Section 147A Stays Alive, With Reassessments Frozen Until December 3

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 note on timing: this issue was published on September 27, a week late, after the issue for September 21–27 had already gone out. The week it covers was a full one. Justices Pardiwala and Vinod Chandran stayed the Punjab & Haryana judgment that had struck down Section 147A of the Income Tax Act, on the condition that the reassessments behind it go nowhere until December; the same bench struck down Maharashtra’s methanol denaturing rules on proportionality and held that an arbitral tribunal appointed “by consent” without any consent on record is no tribunal at all. Justices Narasimha and Aradhe told the Reserve Bank that its recovery guidelines have “existed only on paper,” dismissed 271 Union appeals against disability pensions, and ruled that a court deposit is not payment. Justices Bhatti and Anjaria closed the reassessment door on settled years; Justices Misra and Manmohan settled a High Court split on interim orders under Section 92 CPC; Justices Amanullah and Anjaria told every private university in the country to open five years of accounts. Delhi’s High Court granted bail to Jagtar Singh Johal after eight years, and held that privilege does not shield a lawyer whose own conduct is under investigation. And the Finance Ministry put a price on UPI. Here’s what happened.

Supreme Court Highlights

Income Tax: Section 147A Survives on a Stay, but the Reassessments Behind It Are Frozen Until December

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 18, 2026

After a run of High Court decisions holding that reassessment notices issued after the faceless regime took effect had to come from the National Faceless Assessment Centre rather than the taxpayer’s Jurisdictional Assessing Officer, Parliament answered in the Finance Act, 2026: a new Section 147A, retrospective to 1 April 2021, providing that for reassessment the “assessing officer” means an officer other than the Centre or its units. On 10 September, in a batch of nearly 700 petitions, a Division Bench of the Punjab & Haryana High Court (Justices Deepak Sibal and Rupinderjit Chahal) struck the section down. Parliament, it held, may change the legal position that flows from a judgment only by removing the basis on which the judgment rests — not by declaring that the judgment does not apply.

The Union moved fast. On 16 September Additional Solicitor General N. Venkataraman mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice, citing a “legal vacuum,” and asked for a Friday listing. On 18 September, in Union of India v. Bharat Industrial Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. (SLP(C) 33196/2026), the Court granted the stay — with a condition that cuts the other way:

“The impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court shall remain stayed on the condition that the assessment proceedings shall not proceed further till the final disposal of the main matter. Notify for final hearing on December 3, 2026.”

Why it matters: Every reassessment notice a jurisdictional officer has issued since April 2021 now rests on a provision one High Court has struck down and the Supreme Court has kept alive by stay, with December 3 as the date that decides whether Parliament can validate a notice by redefining who may issue it. For the Punjab and Haryana petitioners nothing moves until then; for everyone else Section 147A is law, and the other High Courts hearing the same challenge — Bombay’s batch has been on an interim order since 2 September — now have every reason to wait.

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Banking: RBI’s Repossession Rules Have “Existed Only on Paper” — ₹10 Lakh for a Truck Seized at 1 a.m.

Bench: Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe — September 16, 2026

The appellant financed a Tata SFC 407 truck with a ₹10.4 lakh loan from Cholamandalam Investment and Finance in March 2019, repayable in 75 instalments, and defaulted repeatedly; the vehicle was repossessed once in June 2022 and released on part payment. At about 1 a.m. on 9 April 2023, four unidentified men broke the steering lock at the godown where it was parked and drove it away. He reported a theft. Only on 30 September 2023, through the company’s legal notice, did he learn that the financier had taken the truck and sold it on 31 August for ₹4.5 lakh — and still claimed a further ₹1.25 lakh. His complaint under Section 156(3) CrPC was dismissed; the Allahabad High Court dismissed his writ petition. In Hari Dutta Sharma v. State of U.P., 2026 INSC 998, the Court reversed.

“A loan may create a debt, and a debt may confer upon the financier a right to recover what is due; but the manner in which that right is exercised is not without significance.”

The seven-day notice the loan agreement and the Reserve Bank’s own circulars required was never given, so the financier’s conditional right to repossess never accrued; a night-time seizure by breaking a lock was arbitrary and violated Articles 14 and 21. The Bench found that the Reserve Bank’s guidelines, master circulars and clarifications to NBFCs and scheduled commercial banks “have existed only on paper, and no steps have been taken by the RBI to implement it,” and directed the regulator to take effective steps to secure genuine compliance. The financier is to close both loan accounts, refund the ₹4.5 lakh sale proceeds with 6 per cent interest from the date of sale, and pay ₹10 lakh as compensation for mental agony and loss of livelihood, with ₹50,000 in costs. The judgment sets out ten guiding principles on recovery practice for the cases that follow.

Why it matters: Writ relief and damages against a private financier for a forcible repossession, and a direction to the Reserve Bank to enforce rules it has issued for years — borrowers’ counsel now have a Supreme Court judgment to cite in every seizure dispute, and NBFC recovery desks have a checklist whose breach costs the lender the loan.

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Constitutional Law: Maharashtra’s Methanol Denaturing Rules Fail Proportionality

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 18, 2026

In 1991, methanol-laced liquor from a Mumbai bar killed 93 people. A committee recommended safeguards, and in 2011 Maharashtra inserted Rules 18A and 18B into the Maharashtra Poisons Rules, 1972: methanol could be sold only to holders of a Form A licence, a bitterant and a colourant had to be added before sale to anyone other than a drug manufacturer, and unlicensed possession invited confiscation. For manufacturers of formaldehyde, disinfectants, paints and resins, denatured methanol is unusable. In M/s Balaji Formalin Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 1009, the Court struck both rules down as violating Articles 14 and 19(1)(g).

“The impugned rules prescribe a regulatory framework that does not prevent the misuse of methanol in liquor which takes place in the unregulated field.”

The licence requirement was unworkable, since Form A does not specify end use and effectively excluded industrial consumers; the additive requirement addressed the symptom, not the pilferage. “The burden on the industries is substantial and continuing,” the Bench wrote, “but the benefit that the State claims to achieve is only a possibility.” Less drastic measures — audits of licensees’ records, investigation of pilferage complaints, cancellation or debarment of licensees in breach, stringent renewal conditions — had been left unaddressed. “Although the Court may issue various directions, yet it is the police machinery that should rise to the occasion and see to it that the provisions of the Act governing regulation of alcohol are implemented strictly and effectively.”

Why it matters: A clean proportionality strike-down of a State regulatory rule on trade, with the reasoning spelt out — a measure that burdens the compliant sector to chase a harm occurring in the unregulated one does not pass. Counsel challenging licensing conditions, in any industry, have a template.

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Income Tax: Once the Settlement Commission Has Spoken, the Assessing Officer Cannot Reopen

Bench: Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria — September 16, 2026

After a search in September 2005, Omaxe Limited filed its return for assessment year 2006-07 claiming a deduction of about ₹79 crore for housing projects under Section 80-IB(10), and, with the regular assessment pending, applied to the Settlement Commission for assessment years 2000-01 to 2006-07, surrendering additional income. The Commission’s final order under Section 245D(4) came in March 2008. After a survey in December 2009, the Assessing Officer issued a notice under Section 148 to reopen the year and disallow the deduction, on the footing that it had not been “disclosed” in the settlement. In Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax v. M/s Omaxe Ltd., 2026 INSC 1000, the Court dismissed the Revenue’s appeal.

Once the Commission admits a case, the whole return for that year, deductions included, passes into its exclusive jurisdiction; its order is conclusive for both sides.

“The Assessee and the Revenue must take the Crust and the Crumb together… Once the crust is avoided and the crumb is accepted, further crust and crumb are not the intention of Chapter XIX-A.”

“If the jurisdiction of the AO under Sections 143(2), 148, 154, etc., is made independent and available for exercise again, the finality attached to the Settlement Commission will be defeated.” The Revenue’s only route is an application under Section 245D(6) before the Commission itself, on the ground of fraud or misrepresentation.

Why it matters: Settlement finality now bars reassessment on any head within a settled year, and the Revenue’s remedy is confined to the Commission’s own fraud jurisdiction. Every legacy settlement matter — and the Interim Board regime that succeeded the Commission — is governed by this paragraph.

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Armed Forces: 271 Union Appeals Dismissed — The Burden of Disproving a Service Disability Stays With the Employer

Bench: Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe — September 15, 2026

In each of roughly 271 connected matters, a Release Medical Board had opined at first assessment that the ex-serviceman’s disability was “neither attributable to nor aggravated by” military service; the Armed Forces Tribunal and various High Courts had reversed and granted the disability element of pension. The Union’s argument was that the Entitlement Rules of 2008 had removed the presumption, carried in the 1982 Rules and applied in Dharamvir Singh, that a soldier enters service in sound health, and with it the employer’s burden. In Union of India v. Col. N.C. Isaac (Retd.), 2026 INSC 993, the Court dismissed every appeal.

“The Entitlement Rules 2008 introduced merely cosmetic changes in form rather than any substantive abrogation of the soldiers’ rights.”

Dropping the words of the presumption does not dismantle the claimant-protective scheme: the onus of proving that a disability is not attributable to service still lies on the employer, and only claims made more than fifteen years after discharge shift it. The Bench also recorded that the Raksha Mantri’s 2015 committee had recommended withdrawing this very class of litigation, that the Ministry had accepted the recommendation in 2018, and that the decision “has not been faithfully implemented.”

Why it matters: The 2008-Rules argument, run by the Union across hundreds of pending Tribunal appeals, is closed. Veterans’ counsel have one citation for the burden of proof, and the Ministry has a Supreme Court judgment recording that its own policy to stop this litigation was never carried out.

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Civil Procedure: No Interim Orders in a Section 92 Suit Until Leave Is Granted

Bench: Justices Manoj Misra and Manmohan — September 18, 2026

The appellants presented a plaint under Section 92 CPC alleging breach of trust at the People’s Education Trust, Mandya, together with an application for leave to institute the suit — and, while leave was still pending, an application under Order XL Rule 1 for a receiver. On 2 May 2025 the Principal District Judge constituted an ad hoc committee of the existing trustees to manage the Trust’s affairs. The Karnataka High Court set that aside, holding that a Section 92 suit is stillborn until leave is granted. In S. Panchalingu v. People’s Education Trust (R), 2026 INSC 1010, the Court, in a judgment by Justice Manmohan, agreed.

The High Courts had divided — Allahabad, Bombay, Kerala and Madras had recognised a protective jurisdiction pending leave; Orissa and Karnataka had not. The Court sided with the restrictive view.

“Leave under Section 92 is thus peremptory and non-derogable and interlocutory applications can be entertained only after leave has been granted.”

Without leave there is no validly instituted suit, and a court that lacks jurisdiction cannot acquire it by the way a relief is characterised. The one latitude lies at the leave stage itself: where the facts disclose a compelling urgency to safeguard the property of a public charity, notice on the leave application may be dispensed with, for reasons recorded in writing and with “utmost care, caution and circumspection.”

Why it matters: A live conflict is settled, and the strategy for trust litigation changes with it. Plaintiffs must front-load the leave application and the urgency material, because a receiver or a status quo order before leave is now void wherever the suit is filed.

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Arbitration: A Court Deposit Is Not Payment — Interest Runs Until the Award-Holder Can Take the Money

Bench: Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe — September 18, 2026

An award of 13 June 2019 directed National Seeds Corporation to pay ₹1.46 crore with 12 per cent interest — ₹1.78 crore in all. To obtain a stay in its Section 34 petition, the corporation deposited half the principal, ₹73.2 lakh, in November 2019, without notice under Order XXI Rule 1(2) CPC; it then resisted release of the money through the Section 37 appeal and a special leave petition, and deposited the balance only in April 2022. When the executing court offered to release ₹1 crore, it was on condition that the award-holder furnish title deeds as security — which a financially distressed company could not spare. The corporation argued that interest stopped running on deposit. In National Seeds Corporation Ltd. v. National Agro Seed Corporation (India), 2026 INSC 1017, the Court disagreed.

“A deposit is not synonymous with payment.”

Interest ceases only where the deposit complies with Order XXI Rule 1 — that is, where it is unconditional and the decree-holder is free to withdraw it. “If the Decree-Holder is permitted to withdraw the amount only on furnishing security, it amounts to payment not made in the satisfaction of the decree.” Finding no uniform statutory framework for deposits made to secure a stay, and High Courts applying different conditions, the Bench held that “it is necessary to evolve and formulate a suitable legislation on the subject” and requested the Law Commission to examine it, in consultation with the Reserve Bank and the Ministries of Finance and Law.

Why it matters: A conditional deposit to obtain a stay of an award no longer stops the interest clock, which changes the arithmetic of every Section 34 and Section 37 stay application — an award-debtor who deposits and then fights withdrawal pays for the privilege at the award rate.

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Corruption: Money Handed to an Intermediary Does Not Convict the Public Servant

Bench: Justices Dipankar Datta and N. Kotiswar Singh — September 16, 2026

The CBI’s case was that the Divisional Security Commissioner of the Railway Protection Force at Palakkad collected bribes from RPF personnel seeking transfers and postings through two subordinates, a constable and a head constable, both later pardoned and examined as approvers. In the trap of 4 August 2005, the complainant offered ₹10,000 to the officer in his chamber; the officer declined it and asked that it be given to the constable, from whom the tainted notes were recovered. The Special Court convicted under Sections 7 and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act; the Kerala High Court affirmed. In Bharat Raj Meena v. Central Bureau of Investigation, 2026 INSC 999, the Court acquitted him in both appeals.

“Proof of demand and acceptance of illegal gratification constitutes the gravamen of the offence and forms the indispensable foundation.”

That money changed hands between a complainant and an intermediary who invoked the appellant’s name is not proof that it reached, or was meant for, the appellant. “A demand and an initial handover to an intermediary are not enough; the chain must be carried through, by cogent evidence, to the point where the money is shown to have actually reached or been intended for the accused.” The approvers’ testimony was uncorroborated; the presumption under Section 20 never arose, since its foundational facts were not proved; and there were, the Bench found, “certainly elements of doubt in the manner the trap was executed, which the Trial Court ignored.”

Why it matters: A sharp restatement, after Neeraj Dutta, of what an intermediary-bribe prosecution must prove — the demand originating with the accused and the intermediary’s authority to collect, each by independent evidence. Trap cases built on an approver and a recovery from a subordinate will be argued on this paragraph.

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Arbitration: A Tribunal Appointed “by Consent” With No Consent on Record Is No Tribunal at All

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 17, 2026

Disputes arose under an agreement between Arth Micro Finance and Shivalik Small Finance Bank that carried an arbitration clause. The bank issued a notice on 2 May 2024 and had a tribunal appointed, describing the appointment as consensual, though nothing on record showed the borrower’s consent had been sought; when the tribunal wrote to the appellants they objected, alleging that it had close links with the bank. The tribunal went on to pass three interim orders — freezing the appellants’ accounts and moving funds to the bank — and the High Court declined to interfere. In Arth Micro Finance Pvt. Ltd. v. Shivalik Small Finance Bank Ltd., 2026 INSC 1014, the Court held the very initiation of the arbitration non est in law.

“Arbitration, though rhymes with it, cannot result in an arbitrary measure, even in the appointment of an Arbitral Tribunal.”

All three interim orders were set aside; the bank is to return whatever it received within a week, failing which compound interest at 18 per cent runs; and the Court appointed advocate Mayuri Raghuwanshi as sole arbitrator to hear the disputes afresh, with all contentions open.

Why it matters: Where consent to a tribunal cannot be shown, everything the tribunal did falls with it, including the freezing orders a lender relied on to collect. NBFC and fintech agreements that provide for lender-side “consent” appointments need re-papering, and borrowers facing Section 17 orders from such a tribunal have a direct route to have them vacated.

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POCSO: The Presumption of Guilt Is Not Absolute — Medical Evidence That Rules Out the Offence Rules Out the Conviction

Bench: Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N.V. Anjaria — September 17, 2026

On 9 December 2015 the appellant, who lived in an adjoining jhuggi, took the complainant’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter to a nearby park; her mother retrieved her about an hour later. The mother’s account was that the child cried on waking, that blood was seen on her clothing, and that the child said the appellant had penetrated her; a private doctor was consulted, and the FIR was lodged two days later. The child was too young to give a statement. A Special Court convicted him under Section 6 of the POCSO Act and Section 363 IPC and sentenced him to ten years; the Delhi High Court affirmed in July 2025. In Deepak (in JC) v. State Govt. of NCT Delhi, 2026 INSC 1008, the Court acquitted him.

“The statutory presumptions cannot be read to mean that the prosecution version is liable to be treated as gospel truth in every case.”

The medical evidence contradicted the prosecution — no injury consistent with the allegation, no blood on the clothing said to have been stained — and the witnesses contradicted one another. The reverse-burden provisions in Sections 29 and 30, the Bench held, do not relieve a court of its duty to weigh the prosecution’s evidence on ordinary principles: “The court should not therefore be overshadowed or inhibited by the provision of presumption of guilt and commission of offence by the accused and would weigh the evidence with usual principles.”

Why it matters: The presumption under POCSO arises only on foundational facts proved by the prosecution, and it does not survive medical evidence that excludes the offence. Defence counsel have a two-judge authority on the limits of Sections 29 and 30; trial courts have a reminder that “mechanically accepting” an implausible account is a ground for reversal.

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Higher Education: No Private University May Be Run for Profit — Five Years of Accounts, From Every One of Them

Bench: Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and N.V. Anjaria — September 17, 2026

What began as one student’s grievance against Amity University, Noida, has become a nationwide inquiry. In Ayesha Jain v. Amity University, Noida, the Bench directed the Union, every State and every Union Territory, acting through their Chief Secretaries, to collect from every private university in their jurisdiction five years of audited accounts showing how funds were generated and used; the surplus and where it was invested; payments made to persons not directly connected with the university’s functioning as an educational institution; fee structures; admission and recruitment procedures; class allocation from January 2025; grievance mechanisms; and every government concession received. Affidavits are due in six weeks.

“No private university shall be allowed to be run as a profit-making institution. It has to serve a purpose with some sort of a cushion so that its finances/resources are responsibly managed to ensure smooth functioning of the institution and that the teaching and non-teaching employees are compensated suitably.”

Funds beyond that cushion, the Bench added, cannot be diverted to paying members of governing boards or providing facilities to them. The matter returns on 19 November.

Why it matters: The “not for profit” principle from T.M.A. Pai and Islamic Academy has been turned into a disclosure order running to every private university in the country, with State Chief Secretaries answerable for the return. Counsel for universities should expect the November hearing to produce directions on fees and surplus, and counsel for students and faculty now have a forum in which the accounts will be on record.

Other Notable SC Orders This Week

• A burning test cannot prove charas (September 16) — In Abdul Rajik v. State of M.P., 2026 INSC 1001, Justices Sandeep Mehta and Manmohan acquitted two men convicted twenty years ago for 1 kg and 800 g of charas: the samples carried no seals or signatures, there was an unexplained five-day gap between dispatch and receipt at the laboratory, and Section 52A was ignored. “Once the FSL report is excluded from consideration, there is no other legally admissible evidence available to establish that the substance allegedly recovered from the accused-appellants was charas.”
• Eyewitnesses on a pitch-dark night (September 18) — In Kartika @ Kirtan Charan Jena v. State of Odisha, 2026 INSC 1015, Justices M.M. Sundresh and P.B. Varale acquitted four men convicted of a 2001 murder near Jajpur, the High Court itself having found that the family witnesses, sixty cubits away in the dark, could not have identified the assailants “merely on the basis of the sound of the assault.”
• Recoveries three days after arrest “appear stage-managed” (September 17) — In State of Himachal Pradesh v. Varinder Verma @ Jatti, 2026 INSC 1028, Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi dismissed the State’s appeal against the acquittal of two men in a 2009 double murder: blood-stained clothes and wooden implements recovered on a nephew’s delayed disclosure could not complete the chain of circumstances.
• Section 37 cannot be handed to the tribunal (September 18) — In Union of India v. Hariom Projects Pvt. Ltd., 2026 INSC 1044, Justices Aravind Kumar and P.B. Varale set aside a High Court order that had appointed an arbitrator in a Section 37 appeal and remitted the appeal to be treated as a Section 17 proceeding: “The appellate jurisdiction under Section 37 is vested exclusively in the ‘Court’ as contemplated under Section 2(1)(e) of the Act,” and cannot be delegated even by consent.
• Suppressing the earlier writ petition forfeits relief (September 16) — In Vinit Kumar v. State of U.P., 2026 INSC 997, Justices Narasimha and Aradhe dismissed a challenge to UPPCL’s 2013 revised select list for 2,974 Technician posts, and a plea for a CBI inquiry, by unsuccessful candidates who had not disclosed earlier proceedings seeking the same relief.
• An appointment against the advertisement is “a fraud on public” (September 16) — In Sunita Lahu Panchpande v. The District Collector, 2026 INSC 1002, Justices Datta and Sheel Nagu upheld the cancellation of an Anganwadi Supervisor’s appointment in Nashik made on a Divisional Commissioner’s “clarification” that waived the advertised requirement of ten years’ experience in the district; she may work until 30 September and is to be accommodated in Jalgaon.
• The insurer’s office is not a forum (September 16) — In K. Rashik v. National Insurance Co. Ltd., 2026 INSC 996, Justices Bhuyan and Chandurkar held that Section 166(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act gives the claimant the place of the accident or the place of his own residence or business, and nothing more: “the place where the defendant carries on business has been specifically omitted.”
• No vested right to promotion under repealed rules (September 17) — In BSNL v. G.N. Mani Ravinder, 2026 INSC 1007, Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Bhuyan reversed the Kerala High Court: officiating Assistant Directors (Official Language) could be required to pass the written test under the 2005 recruitment rules, and “the Government is entitled to take a conscious policy decision not to fill up the vacancies arising prior to the amendment of the rules.”
• A CBDT circular binds officers, not courts (September 18) — In Orient Crafts Ltd. v. CIT, New Delhi, 2026 INSC 1018, Justices Bhatti and Anjaria held that premium earned on the sale of garment export quotas is not an export incentive within Sections 28(iiia) to (iiic) for a Section 80HHC deduction, whatever a 1998 CBDT Office Memorandum said; the Memorandum “is never binding on the High Courts or the Supreme Court.”
• A writ court is not a forum for title (September 16) — In State of Telangana v. M.A. Garden Function Hall, 2026 INSC 995, Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar set aside orders protecting the possession of lessees of a Hyderabad plot proceeded against under the Land Encroachment Act, their lessor’s own writ having earlier failed on the same ground, and left the State’s locking of the premises undisturbed.
• A 1979 decree for specific performance restored (September 15) — In Sobaran Singh (D) through LRs v. Gordhan Singh (D) through LRs, 2026 INSC 1005, Justices Pardiwala and Vinod Chandran reversed the courts below on a 1975 agreement to sell five bighas near Agra, the plaintiff having been in possession under the trial court’s decree since 1979: “The plaintiff’s possession at this juncture cannot be interfered with.”
• The burden on coparceners challenging a karta’s sale (September 16) — In H.G. Pattabi v. K.R. Suraj, 2026 INSC 1041, Justices Augustine George Masih and Sandeep Mehta restored the dismissal of a suit by a widow and sons against the sale of two ancestral plots to clear house-building debts; the allegation that the father was “addicted to vices such as gambling and drinking” was “an improvement made… beyond the pleadings.”
• Shiv Sena: “People voted for united Shiv Sena” (September 15, 16 and 17) — Three days into the Shinde faction’s reply in Sunil Prabhu v. Eknath Shinde, the Chief Justice’s bench with Justices Bagchi and Mohana asked why the Election Commission had not left both factions to fight on their own symbols — “Both fight on your own strength, not on Balasaheb’s” — and how 2019 vote shares could evidence support for a faction formed in 2022, Justice Bagchi doubting that the legislative test can be “a very safe test” while disqualification proceedings are pending. The hearing continues.
• PMLA Adjudicating Authority: judgment reserved (September 15) — The same bench reserved judgment in Mukesh Kumar v. Union of India on whether the Adjudicating Authority under Section 6 must include a judicial member and whether it may sit as a single member to confirm attachments; “Even if there are 100 matters,” the Chief Justice asked, “why should there be only 1 officer to adjudicate?”
• Tribunals: “We don’t want tribunals to become defunct” (September 15) — In the Madras Bar Association matter the Chief Justice’s bench asked the Centre to continue retiring tribunal members on an ad hoc, stop-gap basis until fresh appointments, and pressed for a definite timeline; the Attorney General said appointments were in motion under the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2026.
• Contempt notice to the Union Education Secretary (September 15) — Justices Datta and Nagu issued notice on Ashwini Upadhyay’s contempt petition over the Secretary’s failure to decide, as earlier directed, his representation seeking registration and monitoring of institutions imparting religious or secular education to children under fourteen; personal appearance dispensed with, four weeks.
• NSE co-location: Chitra Ramkrishna’s plea declined (September 15) — Justices Pardiwala and Vinod Chandran refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court’s refusal to quash her prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act; whether an NSE managing director is a “public servant” is for the trial court.
• Aarey: notice on the plea to fell 124 trees (September 16) — On the Mumbai Tree Authority’s application to fell 124 trees and translocate 333 for a film institute campus, the Chief Justice’s bench issued notice returnable in two weeks, observing that “if projects of national importance are involved, and a reasonable plan for compensatory afforestation is in place, some balance can be struck.”
• Dahej: ₹3.27 crore that no one has claimed (September 16) — Four years after eight workers died at Bharat Rasayan’s Dahej plant, the Chief Justice’s bench asked the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court to register a suo motu case to trace the injured and the legal heirs for disbursal of the compensation the National Green Tribunal had awarded: “We cannot accept the bald-faced plea taken by the appellant-company that the claimants are not traceable.”
• A woman “pushed” into Bangladesh: notice (September 17) — In Sahin Fakir v. Union of India, the Chief Justice’s bench issued notice on a son’s plea that his mother, a West Bengal resident, was detained in Mumbai and handed across the border by the BSF without nationality verification; the petition also challenges the Home Ministry’s May 2025 deportation SOP and the Immigration and Foreigners Order, 2025.
• Manipur: “Tell your Chief Secretary not to invite orders” (September 17) — Told that of some 640 deaths in relief camps post-mortems had been conducted in only twenty cases, the Chief Justice’s bench directed the Manipur Chief Secretary to report on every unnatural death with the post-mortem reports, and the State Legal Services Authority to ensure FIRs are registered in each.
• Navodaya schools in Tamil Nadu (September 17) — Justices Nagarathna and Masih gave Tamil Nadu three months to identify land in each district — “People in Chennai should not alienate Delhi and vice versa” — and posted the State’s appeal to 14 December.
• Stipend parity for foreign medical graduates (September 17) — Justices Aravind Kumar and Pancholi directed the National Medical Commission to verify stipend payments in five States and indicated comprehensive directions that all medical interns be paid on parity: “There can’t be disparity between Indian medical graduates and foreign.”
• “An affront to womanhood” (September 17) — In Sumitra v. Indian Oil Corporation, the same bench restored a 1990 trial-court finding that a woman recommended for a helper’s post at the Karnal LPG bottling plant was passed over on account of her sex while 43 others were appointed, and awarded ₹12 lakh, appointment being impossible after superannuation: “Day in, day out they lift gas cylinders in their house.”
• Delhi SIR: 33 lakh notices, no reasons (September 17) — On Prashant Bhushan’s mention for Anjali Bhardwaj, the Chief Justice agreed to hear on Tuesday the plea for disclosure of the electors served “logical discrepancy” notices in Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision and the criteria behind them, alongside the other SIR matters.
• Graham Staines: remission refused (September 17) — Odisha told Justices Misra and Bishnoi that its Sentence Review Board had rejected Dara Singh’s plea for premature release on 31 August; he may amend his petition to challenge it.
• CBSE’s three-language policy (September 17) — The Chief Justice’s bench again asked CBSE to consider sparing the current Class 6 batch and making the mandate operative from the 2027 intake; the Board’s note said an exemption “may not be feasible.”
• Menstrual hygiene: “non-application of mind” in State reports (September 16) — Justices Pardiwala and Mahadevan, monitoring Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, found the States’ compliance affidavits a formality and ordered verifiable ground-level checks.

Insolvency & Corporate

Discipline: The Complainant Against an Insolvency Professional May Appeal the Board’s Order — and Development Authorities Are Not Secured Creditors

NCLAT, Principal Bench (Justice Mohammad Faiz Alam Khan and Naresh Salecha) — September 19, 2026

The IBC (Amendment) Act, 2026 inserted sub-sections (7) and (8) into Section 220, giving “any person aggrieved” by an order of the Board’s Disciplinary Committee a thirty-day appeal to the NCLAT. In Navneet Gupta v. Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, the first reported reading of the provision, the Tribunal held that the suspended director whose complaint had triggered the disciplinary proceedings against the professional was such a person, and could maintain his own appeal — including on the ground that the penalty imposed was too light. “The complainant on whose application the disciplinary proceedings were initiated certainly having an interest in the outcome of the appeal and therefore he is a ‘person aggrieved.’” An unconnected party seeking impleadment in the professional’s appeal was turned away.

The same bench, the same day, dismissed the appeals of the Greater Noida and Noida authorities in GNIDA v. Anand Sonbhadra, the Shubhkamna Buildtech insolvency. The “first charge” their lease deeds reserved was confined to the authorities’ share of any unearned increase in the land’s value, and arose only on a sale or the foreclosure of a mortgage — neither of which had occurred. The lease deeds created no security interest; the resolution plan’s treatment of the authorities as unsecured statutory creditors, ₹18.5 crore for Greater Noida and ₹25 crore for Noida against a Noida claim of ₹99.32 crore, stood.

Why it matters: Disciplinary orders against insolvency professionals now have two potential appellants, and a lenient penalty is as open to challenge as a harsh one — a change in the exposure of every professional who has faced a complaint since May. On the second ruling, development authorities across Uttar Pradesh have been claiming secured status on the strength of lease-deed charges; the NCLAT has read that clause narrowly, and homebuyer-heavy real-estate resolutions get correspondingly more room.

Other Notable Insolvency Orders

• An arbitral award does not turn a guarantor into a co-borrower (NCLAT, September 17) — In Ravindra Gopalkrishan Agarwal v. Jankalyan Sahakari Bank, Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma with Arun Baroka and Indevar Pandey dismissed personal guarantors’ appeals against their Section 95 admission: a 2017 award recording joint and several liability “does not, by itself, establish that the original contract of guarantee was extinguished.”
• Pending criminal proceedings are not a Section 29A bar (NCLAT, September 17) — In Suraksha Realty Ltd. v. Amit Gupta, the Faiz Alam Khan–Salecha bench upheld the plan for Mahavir Roads & Infrastructure: pendency of an investigation, prosecution or PMLA attachment against the resolution applicant is not an ineligibility, conviction is; and non-disclosure of the attachment did not vitiate a plan the committee had approved with knowledge of it.
• A former liquidator cannot withdraw the petition (Delhi HC, September 15) — In The Cooperative Store Ltd. v. Super Bazar Karamchari Dalit Sangh, a 2007 writ petition dismissed on a withdrawal filed by an Official Liquidator whose tenure had ended was restored.

From the High Courts

UAPA: Bail for Jagtar Singh Johal After Eight Years — Article 21 Does Not Yield to Section 43D(5) Indefinitely

Delhi High Court (Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja) — September 18, 2026

Jagtar Singh Johal, a British national, has been in custody since 4 November 2017 in seven NIA cases arising from the targeted killings in Punjab in 2016 and 2017 attributed to the Khalistan Liberation Force, charged under Sections 16, 17, 18, 18A, 18B, 20, 21 and 23 of the UAPA, Sections 120-B and 302 IPC and the Arms Act. Some forty prosecution witnesses have been examined; more than a hundred and twenty remain. The trial court had refused bail. Setting those orders aside, the Division Bench held that the statutory embargo in Section 43D(5) does not oust a constitutional court’s power to grant bail where incarceration has been prolonged and there is no realistic prospect of the trial concluding.

“There are various accused who are facing trial in the above RC(s), and no document has been produced before us to substantiate that the threats are in any manner emanating from the appellant or at his behest.”

Foreign nationality, the Bench held, is not by itself a flight risk that conditions cannot address. Bail is on a ₹5 lakh bond with two sureties, surrender of passport, a single registered phone kept switched on, fortnightly reporting, no contact with witnesses, and no public statements on the merits. The Bench recorded that bail is not an acquittal and expressed no view on the allegations.

Why it matters: The K.A. Najeeb line — that Article 21 overrides the UAPA’s bail bar once custody has run long enough with no end in sight — applied to a defendant whose case has been a diplomatic issue between India and the United Kingdom for eight years, and by a Bench that granted the same relief on the same footing to another accused four days earlier. The NIA’s likely appeal will test whether the Supreme Court draws the line at eight years, or at some other number.

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Privilege: A Lawyer Whose Own Conduct Is Under Investigation Cannot Shelter Behind Advocate–Client Privilege

Delhi High Court (Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Shail Jain) — September 18, 2026

On 25 July 2025, GST officers searched the offices of Bass Legal LLP and seized documents and the computer from advocate Puneet Batra’s cabin. The Department’s case was that he was not merely counsel to Matkarma Technology, an entity under investigation for tax evasion on an offshore online-gambling platform, but embedded in its operations, earning about 0.7 per cent of the revenue it collected — with more than ₹1,306 crore said to have been routed through the company. He challenged the search and seizure as a breach of advocate–client privilege. In Puneet Batra v. Union of India (2026:DHC:7976-DB), the Division Bench dismissed the writ petition and upheld the search under Section 67(2) of the CGST Act.

“Such privilege cannot operate as an absolute bar against an investigation into the conduct of the Advocate himself, where prima facie material indicates the Advocate may have acted beyond the role of a legal adviser.”

Privilege, the Bench held, “attaches to the nature of a communication and circumstances of its creation, not merely from material being found in an Advocate’s possession.” It then built in safeguards: the forensic examination of the computer is to take place in the petitioner’s presence, under court-appointed information-technology officers as Local Commissioners; the Department is confined to the cloned data so supervised; and files of clients unconnected with the investigated entity are not to be accessed without further orders. The judgment, the Bench said, does not weaken privilege generally.

Why it matters: The first detailed High Court treatment of a revenue search of a law office under the GST law, and it draws the line at the lawyer’s role rather than at the office door — privilege protects the client’s communications, not the adviser who becomes a participant. The Local Commissioner protocol it prescribes is the template the next search of a law firm will be measured against.

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Anti-Defection: A High Court Disqualifies the MLA the Speaker Would Not

Telangana High Court (Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh) — September 18, 2026

Danam Nagender won Khairatabad on a BRS ticket in 2023, joined the Congress before the 2024 Lok Sabha election, and contested Secunderabad as its candidate. The Speaker dismissed the disqualification petitions against him and nine other defecting MLAs on 11 March. On writ petitions by opposition legislators, the Division Bench set the Speaker’s order aside and declared Nagender disqualified under the Tenth Schedule with effect from 23 April 2024 — the day he filed his nomination for another party — with the seat vacant and the Speaker and the Election Commission informed.

Why it matters: The first of the ten Telangana defection cases to end in a court-ordered disqualification, and a High Court substituting its own finding for the Speaker’s rather than remitting — a step Kihoto Hollohan permits only after the Speaker has decided, which is exactly what made it available here. The judgment lands as twenty Trinamool defection petitions wait before the Lok Sabha Speaker.

Other Notable High Court Orders

• Bail after eight years on the same footing (Delhi HC, September 14) — In Mohammad Saqib @ Saqib Iftekar v. NIA (2026:DHC:7763-DB), Justices Chawla and Dudeja granted bail to an accused in the Harkat-ul-Harb-e-Islam case, forty of a hundred and twenty witnesses having been examined: the statutory rigour “melts down” where the trial is unlikely to end in a reasonable time, and a pending larger-bench reference is no ground to defer.
• A UAPA attachment order is appealable (Delhi HC, September 15) — In Aquil Ahmed v. NIA, the same Bench held that an order confirming attachment under Section 25(6) of the UAPA finally adjudicates rights in the property and is appealable under Section 21 of the NIA Act; final hearing 2 December.
• Bilkis Bano convict on parole (Gujarat HC, September 17) — Justice Sanjeev J. Thaker granted Radheshyam Shah seven days’ parole on his family’s economic condition, on a ₹10,000 bond and reporting to the nearest police station on the third and fifth days (2026 LiveLaw (Guj) 250).
• 1,237 mangroves for a 1.5 km trip (Bombay HC, September 17) — Chief Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Advait Sethna permitted the Municipal Corporation to fell mangroves for the Versova–Madh connector, which cuts a 22 km road journey to 1.5 km, on conditions: 39,000 mangroves planted over nine hectares, ten years’ monitoring, ₹1.42 crore deposited, and civil and criminal consequences for breach.
• Climate justice, suo motu (Sikkim HC, September 17) — Chief Justice A. Muhamed Mustaque and Justice Bhaskar Raj Pradhan registered a public-interest case after the Nepal floods, calling for “an anticipatory and participatory model of climate governance,” appointed three amici and invited public suggestions through the State Legal Services Authority; next 6 October.
• Contempt for a Tihar superintendent (Delhi HC, September 15) — Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav initiated contempt against a jail superintendent who kept an undertrial inside for weeks after parole was ordered on 30 July, citing an “address verification” the court had never required.
• No victory processions (Delhi HC, September 18) — Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia barred post-result processions in the Delhi University students’ union election and issued show-cause notices to candidates and student organisations on exemplary damages for Lyngdoh Committee violations.
• A WhatsApp group is not misconduct (Bombay HC, September 16) — In Dr. Swapan Garain v. TISS (2026:BHC-AS:37817-DB), a Division Bench quashed a professor’s compulsory retirement for creating an alumni careers group without permission, with 50 per cent back wages to superannuation.
• Maratha quota: a third bench (Bombay HC, September 18) — Justices M.S. Karnik, N.J. Jamadar and Sandeep Marne will hear the challenge to the 2024 SEBC Act afresh from 9 October, the previous bench having been broken up by Justice Ghuge’s elevation as Chief Justice of Calcutta.
• Darshan’s day in court (Karnataka HC, September 18) — Justice V. Srishananda settled the procedure for the actor’s physical production in the Renukaswamy murder trial: seven material witnesses among sixty are to be bound over for cross-examination on consecutive dates when the accused are produced (2026 LiveLaw (Kar) 366).
• Seven life sentences suspended (Karnataka HC, September 18) — Justices Mohammad Nawaz and G. Basavaraja suspended the sentences of seven convicts in the 2016 murder of BJP leader Yogesh Gowda pending appeal, on ₹5 lakh bonds.
• A Red Corner Notice for a contemnor (Delhi HC, September 18) — Justices Chawla and Dudeja directed the CBI to obtain an Interpol notice against Adeeshwar Singhal, who left for Italy in 2024 with warrants unexecuted and appeared by video to repeat his allegations against judges; compliance in December (2026 LiveLaw (Del) 877).
• Defamation over a phone call quashed (Calcutta HC, September 16) — Justice Uday Kumar quashed the 2022 complaint against Republic’s editor and a reporter over a call attributed to singer Kabir Suman, finding no independent imputation by the journalists.
• Pala’s MLA and two cheque-bounce convictions (Kerala HC, September 14) — Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas issued notice on a plea to declare Mani C. Kappan’s seat vacant, asking what a suspended sentence does to a disqualification; next 22 September.
• An Advocate General, two years absent (J&K and Ladakh HC, September 14) — Chief Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati and Justice Rajnesh Oswal issued notice on a PIL over the post lying vacant since October 2024; reply by 21 October.
• Vimal’s makers in the wrong court (Delhi HC, September 14) — Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma dismissed P B Agro’s challenge to Maharashtra FDA notices to three film actors over surrogate advertising for want of territorial jurisdiction (2026 LiveLaw (Del) 840).

At the Bar

Women Advocates: POSH “Cannot Be Applied in a Straitjacket” — Centre and BCI Told to Write Common Rules for Every Court

Supreme Court (Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih) — September 18, 2026

The petition in Seema Joshi v. Bar Council of India came out of a Bombay High Court ruling that the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 does not reach women advocates, there being no employer–employee relationship; the Supreme Court’s own 2013 Gender Sensitisation regulations apply only within its precincts. Justice Nagarathna observed that the 2013 Act “cannot be applied in a straitjacket manner” to the profession, and the Bench urged the Union and the Bar Council of India to frame, jointly and after consulting the stakeholders, a common set of regulations for complaints by women lawyers practising before High Courts, district and taluka courts, tribunals and quasi-judicial authorities. The Council’s counsel said she would seek instructions and “endeavour to bring about a common regulation”; the Council is also to report whether State Bar Councils already run any such mechanism. Next hearing 25 November.

Why it matters: Outside the Supreme Court and a handful of High Courts with their own committees, a woman advocate harassed in a courtroom, a chamber or a tribunal has no forum designed for her — the 2013 Act’s internal committee assumes an employer. A framework written for the profession would be the first of its kind, and the November date is when the Council must show a draft.

Other Notable at the Bar

• Fourteen judicial officers become High Court judges (September 19) — The Centre notified fourteen of the fifteen names the Collegium recommended on 10 September: for Delhi, Nivedita Anil Sharma and Nisha Sahay Saxena as judges and Sanjay Sharma, Bharat Parashar, Dr Aditi Choudhary, Dinesh Bhatt and Arun Bhardwaj as additional judges; for Jharkhand, Manoj Prasad, Akhil Kumar and Ram Sharma; for Karnataka, Usharani, K.S. Bharath Kumar and Nerale Veerabhadraiah Bhavani as additional judges; and for Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, Yash Paul Bourney. The eighth Delhi name, Gurvinder Pal Singh, was not notified.
• Provisional enrolment for distance-mode graduates (Supreme Court, September 17) — In STS Gladies v. Bar Council of India, Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta directed the Telangana State Bar Council to provisionally enrol three-year LL.B. graduates whose prior bachelor’s degrees were earned through distance or open education, pending the appeal on Rule 5 of the Rules of Legal Education, 2008; the enrolment “shall not create any equity in their favour.”
• “Not, and cannot be, averse to criticism” (September 14) — Delivering the Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, the Chief Justice said the judiciary cannot seek public confidence by placing itself beyond scrutiny: “A Court does not earn trust by being liked, or by handing out the outcomes people wanted… Its authority exists only for as long as people continue to believe, unforced, that it truly deserves to be obeyed.”
• Judgments in Hindi (September 15) — The Supreme Court announced a Hindi public-information service: simplified Hindi summaries of important judgments and daily audio-video bulletins, to be extended to other Indian languages in phases.
• Tejpal surrenders (September 14) — Tarun Tejpal surrendered before the Additional Sessions Court at Mapusa to serve the ten-year sentence the Bombay High Court imposed in August, and was taken to Colvale Central Jail; his appeal is listed before the Supreme Court next week.
• Twenty-two Senior Advocates (Telangana HC, September 16) — The Full Court designated twenty-two lawyers.
• A Bar Council order is challenged by appeal, not by complaint (Delhi HC, September 14) — Justice Kaurav dismissed a suspended advocate’s criminal revision, which had sought to attack a Bar Council of India disciplinary order collaterally through a complaint against the judge who dismissed his earlier challenge: an order of the Council’s disciplinary committee “is amenable to challenge only by way of an appeal to the Supreme Court under Section 38.”

Legislative & Regulatory Watch

Payments: The Finance Ministry Puts a Price on UPI — 0.4 Per Cent Above ₹2,000, From October 15

Department of Financial Services — September 14 and 15, 2026

By notification S.O. 5067(E) of 14 September under Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, the Centre specified the two modes on which no charge may be levied on payer or payee: RuPay debit card transactions, without ceiling, and UPI transactions up to ₹2,000. The next day the Department published the framework for everything else. From 15 October, person-to-merchant UPI payments above ₹2,000 carry a merchant discount rate of 0.4 per cent, capped at ₹300; payments above ₹2,000 for railways, telecom, insurance, fuel and agricultural inputs carry a flat ₹5; person-to-person transfers, small merchants receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month through UPI QR, and RuPay debit stay free. The charge is borne by the merchant and, the framework says, cannot be passed to the customer; the Ministry’s estimate is that about 96 per cent of merchant transactions are unaffected.

The rate itself appears in no gazette. The notification protects the free modes; the 0.4 per cent lives in the Department’s release and an NPCI circular. Within two days a public-interest petition by advocate Anjan Datta reached the Supreme Court, arguing that treating RuPay debit as free without limit while capping free UPI at ₹2,000 offends Article 14, that the thresholds have no disclosed basis, that Section 10A is an excessive delegation, and that the NPCI committee that fixed the rate had no authority to.

Why it matters: A decade of zero-MDR UPI ends on 15 October, and the legal architecture is thin: a statutory notification for what is free, and executive and NPCI paper for what is charged. Counsel for merchants and payment aggregators should read the pass-through prohibition carefully, since the framework, not the statute, is its source — and the Article 14 challenge will be the first test of Section 10A since it was rewritten.

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Telecom: TRAI’s Third Anti-Spam Amendment — Apps May Not Block 140 and 1600 Series Calls, and Undeclared Robocalls Pay

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India — September 18, 2026

The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2026 close the consultation that opened in March. Call-management applications may no longer tag, block or filter calls from the 140, 1600 and 1601 series, the numbering ranges reserved for registered telemarketing and transactional calls — 140-series calls may be blocked only for subscribers on the do-not-disturb register — and their spam reports must route to the distributed-ledger platform. Senders must declare application-to-person voice use in advance; undeclared autodialled, pre-recorded or AI-voice calls attract a termination charge of up to ₹0.05 a minute. Detection of unsolicited communication by machine-learning systems is formally incorporated, with the receiving operator to flag and share a suspect within two hours, though an AI flag alone is not enough for action; the complaint threshold falls from five to three unique complaints in ten days when combined with such a flag. Consumers get a fifteen-day appeal against a wrongly closed complaint; consent obtained through an inquiry is valid for seven days; misuse of a header or template brings suspension within six hours, and the offending telemarketer a year’s disconnection and blacklisting.

Why it matters: The regulation resolves in the operators’ favour the long fight with call-identification apps over the registered numbering series, and puts a price on the robocall for the first time. Compliance teams at every enterprise sender should check that their voice campaigns are declared, since the termination charge and the six-hour suspension both bite on the sender’s principal entity.

Other Notable Regulatory Moves

• Arrest and detention leave the tax-recovery rules (CBDT, September 17) — Notification 120/2026, the Income-tax (Fourth Amendment) Rules, 2026, deletes from Rule 225 the machinery for arrest, detention and civil imprisonment as modes of recovery, with effect from 1 April 2026; substitutes the forms for registered valuers and authorised income-tax practitioners; and extends their registration deadline from 30 September 2026 to 31 March 2027.
• Kore Digital restrained (SEBI, September 17) — An interim order alleges ₹541.3 crore of misstated consolidated revenue across two financial years — about 73 per cent of what was reported — restrains the company and its managing director, chief executive and chief financial officer from raising public funds and dealing in its securities, and holds its migration from NSE Emerge to the main board.
• Cross-segment manipulation (SEBI, September 16) — An ex parte interim order against a registered broker, Prrsaar Sampada, and a related entity, over profits booked in stock options against losses in stock futures, impounds ₹28.12 crore of prima facie unlawful gains and bars the two entities and four directors.
• One reporting window for clearing members (SEBI, September 17) — The Samuhik Prativedan Manch extends to clearing members: from 30 September those who are also brokers file fourteen compliance reports through the common platform, the remainder from 31 December.
• Disaster-recovery drills for market infrastructure (SEBI, September 15) — A consultation paper proposes a minimum four-hour drill on a non-working day in place of a full trading day, expanded stress-testing of primary data centres, and a procedure for exchanges to recover lost trade data from clearing corporations; comments by 5 October.
• Five NBFC registrations cancelled (RBI, September 17) — Dar’s Financial Services, Rolta Holding and Finance Corporation, Vasudeo Securities, Parsoli Corporation and A.C. Choksi Financial Services; eight more surrendered. Directions on Gauhati Co-operative Urban Bank and Valsad Mahila Nagrik Sahakari Bank were extended three months.
• Certified copies for FPIs (RBI, September 18) — The KYC Amendment Directions, 2026, issued in six parallel sets, extend to foreign portfolio investors the facility, so far confined to NRIs and PIOs, of overseas-certified copies of documents.
• The compliance window closes (MCA, September 15) — The Companies Compliance Facilitation Scheme, 2026, which allowed delayed filings at a tenth of the additional fee, ended on its last extended date.

What We’re Watching Next Week

• Shiv Sena — the Shinde faction’s reply continues before the Chief Justice’s bench, which has now twice questioned the Election Commission’s method; whether the matter is reserved or spills further is the question.
• Delhi SIR (September 22) — the plea for disclosure of the 33 lakh “logical discrepancy” notices comes up with the other Special Intensive Revision matters.
• Trinamool’s name and symbol — the Election Commission froze both on 17 September, less than three weeks before the Nandigram and Rejinagar bye-elections, allotting “Football Player” to Mamata Banerjee’s group and “Envelope” to Arup Roy’s; the bye-elections are on 6 October.
• Tejpal — the appeal against his conviction is listed next week, with a suspension-of-sentence plea to follow.
• The UPI petition — Anjan Datta’s challenge to the merchant charge awaits listing; the charge itself takes effect on 15 October.
• Also on the calendar — the Reserve Bank’s draft procedure for suspected mule accounts closes for comments on 2 October and IBBI’s personal-guarantor safeguards paper on 3 October; the GST Council meets on 7 October, postponed from 12 September. Still reserved: the PMLA Adjudicating Authority question, the two-child norm, the Sabarimala nine-judge reference and the Jindal Poly Films recall order. Further out: Section 147A on 3 December, private universities on 19 November, the women-advocates framework on 25 November and Navodaya schools on 14 December.

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