A Police Confession Alone Cannot Justify Preventive Detention

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 four-day week, with Gandhi Jayanti on the Friday, and a heavy one. Justices Datta and Nagu quashed the National Security Act detention of the man Uttar Pradesh calls the mastermind of the Sambhal violence, held that a confession to a police officer cannot on its own satisfy a detaining authority, overruled a 1986 Madras Full Bench to say so, and sent the State a ₹10 lakh bill. A Pardiwala bench opened a suo motu docket on the Delhi-NCR rapes with a four-week audit order and a line — “expressing solidarity is not the solution” — that will be quoted back at every State. The Chief Justice’s bench gave the Election Commission four months on the Trinamool symbol, the West Bengal Speaker ten days on ten rebel MLAs, refused to hurry the Special Intensive Revision cases before “just bye-elections,” and extracted from the Solicitor General an undertaking to amend the IT Rules so that no one under eighteen can open a social media account. Justices Narasimha and Aradhe unwound a SARFAESI sale conducted under a tribunal’s restraint and restored a homebuyers’ insolvency that a collusive trigger had tried to kill. The Collegium sent three Chief Justices to the Supreme Court, a contempt petition disappeared from one bench’s list and reappeared before a special bench the next day, Punjab & Haryana wrote fourteen rules for input-credit denials across 424 petitions, and the Law Ministry notified the rules that bring the National Tribunals Commission to life. Here’s what happened.

Supreme Court Highlights

Preventive Detention: A Police Confession Alone Cannot Justify an NSA Order — Mulla Afroz

Bench: Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu — September 29, 2026

Violence broke out on 24 November 2024 during a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid at Sambhal; four people died. The appellant was not named in the first FIR. He was arrested fifty-four days later, on 17 January 2025; a confessional statement was recorded in police custody, and a .32-bore pistol was said to have been recovered on its strength — though the dead had been killed by .315-bore rounds. He got bail in the principal case on 9 September 2025. On 13 October 2025, while he was still in judicial custody in the remaining FIRs, the District Magistrate detained him under Section 3(2) of the National Security Act; the State confirmed the order for twelve months in November; by June 2026 he had bail in every case and the Allahabad High Court had dismissed his challenge. In Mulla Afroz v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 1067, the Supreme Court set the detention aside — and took the occasion to settle a question that has been open since 1986.

The detaining authority’s subjective satisfaction rested on the custodial confession. The Court held that it could not. A statement to a police officer is barred by Section 23 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (Section 25 of the Evidence Act before it) and is “presumed to be tainted and vulnerable to coercion, threat, inducement or promise”; material that the law treats as irrelevant in a trial cannot become relevant because the proceeding is preventive rather than punitive. The observations in Aruna Kumari and Senthamilselvi that had been read the other way were obiter. The 1986 Full Bench of the Madras High Court in Suman, which States have cited for forty years, was decided without the benefit of Kartar Singh and was overruled to that extent.

“A confessional statement made before a police officer cannot, by itself, and in the absence of any independent material lending support thereto, constitute a basis for forming the subjective satisfaction necessary to sustain an order of preventive detention.”

Because an irrelevant ground “strikes at the heart of the protection guaranteed by Article 22(5)” — the detenu cannot make an effective representation against material he cannot lawfully be held on — the order fell whole. The timing told its own story: a detention order passed weeks after bail, on the same material, “is not preventive but punitive and appears intended to subvert the order granting bail.” The appellant is to be released forthwith, and Uttar Pradesh is to pay him ₹10 lakh in costs within a month. The judgment opens with an in memoriam for Ritwik Deswal, the Bench’s law clerk, who died four days before it was pronounced and had worked on it.

Why it matters: This is the first Supreme Court judgment to carry the Section 25 bar across into preventive-detention review and to overrule the Madras authority that detaining authorities have leaned on since 1986. Every NSA, PASA, COFEPOSA or PIT-NDPS ground that rests on what the detenu told the police is now open to attack, and the “detention after bail” pattern — which this Court has described before but rarely priced — now carries exemplary costs.

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Public Safety: “Expressing Solidarity Is Not the Solution” — A Suo Motu Docket on the Delhi-NCR Rapes

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 28, 2026

Three cases in a fortnight: the alleged gang rape of a seventeen-year-old at Aastha Kunj Park, near the Kalkaji temple, after students of the women’s college next door had complained of harassment there and been ignored; the alleged gang rape and murder of a teenage girl in Swaroop Nagar, whose body was found in a field; and the alleged sexual assault of a minor on a sleeper bus that travelled forty-seven kilometres from Greater Noida into Delhi without being stopped. In In Re: Recent Rape Incidents in Delhi NCR, 2026 INSC 1063, the Court registered a suo motu writ petition on its own motion, drew “painful parallels to the 2012 Nirbhaya case,” and described what the three cases showed as a “systematic failure on the part of the law enforcement and public administrative authorities.”

“Expressing solidarity is not the solution to this social evil.”

The interim directions run to four weeks. The Commissioner of Police is to constitute a dedicated team in every district, headed by an officer not below Deputy Superintendent, to survey vulnerable locations using NCRB data and past complaints; to prepare district-wise vulnerability maps and share them across adjoining stations; to deploy patrolling at identified parks and zones with named responsible officers; to audit lighting and CCTV across parks, Metro stations, bus stops, terminals and railway stations and repair what does not work; to process geo-tagged citizen complaints about dark stretches through the Chief Minister’s Jan Sunwai portal; and to enforce the ban on tinted window films laid down in Avishek Goenka through mobile checkpoints. Status reports are due on the use of the National Database on Sexual Offenders over five years, the Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences, Mission Shakti, the 112 and 181 helplines, the Safe City project, Women Help Desks and One Stop Centres — each with coverage, responsible officers, three years of call and case volumes and response times. The Registrar General of the Delhi High Court is to file an affidavit on every functional Fast Track Special Court and exclusive POCSO court, with pendency and disposal rates; the three cases go to a designated fast-track court with trial to conclude within a year. The media were cautioned against “sensationalist headlines and graphic descriptions of sexual violence” and reminded of Section 72 of the BNS and Section 23 of the POCSO Act. Senior Advocate Liz Mathew is amicus; notice to the Chief Secretary, the Commissioner of Police and the Registrar General; the matter returns on 5 October.

Why it matters: This is a continuing-mandamus docket with a first return date in a week, and its template — vulnerability maps, infrastructure audits, helpline metrics, fast-track court data — is portable to any State. Counsel in Delhi-NCR sexual-offence trials should expect fast-track listing pressure and audit material entering the record; police and civic lawyers should expect the next order to be about compliance.

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Children Online: Centre Undertakes to Bar Under-18s From Social Media Accounts by Rule

Bench: Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana — September 28, 2026

The Just Rights for Children Alliance’s petition, which we have tracked since the Union was first asked to respond, asked for age verification, parental consent and safeguards for minors on social media. The Chief Justice’s bench pressed the point that the platforms’ own thirteen-year threshold was imported from American law with no Indian legal basis, and that a minor who cannot contract cannot be bound by a platform’s terms. “Guidelines are mere guidelines,” Justice Bagchi told the Solicitor General. “It should be in some statutory format.” The Court warned that if the Government did not act it might issue directions to the intermediaries itself.

The Solicitor General’s answer was an undertaking: the Centre will amend the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules to make it a statutory obligation on intermediaries not to allow a user under eighteen to create an account. Four weeks to report.

Why it matters: An amendment to the Intermediary Rules is a due-diligence condition of safe harbour under Section 79, which means age-gating would become a condition of immunity rather than a matter of platform policy. The verification mechanics — zero-knowledge proofs, parental consent, age bands — are where the drafting fight will be, and platform counsel have four weeks before the Court sees a draft.

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Elections: Four Months for the Trinamool Symbol, Ten Days for the Speaker, “Just Bye-Elections” for SIR

Bench: Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana — September 28, 2026

Mamata Banerjee’s writ petition against the Election Commission’s 17 September freeze of the All India Trinamool Congress name and its flowers-and-grass symbol came up on Monday, with Kapil Sibal for the petitioner, Mukul Rohatgi for Ritabrata Banerjee’s faction and Neeraj Kishan Kaul for the Commission. The Commission asked for six months to decide the dispute between the factions. “Three-month period is good enough,” the Chief Justice said: pleadings before the Commission are to close in four weeks, and the Commission is to decide within three months thereafter. The interim arrangement stands — football for the Banerjee group, envelope for the “Democratic Trinamool Congress” — for the Nandigram and Rejinagar bye-elections on 6 October. Justice Bagchi suggested the Commission use AI tools to move faster.

The same bench, the same morning, disposed of Sohandeb Chattopadhyay’s petition on the Tenth Schedule petitions he filed on 8 July against ten MLAs of the Ritabrata faction: following Keisham Meghachandra Singh, the Speaker of the West Bengal Assembly is “expected” to decide them by 8 October, and the Court saw no reason to doubt that he would. The Chief Justice also declined to advance the West Bengal Special Intensive Revision petitions ahead of the bye-elections — “these are just bye-elections” — and listed them for 5 October; the Commission has told the Court it is open to expanding the appellate tribunals from 19 to 42, with barely three per cent of the appeals decided as of mid-September. A fresh Article 32 petition seeking the suspension of the Chief Election Commissioner, alleging some fourteen decisions taken over the recorded objections of the two Election Commissioners, was mentioned on Tuesday and listed for 5 October. And Dr Jaya Thakur, whose petition produced last week’s split verdict on the Election Commissioners Act, filed a plea for its recall 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; no order yet. On Thursday, Justices Sundresh and Varale declined to interfere with the West Bengal Police’s debit freeze on four of the party’s Indian Bank accounts — about ₹804 crore, on an MLA’s complaint — and asked the Calcutta High Court to expedite the matter.

Why it matters: The Commission now has a court-fixed clock on the symbol dispute — the first since the Shiv Sena experience the Chief Justice invoked last week — and the Speaker has a date. Between the recall plea, the suspension petition and the 5 October listing of the revision cases, the Commission’s independence is being litigated on four fronts at once, with the Constitution Bench on the appointments law still unconstituted.

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SARFAESI: Bids Taken Under a Tribunal’s Restraint Cannot Found a Valid Sale — Sterling Holiday Resorts

Bench: Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Alok Aradhe — September 30, 2026

Sterling had mortgaged its Ooty resort, The Fernhill, to IFCI and TFCI against loans taken in 1991. After default, IFCI issued a SARFAESI auction notice on 25 March 2010 at a reserve of ₹20 crore. On 7 April the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal restrained the authorised officer from proceeding, subject to a ₹1 crore deposit that the borrower made the next day. IFCI nonetheless received a bid and earnest money. Seventeen months later, after the Madras High Court lifted the restraint, it opened the bids without notice to the borrower, and issued the sale certificate to a partnership firm that had not bid and did not exist on the auction date. The High Court upheld the sale in 2013. In Sterling Holiday Resorts Ltd. v. M/s P.M. Associates, 2026 INSC 1071, the Supreme Court set it aside.

The Court counted the breaches: bids solicited and received while a tribunal’s restraint subsisted; only thirteen of the mandatory thirty days under Rule 9(1) of the Security Interest (Enforcement) Rules had run when the restraint took effect, and the balance never ran before the sale was concluded; no notice to the borrower when a dormant auction was revived; a sale certificate to a non-bidder; and no auction records produced. Confirmation, it held, cures none of this.

“Sanctity is the reward of legality, not a substitute for it.”

The borrower’s appeals were allowed, the purchaser’s dismissed, and the Court declined to initiate contempt.

Why it matters: Secured creditors have long treated confirmation of sale as the point after which a SARFAESI auction is unassailable. This judgment says the thirty-day window, the notice on revival and the identity of the bidder are mandatory, and that a bid received in defiance of a restraint is a nullity whatever happens afterwards — a checklist for borrowers resisting Rule 8 and 9 shortcuts, and for authorised officers who would rather not relitigate a sale sixteen years on.

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Cheque Dishonour: A Notice Sent to the Right Address Is Served, Whoever Signs for It — Sainaba

Bench: Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Manmohan — September 30, 2026

The complainant lent ₹3 lakh; the cheque bounced; the statutory notice went by registered post on 31 August 2016 to the drawer’s correct address, where his mother received it. The trial court convicted him — six months’ simple imprisonment and a ₹3 lakh fine — and the Sessions Court affirmed. The Kerala High Court acquitted, reasoning that because the mother had signed for the notice, the complainant had to prove separately that the accused himself knew of it. In Sainaba v. State of Kerala, 2026 INSC 1069, the Supreme Court restored the conviction and the sentence.

“Once a demand notice is dispatched by registered post to the correct address, a rebuttable presumption of service arises.”

Section 27 of the General Clauses Act and Section 114 of the Evidence Act do the work: a properly addressed, prepaid registered letter is deemed served in the ordinary course unless the contrary is proved, and the presumption “applies irrespective of the identity of the person who physically receives it.” The burden is the drawer’s — to show the address was wrong, the letter never arrived, or the postal endorsement was false — and the High Court had reversed it.

Why it matters: The “my mother signed for it” defence is closed. Complainants under Section 138 need prove dispatch to the correct address and nothing more; drawers who want to rebut the presumption must lead evidence, not point to the signature on the acknowledgement.

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CPC: Order 23 Liberty Cannot Revive a Relief Omitted Without Order 2 Rule 2 Leave — Bombay Garage

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 29, 2026

The plaintiff claimed an oral agreement, struck over two or three meetings, to buy the defendant company’s land at ₹18.51 crore, later raised to ₹20.50 crore, with ₹11,000 and ₹5 lakh paid in cash as token and a ₹5 crore cheque handed over — and never presented. It first sued for a permanent injunction, withdrew that suit with liberty under Order 23 Rule 1, and then sued for specific performance. The trial court and the first appellate court decreed the second suit. In Bombay Garage Ahmedabad Ltd. v. J P Iscon Pvt. Ltd., 2026 INSC 1066, the Supreme Court set the decrees aside on two independent grounds.

First, procedure. Specific performance arose from the same cause of action as the injunction; the plaintiff omitted it from the first suit without leave under Order 2 Rule 2(3); and liberty to file afresh obtained on withdrawal is not a substitute for leave that had to be sought at institution. The second suit was barred. Second, merits. The two plaints contradicted each other on the meetings; the negotiations ran through the ninth defendant’s son-in-law, who held no office in the company and produced no authority; a former Governor’s evidence of a telephone conversation was hearsay and unpleaded; and the cheque told the story.

“When the cheque of Rs.5,00,00,000/- given as an advance, had not been encashed, it is a clear indication that there is no concluded contract.”

A plaintiff relying on an oral agreement to sell carries a heavy burden of strict proof; the concurrent findings “border on perversity.” The suit was dismissed.

Why it matters: Plead every relief that flows from the cause of action in the first suit, or obtain leave then. The common practice of suing for injunction first, withdrawing with liberty and suing for specific performance later now has a square Supreme Court ruling against it, and oral sale agreements proved by inference rather than evidence will not survive a second look.

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Bail: “The Medical Fraternity Cannot Be Touched” — Corporator’s Bail Cancelled — Mhatre

Bench: Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta — September 28, 2026

On 6 July 2026 a woman in labour had waited hours at the Shastri Nagar municipal hospital in Dombivli; a Shiv Sena corporator, Ramesh Sukrya Mhatre, arrived after calls from the family, and three doctors on duty in the labour ward, one of them a woman, were assaulted and abused. The FIR invoked the BNS and the Maharashtra Medicare Service Persons Act, 2010. A Magistrate granted bail on 14 July; the Bombay High Court, taking suo motu notice of the doctors’ protests, stayed that order on 18 July as suffering “serious infirmity” — and then, on 7 August, granted bail itself, on conditions that the accused live outside Maharashtra and report in Goa. In State of Maharashtra v. Ramesh Sukrya Mhatre, 2026 INSC 1075, the Supreme Court cancelled it.

The High Court had recorded a prima facie infirmity and then reversed itself without explanation; it had not weighed the eighteen criminal cases against the first respondent; and it had not asked what an elected representative owes.

“The criminal antecedents of an accused assume particular significance while considering an application for bail, especially where the material on record indicates a pattern of repeated involvement in criminal activities.”

“The message must go loud and clear,” Justice Mehta said in court. “Medical fraternity cannot be touched and attacked in this manner.” All four accused are to surrender by 5 October; the trial is to conclude within six months; the doctors and hospital staff are to have protection under the Maharashtra Witness Protection and Security Act, 2017.

Why it matters: A superior court that records infirmity in a bail order cannot grant bail on the same record without cogent reasons, and antecedents are a mandatory consideration rather than colour. For the medical profession, which has pressed for a central protection law for years, this is the strongest statement yet from the Court that assaults on doctors will be treated as a category apart.

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Evidence: A §313 Answer Cannot Complete the Chain, and a DNA Match Proves Presence, Not Time

Bench: Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar; Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi — October 1, 2026

Two acquittals on the same day, each closing a door the prosecution had tried to walk through. In Santosh Gurung v. State of Sikkim, 2026 INSC 1073, the appellant had been convicted of the 2013 rape and murder of his six-year-old niece. The last-seen witnesses were uncertain; the Section 27 recovery was from a place anyone could see; and the DNA report said the recovered bone fragments were male — the victim was a girl. The trial court had used the appellant’s answers under Section 313 to fill the gaps.

“The statement of the accused is not a substantive piece of evidence and therefore, it can be used only for appreciating the evidence led by the prosecution.”

Only where the chain is otherwise complete, the Bench held, can an accused’s failure to explain furnish an additional link; it cannot build a link the prosecution never proved. Conviction set aside; release ordered.

In State of Himachal Pradesh v. Anchla @ Chanchla, 2026 INSC 1074, the State appealed an acquittal in the 2011 strangling of a woman and her minor son in their locked house. The Court found that the taxi-driver and hotel-worker witnesses were “creations of the investigation,” with no explanation of how their statements came to be recorded; that the father’s last-seen account improved over time and his six days of silence were unexplained; that the broken-lock-and-keys link was never proved and the call records never produced; and that the DNA match of the accused’s blood on a trunk showed only that she had been there at some point — as a step-daughter who visited regularly would have been.

“The role of the investigating officer is to collect evidence and not to create one.”

Why it matters: Two rules for circumstantial cases, stated cleanly: the Section 313 statement is for appreciating the prosecution’s evidence, never for supplying it; and forensic presence is not forensic timing. Both are points trial courts get wrong, and both are now citable from judgments of the same day.

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Land Acquisition: Severance Is Measured on the Land Left Behind, Not the Strip Taken — Surinder Ahuja

Bench: Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu — September 29, 2026

Land in six villages of Fazilka was acquired under the 1894 Act for the Aspal Extension Drain, an eighteen-kilometre ditch canal up to 340 feet wide, with bridges two kilometres apart too narrow for a combine harvester — so that holdings on the far side were cut off. The Reference Courts awarded a uniform ₹5 lakh an acre and fifty per cent severance on the land left behind. The Punjab & Haryana High Court substituted graded “radial” rates by distance and recomputed severance as a flat forty per cent of the acquired strip’s value. In Surinder Ahuja v. State of Punjab, 2026 INSC 1068, forty-seven appeals, the Supreme Court restored both.

Contiguous land taken for one project warrants uniform valuation absent some material distinction; and severance under Section 23(1) compensates the diminution of what remains, so the High Court had made “a fundamental error” in moving the baseline to what was taken.

“Rendering unacquired land inaccessible constitutes a constructive total loss of its agricultural utility.”

Recomputation within six months.

Why it matters: Severance is an independent head measured on the residue, not a percentage of the award — usable in every linear-project reference, which is to say every road, canal, pipeline and railway acquisition now in the Reference Courts.

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Other Notable SC Orders This Week

• Bail in the Jal Jeevan Mission case (September 29) — Justices Datta and Nagu granted bail to a former Secretary of the Rajasthan Water Supply and Sewerage Management Board and a private intermediary accused in the ₹979.45 crore tender-forgery case, the chargesheet filed, charges not framed and the evidence documentary: “pre-trial incarceration cannot masquerade as punitive detention, particularly when the commencement and conclusion of the trial are not imminent” (Sanjay Badaya v. State of Rajasthan, 2026 INSC 1065).
• Compromise decree without a necessary party is a nullity (September 28) — Justices Nath and Mehta: a daughter entitled under Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act was a necessary party to her father’s partition suit, and a compromise decree passed in appeal without her or her heirs “was a nullity in the eyes of law”; the heirs are not strangers barred by Order 23 Rule 3A from seeking recall. Telangana High Court order set aside, matter remitted (Geeta Bai v. K. Arjun Singh).
• Article 142 package deal on a transfer petition (September 28) — Justices Nagarathna and Mahadevan dissolved a marriage that had generated eighteen civil and criminal proceedings across Cuttack, Mumbai, Noida and Delhi, recorded ₹35 lakh permanent alimony, quashed every case and barred fresh litigation between the families (Shikha v. State of Odisha, 2026 INSC 1060).
• Bihar’s defunct corporations (September 28) — Justices Nath and Mehta ended a twenty-five-year dispute over the employees of five inter-State corporations stranded by the 2000 bifurcation: separate corporate personality “cannot be permitted to deprive the employees/workmen of their lawful dues”; ₹1 lakh one-time payment to each daily-wager, 12 per cent on delayed EPF contributions, 6 per cent on delayed wages, lists in four weeks, payment in three months (2026 INSC 1061).
• No cross-contract set-off of a disputed claim (September 30) — Justices Narasimha and Aradhe quashed a Chhattisgarh rural-roads agency’s recovery of ₹84 lakh from a contractor’s running bills under three later PMGSY contracts to recover an alleged overpayment on earlier works: no clause permitted it, the agency’s own safeguards were ignored, and “a party to a contract cannot, merely because it also holds amounts otherwise payable under it, treat such a claim as though it were an ascertained debt.” Refund with 6 per cent interest (Awadhesh Singh Gautam v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2026 INSC 1072).
• Cattle transport is not presumed to be for slaughter (September 29) — Justices Pardiwala and Chandran set aside a conviction under the Chhattisgarh Agricultural Cattle Preservation Act: the reverse presumption bites only once the prosecution proves the ingredients, and “the mere fact that the transport was not accompanied by any documents cannot lead to a presumption that the transport was for slaughter” (Saurabh Bajaj v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2026 INSC 1076).
• ₹23,000 crore in unpaid e-challans (September 28) — in the road-safety matter S. Rajaseekaran, Justices Pardiwala and Viswanathan were told that of ₹49,194 crore in e-challans issued nationally, ₹26,175 crore had been paid; they directed random checks and impounding of vehicles with unpaid challans, a freeze on Parivahan services — registration renewal, duplicates, address changes, fitness, PUC, ownership transfer — until dues are cleared, and licence suspension for repeat defaulters.
• UPI merchant charges — no stay (September 28) — the Chief Justice’s bench called the challenge to the 14–15 September notifications “less legal and more technical,” issued notice to the Union, the RBI and NPCI and asked for the facts on affidavit within four weeks; the Additional Solicitor General said the 0.4 per cent charge is “neither a tax nor a fee,” that 96 per cent of transactions are untouched and that the Government “is not taking even a single rupee.” The charge bites on 15 October.
• The advocate’s office search (September 28) — Justices Datta and Nagu stayed the Delhi High Court’s judgment upholding the GST search of Advocate Puneet Batra’s office and the cloning of his computers, issued notice, and asked what the “reason to believe” was: his name appears in a witness statement of 29 July but not in the 24 July version, and material found after a search cannot justify it. He was to appear before the Department on 30 September instead.
• Why not 16 per cent? (September 29) — Justices Nath and Mehta, shown a cancer drug with a price to retailer of about ₹2,700 and an MRP of about ₹27,000, asked why the 16 per cent retail margin in the Drugs (Prices Control) Order could not be the ceiling for every medicine, called the hospital markups “carnage,” and asked the Centre to examine the compulsion to buy from in-house pharmacies. Next: 12 October.
• Firecrackers: no total ban, no 24 hours (September 30) — Justices Sundresh and Varale, in Arjun Gopal: “Neither are we going to agree with you for a total ban, nor are we going to allow them to do it 24 hours.” Open-ground testing of barium crackers by 14 October; specified hours and prohibited categories to follow; next 15 October, with liberty to raise the Delhi-NCR overlap before the Chief Justice’s M.C. Mehta bench.
• Sohrabuddin Shaikh (September 28) — the Chief Justice’s bench issued notice on the brother’s challenge to the Bombay High Court’s May judgment upholding the acquittal of twenty-two accused, twenty-one of them police officers. “Ninety-two witnesses turning hostile is a concern,” Justice Bagchi said; the Court will read selected depositions, and will not reopen the discharge of Amit Shah. Next: 28 October.
• Patent term (September 29) — Justices Narasimha and Aradhe issued notice on a challenge to Section 53 of the Patents Act, which runs the twenty-year term from filing even where the grant came seven years later; the Calcutta High Court had upheld it.
• Section 16(2)(c) CGST at the Supreme Court (September 30) — Justices Pardiwala and Chandran issued notice on a challenge to the Rajasthan High Court’s 13 August judgment upholding the provision and stayed coercive action against the petitioner — the same provision Punjab & Haryana addressed across 424 petitions the next day (see From the High Courts).
• Prosecution under the IPC after sanction is refused under the PC Act — reserved (September 30) — Justices Pardiwala and Chandran, on the petitions of former IDBI Bank officials whose prosecution for IPC offences continued after sanction under Section 19 was declined on merits.
• NCPCR (September 29) — Justices Narasimha and Aradhe on the Commission’s response in the 25 per cent RTE quota matter: “Who heads NCPCR? How can they be so indifferent?” The Chairperson and the Director are to be present at the next hearing.
• Karnataka KPSC recruitment (October 1) — Justices Misra and Bishnoi stayed the Karnataka High Court’s 21 September direction constituting an SIT under a senior IPS officer to re-investigate two recruitment cases, the State pleading that the CID probe was nearly complete; objections to the SIT’s composition in sealed cover.
• Punjab municipal wards (September 28) — re-election in every ward where Justice (retd) Nirmaljit Kaur’s committee found violence, the State having accepted the report; “please make sure this is not treated as precedent,” Mr Sibal asked, and the Chief Justice agreed.
• Ganguly’s award (September 28) — the Chief Justice’s bench dismissed Percept’s challenge to the Calcutta High Court’s judgment upholding the ₹14.49 crore award to Sourav Ganguly under his 2003 player representation agreement, with 12 per cent interest and ₹50 lakh costs.
• Khurja FIR (September 30) — Justices Sanjay Kumar and Sachdeva found a UP Police affidavit on discrepancies in an FIR “utterly uninspiring” and summoned the Circle Officer: “This nonsense has to stop at some point.”
• Also: the Milan Pradhan bail challenge (“we will dismiss it, but on Monday,” 5 October); Mahua Moitra’s circuit-house and MPLADS plea (State and Union to reply in a week; Bagchi and Mohana, October 1); CBSE Class 6 to get the same three-language relaxation as Class 7 (September 28); the Rajasthan Cricket Association election to proceed with results sealed (September 29); Kerala’s APTEL appeal to be listed early (September 28); and the Jojari River suo motu placed before the Chief Justice for assignment (Nath and Mehta, September 29).

Insolvency & Corporate

IBC: A Fraudulent §9 Trigger Can Be Recalled, but the CIRP Need Not Die — Greenopolis

Bench: Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Alok Aradhe — September 30, 2026

Orris owned 47.218 acres at Sector 89, Gurgaon; under a 2011 development agreement, Three C Shelters was to build Greenopolis — 1,862 flats — with tripartite buyer agreements promising possession in thirty-six months. Construction stalled in 2016. Homebuyers had paid about ₹776.60 crore to the developer and ₹383.06 crore to Orris, and had orders from HRERA, the appellate tribunal and the NCDRC fixing primary responsibility on Orris. In 2020 an operational creditor, Straight Edge Contracts, filed a Section 9 petition and the developer was admitted to CIRP — on a debt the Tribunal later found to be a mirage, admitted on the developer’s behalf by office and pantry staff presented as directors, on discrepant documents, in collusion with the suspended management, to obtain a moratorium and stall the homebuyers. The NCLAT recalled the admission and terminated the CIRP. In Greenopolis Welfare Confederation v. Rakesh Kumar Gupta, 2026 INSC 1070, the Supreme Court agreed with the first step and reversed the second.

An Adjudicating Authority can recall an admission procured by fraud or collusion at any time; those who invoke the Code are under a public-law duty not to deceive it. But recall does not end the process. Once admitted, the CIRP is a proceeding in rem; the initiating creditor “is merely the triggering creditor, and not the proprietor of the CIRP.”

“The resolution process can therefore continue even in the absence of the original applicant.”

The NCLAT’s termination was set aside and the petition restored to the NCLT, which is to decide — after hearing the resolution professional, the Committee of Creditors, the homebuyers and the other stakeholders, and having regard to who owns the project and the homebuyers’ statutory remedies — whether the CIRP should continue, and if so to conclude it expeditiously. Straight Edge is barred from further participation. The contempt petitions were closed.

Why it matters: The judgment separates two things the NCLAT had fused: the fraud that vitiates an admission, and the collective process that admission set in motion. Homebuyer groups attacking a collusive trigger now have authority that the trigger goes but the moratorium’s beneficiaries do not automatically walk free; genuine creditors who want a CIRP preserved after its applicant is unmasked have the same authority.

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Liquidation: The 10% EMD Cap Is No Shield Against Forfeiture If the Auction Says So — ASJ Finsolutions

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 28, 2026

The appellant won Lot 5 in a liquidation e-auction on 15 November 2021 at the reserve price of ₹25.56 crore, on an “as is where is” basis, with the notice disclosing a pending civil suit over the sale deed of part of the property and the liquidator’s application for its custody. It deposited ₹6.39 crore without protest — ₹2.55 crore as earnest money, ten per cent of the reserve, plus ₹3.84 crore towards the consideration — undertook in writing to pay the ₹19.17 crore balance with interest by the ninety-day outer date of 14 February 2022, and then did not, asking instead for the title documents. The liquidator forfeited the whole deposit; the NCLT and NCLAT upheld him. In M/s ASJ Finsolutions Pvt. Ltd. v. Vikram Bajaj, 2026 INSC 1062, so did the Supreme Court.

Schedule I of the Liquidation Process Regulations caps the earnest money at ten per cent of the reserve price; it says nothing against forfeiture, and the e-auction notice expressly provided that on failure to pay the balance the entire amount paid, including the EMD, would be forfeited. The bidder had known of the title problem before it bid.

“The argument of absence of stipulation of forfeiture … falls flat in the wake of the specific condition in the auction notice.”

Why it matters: Bidders in liquidation sales have argued that the regulatory ten per cent ceiling limits what can be forfeited. It does not: every rupee deposited beyond the EMD is at risk if the auction terms say so, and a disclosed defect in title is no answer to a default on the balance.

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Other Notable Insolvency Orders

• Can a Committee of Creditors withdraw a plan it has approved? Reserved (September 30) — Justices Pardiwala and Chandran heard the lenders’ appeal against an NCLAT order of 20 April setting aside the NCLT’s permission to withdraw a CoC-approved plan for a toll-road company, approved during the pandemic when collections had collapsed; the resolution applicant argued that a plan between CoC approval and NCLT approval is not an ordinary contract.
• Subhash Chandra at the NCLAT (September 29) — Officiating Chairperson Justice (retd) Yogesh Khanna, Barun Mitra and Ajai Das Mehrotra issued notice to the creditors on Dr Chandra’s appeal against the five-member NCLT bench’s 1 September order staying approval of his repayment plan and restraining him from alienating assets; replies in a week, rejoinder a week after, hearing on 29–30 October, one day each side, on maintainability and interim relief. The creditors’ own appeal against the 25 August approval remains listed for 7 October. Admitted claims stand at ₹22,006.57 crore.
• A failed one-time settlement is not a fresh default (NCLAT Chennai, September 28) — Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma and Jatindranath Swain: the original default revives when an OTS fails, so a Section 10A defence built on the OTS’s collapse during the pandemic window fails with it. The same bench, the same day, held that a forfeited earnest money deposit is an asset of the liquidation estate to be distributed under Section 53, and that a promoter who settles a bank’s dues under an OTS takes no assignment and does not become a financial creditor — a liquidation cannot be terminated by such a settlement.
• IBBI (October 1) — the regulator’s tenth Annual Day: the NCLT President flagged revised admission thresholds, mediation and sector-specific exemptions as reforms under consideration; the Chairperson named delays, realisations and ethics as the decade’s concerns, with more than 4,400 insolvency professionals and 6,000 registered valuers on the rolls. Comments on the discussion paper on safeguards in personal-guarantor processes closed on 3 October; no regulation or circular issued this week.
• Ozone Group (Bengaluru, October 2) — the Special Court remanded the group’s chairman to fourteen days’ ED custody in a ₹927 crore money-laundering case built on the alleged diversion of homebuyers’ funds through group entities, with more than 400 complaints pending before Karnataka RERA.

From the High Courts

GST: §16(2)(c) Survives, but Fourteen Rules Now Guard the Buyer’s Credit — Shaurya Alloys

Punjab & Haryana High Court (Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor) — October 1, 2026

Section 16(2)(c) of the CGST Act makes a purchaser’s input tax credit conditional on the supplier having actually paid the tax to the Government. The matching mechanism in Sections 37 to 42 that was meant to police that condition was never implemented; Section 41 was substituted only from 1 October 2022, and Rule 37A, which lets a buyer reverse and later re-avail credit when a supplier defaults, arrived on 26 December 2022. In the meantime, officers across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh reversed credit, cancelled registrations and issued Section 74 notices on the strength of a supplier’s cancelled registration or nil return. In Shaurya Alloys Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Punjab, reserved on 21 August and pronounced on Thursday, the Division Bench disposed of 424 writ petitions in 104 pages.

The provision is constitutionally valid. The vice, the Court held, “arises when the provision is torn out of the statutory scheme” and applied in a routine and mechanical manner: the buyer “cannot be held endlessly liable to trace out the whereabouts of suppliers from whom purchases were made years ago,” and a supplier’s later failure to deposit tax “cannot, by itself and without examination of the surrounding circumstances, result in mechanical reversal of the ITC.” Fourteen guidelines follow. A supplier’s cancellation, nil return or an alert may start an inquiry but cannot by itself justify denial. Before notice, the officer must record satisfaction on the supplier’s particulars, the invoices, the precise nature of the default and the status of recovery proceedings against the supplier under Sections 73 to 76. The notice must disclose the material relied on — alert notices, inspection reports, statements, e-way bills, toll and banking data — and a Section 74 notice must carry the foundational facts of fraud, not recitals. A supplier’s fraud cannot be attributed vicariously to the buyer without facts connecting them. The buyer’s burden under Section 155 is discharged by invoices, e-way bills, transport receipts, weighbridge slips and stock records, which the officer must actually consider. Retrospective cancellation must be examined for its bearing on the particular supplies; the same tax cannot be collected twice, and re-availment under the proviso to Section 41(2) and Rule 37A applies; the law of the tax period governs, not later amendments; a buyer’s registration cannot be cancelled merely because the supplier’s was; a personal hearing under Section 75(4) is mandatory, cross-examination requests need reasoned orders, and the final order must record findings on each condition of Section 16(2); and a deposit during investigation, including on Form DRC-03, does not dispense with any of this.

Petitioners at the notice stage have eight weeks to reply; where orders have already been passed, the proper officer is to revisit them and pass fresh reasoned orders after hearing, with no coercive recovery in the meantime and amounts already deposited to abide the fresh decision, with interest where warranted. All pleas on merits are open; the Department remains free to proceed against the defaulting suppliers. The day before, Justices Pardiwala and Chandran issued notice on a challenge to the Rajasthan High Court’s 13 August judgment upholding the same provision and stayed coercive action against that petitioner.

Why it matters: This is the most litigated question in GST, and the High Court has answered it not with a strike-down but with a procedural code that every input-credit notice in its jurisdiction must now satisfy — and that counsel elsewhere will plead from Monday. With the Supreme Court now seized of the constitutional question from Rajasthan, the guidelines are the practical law until it speaks.

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UAPA: Six Years In, Delhi High Court Holds Itself Bound to Refuse Bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam

Delhi High Court (Justices Prathiba M. Singh and Dinesh Bhatt) — September 30, 2026

The two appellants have been in custody since 2020 in the Delhi riots conspiracy case. The Supreme Court’s 5 January 2026 order in Gulfisha Fatima permitted renewal of bail applications only on completion of the protected witnesses’ examination or after one year, whichever is earlier. On Wednesday the Division Bench dismissed their appeals against the trial court’s refusal: “This court is bound by judicial discipline.” The two, it found, “occupy a separate position distinct from the co-accused” as “ideological drivers of the entire alleged conspiracy,” and “this Court cannot find fault with the decision of the trial court.” It is the third refusal for Khalid and the second for Imam.

Why it matters: The Supreme Court’s conditional-renewal formula now operates as a hard bar on the High Court’s bail jurisdiction in long-incarceration UAPA cases, at least until the one-year clock runs in January 2027 — and the “separate position” finding will be the prosecution’s first citation when it does.

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Arrest: Deol Applied in Delhi, and “Nearest Magistrate” Enforced in Bombay

Delhi High Court (Justices Navin Chawla and Arun Bhardwaj) and Bombay High Court (Justices Sarang Kotwal and Ranjitsinha Bhonsale) — September 28 and 29, 2026

A week after the Supreme Court put re-arrest after an Article 22(1) breach in the Magistrate’s hands, the Delhi High Court applied it. In Manoj Chaudhary v. State NCT of Delhi, a habeas corpus petition from New Usmanpur, the petitioner had been released because the grounds of arrest were never supplied, and was then arrested again by the same officers. “The power to re-arrest cannot be left to the discretion of the same authority which had violated Article 22(1),” the Bench held; the agency had to apply to the Magistrate with its reasons, and the re-arrest “is found to be illegal and in violation of his fundamental rights.”

In Bombay, in Kalim Isaq Shaikh v. State of Maharashtra, a man arrested at Barshi in Solapur district was driven some 380 kilometres to Mira Road to be produced within twenty-four hours. The Division Bench held that production within the time is not enough: Article 22(2) requires production before the nearest Magistrate, and “the Investigating Agency was duty bound to produce the Petitioner before the ‘nearest Magistrate’ at Barshi.” Bail on a ₹50,000 surety, with re-arrest permitted only by lawful means.

Why it matters: The Article 22 line of cases now runs from Vihaan Kumar through Deol to the High Courts within a week of the judgment, and the Bombay ruling adds a limb police had treated as satisfied by the clock alone. Both are habeas corpus outcomes — the remedy is release, not a remand defect to be cured.

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Judicial Administration: “Who Judges the Judge?” — Allahabad Puts Its Own Full Court on the Record

Allahabad High Court (Justice Vinod Diwakar) — September 28, 2026

Four petitions under Article 227 about delay and non-compliance with bail directions in the subordinate courts became, in Pappu Met @ Pappu v. State of U.P., reserved in May and delivered on Monday, an examination of the High Court’s own governance. Only sixteen Full Court meetings had been convened in ten years against a rule requiring one every quarter; the minutes do not record individual judges’ concurrence or dissent; “no matter of general policy, no matter affecting the powers and status of the Court, and no annual report on the administration of justice has been placed before the Full Court.” The last two meetings, the judge wrote, appeared “stage-managed in the manner of a government whipping its members through a confidence vote.” Where a collegiate body resolves without recording its members’ views, “the deliberation which the forum exists to secure is not evidenced.” The judgment calls for a recalibration of the “Chief Justice-centric” model toward participative decision-making with effective checks on the administrative side, directs that a note go to the Cabinet Secretary, and orders the record digitised.

Why it matters: A sitting judge has put a High Court’s internal administration on the judicial record in a reportable judgment, with findings a Full Court will have to answer or ignore. Expect administrative pushback, a bar-side debate, and attention from every other High Court whose rules say “quarterly.”

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Other Notable High Court Orders

• PMLA look-out circulars quashed (Delhi, Justice Amit Mahajan, October 1) — in Deep Kumar Rastogi v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2026:DHC:8584, two petitioners who had cooperated throughout a six-year investigation had their LOCs quashed: “An LOC is a coercive measure and cannot be resorted to as a matter of routine merely because an investigation is pending.” Travel details, a working e-mail and attendance when called are the conditions.
• The Ludhiana CGST arrest closes with an apology (Punjab & Haryana, CJ Mishra and Justice Kapoor, October 1) — in Kuldeep Goyal, the Principal Commissioner impleaded in his personal capacity last week tendered an unconditional apology, which the Court accepted with a caution to the officers to act carefully in future; the summons that had required the petitioner to appear at 12.05 pm on 23 September, when he had been in the office since 11 am, was among the discrepancies the Court recorded as showing prima facie manipulation, and the arrest authorisation and arrest memo were reported quashed. No disciplinary reference was made.
• Patents and drug prices (Kerala, Justice Harisankar V. Menon, September 28) — in a suo motu matter on the pricing of Ribociclib, the Court held that “purposes of Government” in Section 100 of the Patents Act covers manufacturing and selling a patented medicine to a needy patient “on a non-commercial basis,” and that the power may be invoked where a patented drug is sold at an exorbitant price — stopping short of directing it. Read with the Supreme Court’s 16 per cent question the next day.
• Police associations (Kerala, Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, September 29) — a July Government Order restructuring the Kerala Police Officers’ Association on the State Police Chief’s recommendation, and the ad hoc committees under it, were quashed: “The freedom to form an association and freedom to continue the association are both facets of Article 19(1)(c).”
• Trinamool, in the High Courts (Calcutta, Justice Krishna Rao, September 30; Madras, CJ S.A. Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan, October 1) — the Indian Secular Front’s challenge to the Election Commission’s allotment of the “envelope” free symbol to the Democratic Trinamool Congress for the Nandigram bye-election was dismissed, the Court having asked why, with 183 free symbols available, the Commission chose that one. In Madras, after three days of final argument from 28 September, the First Bench reserved orders on the petition to restrain bye-elections to five Tamil Nadu seats vacated by resignations until the pending election petitions are decided; the interim stay continues.
• POCSO (Delhi, Justice Sanjeev Narula, October 1) — a later marriage between the parties as adults cannot retrospectively legalise sexual intercourse with a minor; the follow-on to last week’s Bilal.
• Pune’s Mundhwa land (Bombay, Justice Madhav Jamdar, October 1) — anticipatory bail to the Tehsildar, and the DGP to monitor the further probe personally: “It is very surprising that a person, who owns 99 per cent shares in the partnership firm isn’t made an accused but someone who owns only 1 per cent shares is named.”
• Antilia (Bombay, Justices Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale, September 30) — the Special Court’s bail to Sachin Waze of 29 September, after some five and a half years in custody, was stayed till 7 October on the NIA’s appeal, after two other benches recused the same morning.
• The Prime Minister’s degree (Gujarat, CJ Sunita Agarwal and Justice D.N. Ray, September 29) — no public interest in disclosure under the RTI Act, and ₹25,000 costs on Arvind Kejriwal upheld; the Delhi High Court adjourned its parallel appeals to December.
• Discharge (Allahabad, Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, September 29) — Congress MP Rakesh Rathore discharged in a rape case on a complaint “so absurd that it cannot be believed by any person of ordinary prudence,” the record showing a long consensual relationship between adults.
• Elections (Bombay, Justice Shailesh Brahme, September 29) — Narayan Rane’s Sindhudurg election upheld; the corrupt-practice allegation “is very vague and lacks material particulars namely; time, place and identity of the persons who were campaigning.”
• Also: the Bombay High Court (Justice Gauri Godse, September 29) ordered X Corp to delete a fresh video against Adar Poonawalla and the Serum Institute and to show cause for disobeying a June 2023 order, returnable 27 October; the Karnataka High Court (Justice H.T. Narendra Prasad, September 30) declined to stay the State’s 2 per cent cinema-ticket cess but barred coercive action; and the Supreme Court (Justices Bagchi and Mohana, October 1) issued notice on the Calcutta High Court’s August judgment voiding West Bengal’s 2025 OBC notifications, allowing recruitment subject to outcome.

At the Bar

Collegium: Three Chief Justices for the Supreme Court, and None of Them in the Line for Chief Justice

Supreme Court Collegium (Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Vikram Nath, B.V. Nagarathna, M.M. Sundresh and P.S. Narasimha) — September 28, 2026

The Collegium recommended three serving Chief Justices for elevation: Justice Sunita Agarwal of the Gujarat High Court and Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya of the Delhi High Court, both from the Allahabad parent court, and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh of the Telangana High Court, from Jharkhand. If notified, the recommendations take the Court from thirty-four judges to thirty-seven of a sanctioned thirty-eight, and the number of women judges from two to three. None of the three is in the line for Chief Justice. Justice Singh, who was passed over when Justice Shree Chandrashekhar was appointed in June, would now rank below him; no explanation was published. The same meeting recommended the repatriation of Justice T. Vinod Kumar from the Madras High Court to Telangana ahead of his retirement in November. The Centre had not notified the appointments by the weekend.

Why it matters: The Court has carried four vacancies since the strength went to thirty-eight in May; this is the first round to fill them. Three Chief Justices’ chairs — Gujarat, Delhi and Telangana — fall vacant on notification, and the next round of Chief Justice appointments follows from it.

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Roster: A Contempt Petition Vanishes From One List and Reappears Before a Special Bench

Supreme Court (Justices Manoj Misra and Ujjal Bhuyan, special bench) — September 29 and 30, 2026

The contempt petitions in Mahendra Singh Deo v. Govind Mohan — alleging disobedience of the May 2025 judgment on IPS deputation to the Central Armed Police Forces, against the Home Secretary — were before Justices Bhuyan and Chandurkar, who passed an order on 22 September. On 23 September the Centre’s counsel mentioned before the Chief Justice that the contempt and the connected writ petitions be placed before one bench. On Tuesday the contempt petitions were deleted from the Bhuyan–Chandurkar list during lunch, though the bench had directed listing at 2 pm; the bench sought the Registry’s explanation. That afternoon the Chief Justice constituted a special bench of Justices Misra and Bhuyan, which sat on Wednesday. “Sometimes too much heat is generated out of nothing,” Justice Misra said; propriety demanded that the matters be heard together, “but you should have informed.” Shyam Divan, for the petitioners, said they had received no notice of an early hearing. The Additional Solicitor General said the Centre had mentioned because the validity of the law enacted after the May 2025 directions is its principal defence. Dushyant Dave wrote that the episode “raises questions on master-of-roster powers.” The matter returns in mid-October.

Why it matters: The master-of-the-roster power is not in doubt; the manner of its exercise — a mention by one side, without notice to the other, resulting in a listed matter leaving a bench mid-day — is what the special bench itself questioned. For practitioners with contempt petitions against the Union, the sequence is worth knowing.

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Other Notable at the Bar

• State Bar Councils (Supreme Court, Justices Bagchi and Mohana, October 1) — on a petition about implementing the 30 per cent reservation for women in State Bar Councils, the Court asked the Attorney General to consider raising the statutory twenty-five-member cap: “We are absolutely aware of the judicial limitation, and that’s why requesting the Attorney General.”
• Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh (Allahabad High Court, Justices Shekhar B. Saraf and Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary, October 1) — the Disciplinary Committee Chairman’s 26 September order suspending the enrolment of the President and Secretary of the Central Bar Association, Lucknow “till further orders,” after they had publicly opposed a Council resolution, was quashed: suspension under Section 35(3)(c) of the Advocates Act is a final order with a stated duration, not an interim measure.
• Karnataka State Bar Council (September 30) — Rajanna R. elected Chairman over Devaraja M., Shivamurthy Vice-Chairman, and Dhananjaya C.M. the Council’s member of the Bar Council of India; the Council is at full strength after the Chief Justice co-opted two women members last month.
• Minimum stipends (Madhya Pradesh High Court, September 29) — the State Bar Council directed to frame guidelines, within six months, on a minimum stipend for junior advocates in their first three years.
• Orissa (October 1) — the High Court Bar Association abstained from work and marched to Raj Bhavan over vacancies: fifteen judges against a strength of thirty-three, four names recommended in August still with the Centre, and the bench to fall to thirteen when the Chief Justice and one more judge retire in November.
• Lawyer safety — Rohini’s Bar Association resolved on 3 October to abstain on 5 October and bar police from the court complex after an advocate was allegedly assaulted at a police station on 29 September and then booked; lawyers at Howrah struck on 3 October after assaults on advocates at the Bankshall and Baruipur courts; the Punjab & Haryana High Court ordered an FIR and an IG-led SIT after counsel in an NDPS matter received threats to withdraw the petition.
• Legislative privileges, from Monday — the seven-judge reference in N. Ravi v. Speaker, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, on whether privileges under Article 194 can override Article 19(1)(a) and be invoked against journalists and citizens, begins on 6 October; Kunal Kamra, Seema Chishti, Ajit Anjum, the PUCL and Subhashini Ali filed to intervene this week. The Court proposes to finish argument by 15 October.
• Said this week — Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, at NALSAR on 4 October: a process that disenfranchises “millions and millions of Indian citizens … is intrinsically arbitrary. No amount of whataboutery can justify it.” The Chief Justice, at Samarkand on 1 October: AI “can never replace judicial acumen or decision-making, which must always remain with the judge.”

Legislative & Regulatory Watch

Tribunals: The National Tribunals Commission Rules Are Notified

Ministry of Law and Justice, Gazette notification — September 30, 2026

The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2026 came into force on 25 August; the Supreme Court’s suo motu docket on NCLT vacancies has been waiting for the body it creates. On 30 September the Law Ministry notified the National Tribunals Commission and Qualification, Selection and Conditions of Service of Chairperson and Members of Tribunals Rules, 2026, published on 2 October. The Commission is to have a Chairperson who is a retired Supreme Court judge or retired High Court Chief Justice and four members, two judicial and two technical, headquartered in Delhi; it appoints chairpersons and members to sixteen tribunals and appellate bodies, holds formal inquiries into misconduct, and prescribes conditions of service. The process to fill a vacancy “is to be initiated at least six months before” it arises. Selection is by search-cum-selection committee, with expert evaluation, personal interaction and, where applicable, a writing exercise. The Commission’s Chairperson draws ₹2.5 lakh a month and its members ₹2.25 lakh, with tribunal chairpersons and members on comparable terms.

Why it matters: The six-month requisition rule is the operative change for every tribunal practitioner: the NCLT, with eighteen members retiring by the end of 2027 and all of its staff temporary, now has a statutory clock against which the Union’s status report to the Supreme Court next week will be read. Whether the Commission is actually constituted — a Chairperson named, members appointed — is the next thing to watch.

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Other Notable Regulatory Moves

• SEBI closes the Adani minimum-public-shareholding case (September 28) — in two orders, Whole Time Member Kamlesh Chandra Varshney held the allegation that Vinod Adani controlled the investments of two foreign funds in four group companies between 2013 and 2018 not established, fining the funds’ two associates ₹20 lakh each for incomplete information, and recorded a settlement by the four companies, Gautam Adani and thirteen others for ₹1.48 crore, without admission — a second settlement in a week, after last week’s closure of the Hindenburg-linked disclosure proceedings.
• Growpital (SEBI, September 28) — a farmland-returns scheme run through three LLPs was held an unregistered collective investment scheme that raised ₹192.88 crore from 5,208 investors; wind-up and refund with 12 per cent from the January 2024 interim order, ₹25.10 crore in penalties on twenty-eight noticees, and debarments of three to five years.
• SEBI, otherwise — a new Master Circular for Debenture Trustees (September 28), with the separate-business-unit requirement to be in place by 27 October; “Project Jagrook” (October 1), requiring brokers to display the regulator’s investor-awareness messages on websites from 5 October and on apps on alternate days from 1 November; a revamped Document Number Verification System (October 1) with the subject matter as a mandatory field, to stop scammers reusing genuine outward numbers; Lloyds Enterprises, its former MD and CFO settled a disclosure case over ₹144.82 crore of advances to promoter-linked entities for ₹4.16 crore (September 29); and the Settlement Regulations and PMS Regulations approved on 24 September are not yet gazetted.
• RBI (October 1) — the Acquisition and Holding of Shares or Voting Rights Directions were amended so that SEBI-registered mutual funds, IRDAI-registered insurers and PFRDA pension funds unconnected to a bank’s promoter group may take a one-time approval for acquisitions up to 10 per cent of a bank’s capital, instead of applying at each threshold; Authorised Dealers may frame their own board-approved rules for Form A2 submission; and the FEMA export and import regulations with the nine-month realisation window came into force. A Master Direction on note-sorting machines (October 2) requires BIS-certified machines, with non-certified ones out by June 2027. The Monetary Policy Committee meets 5–7 October.
• Income tax (CBDT Circular 7/2026, September 28) — for audit cases in assessment year 2026-27, the tax audit report is due by 21 October and the return by 21 November.
• In force from October 1 — the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2026, under which registrations one to two years late need an executive magistrate’s order and later ones a Judicial Magistrate; and the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act, 2026, replacing the 1891 Act with a technology-neutral definition of banking records and dual certification for physical and electronic records.
• Also — the Competition Commission approved Crystal Crop Protection’s acquisition of FMC India (October 1); TRAI directed operators to show a “TRAI-Mandated Packs” tab first in prepaid recharge menus within thirty days (October 1); comments on the RBI’s draft mule-account standard operating procedure closed on 2 October and on SEBI’s closing-auction-session review on 3 October, with no final instrument yet; and the 0.4 per cent UPI merchant charge takes effect on 15 October.

What We’re Watching Next Week

• Monday, October 5 — the Delhi-NCR suo motu returns before Justices Pardiwala and Chandran with the first status reports due; the Chief Justice’s bench takes up the West Bengal Special Intensive Revision petitions, the petition to suspend the Chief Election Commissioner, and the State’s challenge to Milan Pradhan’s bail; the Union’s status report on NCLT infrastructure is due; and the four accused in the Dombivli doctors’ assault must surrender.
• Tuesday, October 6 — the seven-judge Constitution Bench begins the legislative-privileges reference, with argument to close by 15 October; the Nandigram and Rejinagar bye-elections are polled under the interim symbols; and the Union’s response on the Vande Mataram penal amendment and Uttar Pradesh’s affidavit in Lakhimpur Kheri fall due.
• October 7 and 8 — the Monetary Policy Committee’s decision; the creditors’ appeal in the Subhash Chandra insolvency at the NCLAT; the Noida DM matter returns; the GST Council meets; the West Bengal Speaker’s expected decision on the ten rebel MLAs; and the twenty Trinamool MPs’ replies to the Lok Sabha Speaker.
• Mid-October — the Bar Council of India’s answer on the five-year-course age limit and the student-protest committee (October 9); medicine margins before Justices Nath and Mehta (October 12); the CAPF contempt before the special bench; barium-cracker test results (October 14); and on October 15 the firecrackers matter, the online child-abuse-material matter, the Tejpal appeals, and the UPI merchant charge itself.
• Still reserved — the seven-judge sales-tax surcharge reference, the Committee of Creditors’ power to withdraw an approved plan, IPC prosecution after a refused PC Act sanction, the OBC creamy-layer application, the Sambhal survey challenge, the two-child norm, the Sabarimala nine-judge reference, the PMLA Adjudicating Authority’s composition, the Jindal Poly Films recall order and the Madras High Court’s bye-election ruling. The Constitution Bench on the Election Commissioners Act awaits the Chief Justice’s order, now with a recall plea on the file.

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