its record low, the Bank issued two circulars on Saturday. Cancelled rupee derivative contracts, deliverable or non-deliverable, may not be rebooked with any authorised dealer, though rollover on maturity is still permitted. The threshold for hedging without establishing an underlying exposure falls from $100 million to $5 million, across all dealers and all exchanges combined, and dealers must obtain an undertaking that the same exposure is not hedged elsewhere. And for rupee derivatives above $2 million notional where the user buys foreign currency against rupees to hedge a current-account exposure, dealers must place a Foreign Exchange Risk Reserve with the Bank equal to 20 per cent of the rupee notional. Separately, from Monday the Bank will sell dollars through designated banks to Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum to meet their entire daily requirement, until further notice.

Why it matters: Treasury and trade-finance counsel have a weekend to re-paper hedging mandates — the $100 million comfort is gone, undertakings are now a condition of execution, and a cash reserve makes large current-account hedges materially more expensive. The oil window takes the largest single source of dollar demand out of the market.

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GST: The Council Votes to Drop the Power of Arrest, Lift the Prosecution Threshold to ₹5 Crore and Open Refunds on Capital Goods

GST Council, 57th meeting, New Delhi — October 8, 2026

Chaired by the Union Finance Minister, the Council recommended a set of amendments that reshape enforcement. Section 69 of the Central GST Act — the power of arrest — is to be omitted; the threshold for prosecution rises from ₹1 crore to ₹5 crore; the catch-all offences are pruned, with “evades tax” deleted from Section 132(1)(e) and the fraudulent-credit offence confined to credit taken without receipt of goods or services or without an invoice; and conveyances may be intercepted only on specific intelligence authorised by an officer not below Joint Commissioner. No show-cause notice is to issue where the total tax involved is under ₹10,000, including for pending notices and appeals; a 5 per cent penalty applies in non-fraud cases if tax and interest are paid within thirty days of the order; the general penalty under Section 125 falls from ₹25,000 to ₹10,000; and pre-deposit for penalty-only appeals is capped at ₹40 crore. On refunds, acknowledgement moves to ten days with deemed acknowledgement, 90 per cent provisional refund follows a system risk evaluation for zero-rated and inverted-duty claims, and the proviso to Section 54(3) is to be amended to allow refund of accumulated credit on input services in inverted-duty cases from 1 November and on capital goods, spread over sixty months, from 1 April 2027. The blocked-credit list in Section 17(5) is to be relaxed for employee health and life insurance, telecom towers, pipelines outside the factory, free samples and written-off goods; a committee of officers is to examine the bona fide purchaser problem under Section 16(2)(c); and the definition of export of services is to change for Indian providers dealing with their own foreign offices. No rate changes were taken up. Everything above is a recommendation; the amendments and notifications follow.

Why it matters: If Parliament enacts it, GST ceases to be an arrestable offence and the field officer loses the roadside interception that generated so much of the litigation. The capital-goods refund reverses a position the Supreme Court upheld in VKC Footsteps in 2021 — by amendment, as the Court said it would have to be — and the Section 16(2)(c) committee is the Council’s answer to the input-credit guidelines the Punjab & Haryana High Court laid down across 424 petitions, which we reported last week.

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Securities: The SEBI Settlement Regulations, 2026 Are Notified — Ninety Days From the Notice, or Lose the Window

Securities and Exchange Board of India — October 6, 2026

Approved by the Board on 24 September, the SEBI (Settlement of Administrative and Civil Proceedings) Regulations, 2026 were notified on 6 October and will repeal the 2018 Settlement Proceedings Regulations thirty days after gazette publication, with transitional provisions. The open-ended 2018 regime gives way to clocks: an application within ninety days of the show-cause notice or any supplementary notice for pending SEBI proceedings (matters before the Appellate Tribunal or the Supreme Court excluded), sixty days from a pre-notice settlement notice, and ninety days from commencement for matters already pending. Fees are ₹25,000 for individuals and ₹35,000 for others, non-refundable; the minimum settlement is ₹3 lakh for a first-time applicant and ₹7 lakh otherwise; the formula multiplies a base amount by stage, regulatory-action, gravity, aggravating and mitigating factors, with the aggregate never below one. Two fast tracks are added — for specified defaults, with thirty days to respond, and for computed amounts up to ₹10 lakh without disgorgement or remedial terms. The Portfolio Managers Regulations, 2026, approved at the same Board meeting, had not been gazetted by the weekend.

Why it matters: Securities counsel now have a deadline that runs from the day the notice lands, and a client who waits past it moves to a later and costlier stage or loses settlement altogether. Calendar the ninety days on every pending notice before 6 November.

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Other Notable Regulatory Moves

• A credit “risk-o-meter” for debt (SEBI, October 7) — a six-tier colour-coded credit-risk indicator becomes mandatory in offer documents, private placement memoranda, advertisements and online bond platforms, the lowest rating shown where there are several and “unsecured” in bold red; effective in forty-five days.
• Appellate Tribunal (October 9) — in ICICI Bank’s review application in Chanda Kochhar’s appeal, the Tribunal withdrew its May direction giving her access to the Bank’s secretarial portal and server data, as material not on SEBI’s record; the rest of the order stands. The same day it set aside a ₹35,400 exchange fine on Calcom Vision for two scanned pages omitted from a timely filing — “bona fide inadvertence.”
• Paytm Payments Bank (RBI, October 7) — excluded from the Second Schedule of the RBI Act, closing the sequence that began with the April licence cancellation and the Delhi High Court’s July winding-up orders. On Friday the Bank cancelled the registration of thirteen non-banking financial companies.
• Competition Commission (October 6) — approvals for CPP Investments’ stake in Prestige Hospitality Ventures and for Bain-linked funds’ acquisition of sole control of Omega Meyer and Meyer Organics; detailed orders to follow.
• UPI merchant charge — the 0.4 per cent charge on person-to-merchant payments above ₹2,000 is scheduled to bite on 15 October; the steering committee meeting expected on Friday did not take place and no deferral has been announced. The Governor on Wednesday: “we do not see any drop in volumes.”
• Not yet — no notification constituting the National Tribunals Commission, no draft of the Intermediary Rules amendment on under-18 accounts, no final mule-account directions, and no Ministry of Corporate Affairs notification this week.

What We’re Watching Next Week

• Monday, October 12 — medicine margins and the 16 per cent question before Justices Nath and Mehta; Kerala’s Vigilance Bureau is to register the FIR in the CMRL–Exalogic matter; Punjab’s Chief Secretary faces the contempt notice before the roster bench; the Delhi High Court hears the Youth Congress and Nadeem Khan petitions on protest permissions; the Bar Council of West Bengal reports to the Calcutta High Court on the cease-work.
• Tuesday, October 13 — the protest-crackdown contempt and habeas petitions return before Justices Bagchi and Mohana with the State’s compliance report due; the CAPF contempt before the special bench of Justices Misra and Bhuyan; the Meghalaya Bar’s office-bearers must appear before their High Court on criminal-contempt notices; the Telangana revision petition, the Madhya Pradesh habeas and the Bombay Special Public Security Act challenge are all listed.
• Wednesday and Thursday, October 14–15 — Sachin Waze’s defence opens in Bombay; the Madras High Court pronounces on the Chief Minister’s application to reject the election petition against him; barium-cracker test results are due and the firecrackers matter, the online child-abuse-material matter and the Tejpal appeals are listed on the 15th, the day the UPI merchant charge takes effect unless deferred.
• Friday, October 16 — the Chief Justice’s bench has indicated it will try to list the West Bengal deleted-voters appeals ahead of the Kolkata and Howrah municipal polls; the Shiv Sena symbol hearing continues with the Commission’s side.
• Still reserved or pending — the Committee of Creditors’ power to withdraw an approved plan, IPC prosecution after a refused PC Act sanction, the Sambhal survey challenge, the Sabarimala nine-judge reference, the PMLA Adjudicating Authority’s composition, the seven-judge sales-tax surcharge reference, the two-child norm, and two new ones from this week: whether a High Court may be approached directly for anticipatory bail, and the Delhi High Court’s law-student attendance ruling. The Chief Justice’s bench has the recall application on the Election Commissioners Act verdict under examination, the Union has two weeks to constitute the pharmaceutical-marketing committee, Madhya Pradesh’s appeal against the OBC judgment is expected, and Punjab’s challenge to the CBI probe into the Chief Minister’s office awaits a new bench after Justice Nagu’s recusal; the Allahabad High Court has Satyam Verma’s National Security Act challenge reserved.

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