Waqf Act, 1995—Kerala State Waqf Board—Interim directions governing functioning of Board—Scope of judicial intervention—Held: While maintaining the High Court's interim directions restraining the Kerala State Waqf Board from taking policy decisions or incurring capital expenditure without prior leave of the Court, the Supreme Court held that the further direction requiring the Board to function under the supervision of the Joint Secretary to the State Government dealing with Waqf matters was unwarranted and liable to be deleted. The Joint Secretary/Additional Secretary shall, however, continue to function as a member of the Board in accordance with law. The High Court was requested to dispose of the pending matter expeditiously after affording both sides adequate opportunity to present their claims and counterc...

A. Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985—Sections 8, 21 and 50—Search of article carried by accused—Applicability of Section 50—Held: Where the contraband is recovered from an article, such as a water bottle, carried by the accused and not from the accused's person, the safeguards under Section 50 are inapplicable. Nevertheless, where the accused is informed of the right to be searched before a Gazetted Officer or Magistrate, the search satisfies the procedural requirements. (Paras 12 to 14) B. Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985—Section 52A—Representative samples—Non-compliance—Effect—Held: Procedural irregularities in drawing representative samples under Section 52A do not, by themselves, vitiate the prosecution where substantial compliance with...

A. East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949—Section 13—Eviction—Bona fide requirement—Revisional jurisdiction—Code of Civil Procedure, 1908—Section 115—Held:** The landlord's bona fide requirement must be real, genuine and honest, and not a mere pretext for eviction. Once the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority, upon appreciation of evidence, concurrently record a finding that the requirement is bona fide, the High Court, while exercising revisional jurisdiction under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, cannot reappreciate the evidence or substitute its own view as if sitting in appeal. Interference is permissible only where the findings suffer from jurisdictional error, procedural illegality, material irregularity or perversity. The landlord's choice of the premises re...

A. Hindu Marriage Act, 1955—Section 13B—Settlement agreement—Maintenance for minor child—Interpretation of settlement clauses—Held: Clause 9 of the Settlement Petition, providing for payment of interim maintenance at the rate of 20% of the father's annual income to the minor son, constituted only an interim arrangement. Upon payment of the lump sum amount of Rs. 1,00,00,000/- in terms of Clauses 8 and 10 of the Settlement Petition, the obligation under Clause 9 stood fully discharged and did not survive as an independent or continuing liability. (Paras 25 to 27) B. Code of Civil Procedure, 1908—Section 36—Execution of consent decree—Scope of executing court—Held: An executing court is bound to execute the decree as it stands and cannot travel beyond its terms or rewrite the sett...

A. Service Law—Departmental proceedings—Reinstatement—Effect of substituted minor penalty—Held: Where an order of removal is ultimately substituted by a minor penalty pursuant to judicial directions, the penalty must relate back to the date of the original removal and cannot be reckoned from the date of the subsequent order. The period of the minor penalty having expired notionally, the employee becomes entitled to consideration for promotion and consequential service benefits in accordance with law. (Paras 20 to 22) B. Service Law—Promotion—Notional promotion—Back wages and pensionary benefits—Held: An employee wrongly kept out of service due to illegal departmental action is entitled to promotion from the date his juniors were promoted, with all consequential benefits. Where such promot...

A. Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973—Section 340 read with Section 195(1)(b)—Initiation of prosecution for perjury—Held: Before directing prosecution under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Court must record a prima facie satisfaction that the party has made a false statement or given false evidence and must further record that it is expedient in the interests of justice to initiate such proceedings—Mere existence of an incorrect or wrong statement is insufficient to invoke Section 340. (Paras 6 to 12, 16) B. Indian Penal Code, 1860—Sections 193, 199 and 200—False statement—Wrong statement—Distinction—Held: There is a material distinction between a wrong statement and a false statement—A false statement necessarily imports a deliberate intention to deceive and ...

A. Criminal Procedure Code, 1973—Section 482 read with Section 397—Maintainability of quashing petition despite availability of revisional remedy—Held, the availability of an alternative remedy of revision under Section 397 of the CrPC does not, by itself, operate as a bar to the exercise of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court under Section 482 CrPC; the two provisions operate in distinct spheres, and the inherent power, being merely saved and not conferred by the CrPC, cannot be held ousted by the mere availability of a revisional remedy, following Dhariwal Tobacco Products Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra, (2009) 2 SCC 370, Prabhu Chawla v. State of Rajasthan, (2016) 16 SCC 30, and Akanksha Arora v. Tanay Maben, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3688—Nomenclature of a petition is immaterial, and a High Court may treat a pet...

A. Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015—Section 2(33), Section 2(54)—Classification of offences—Offence under Section 302 IPC (death or imprisonment for life)—Whether "heinous offence" or "serious offence" (fourth category)—Held, an offence punishable under Section 302 IPC, which prescribes punishment of "death or imprisonment for life", carries life imprisonment as its minimum punishment by necessary implication, since a court convicting for such offence has no discretion to award any lesser sentence, and the use of the disjunctive "or" between "death" and "imprisonment for life" merely confers discretion between the two punishments and does not imply absence of a minimum sentence—Consequently, Section 302 IPC squarely ...

A. Criminal Procedure Code, 1973—Appellate jurisdiction—Appeal against acquittal distinguished from appeal against conviction—Held, though the appellate court is equally empowered to re-appreciate evidence in both categories of appeals, in an appeal against acquittal, the acquittal reinforces the presumption of innocence and a higher threshold applies for reversal, and if the view of acquittal is one of the possible views, it is not disturbed, following Mallappa v. State of Karnataka, 2024 INSC 104—In an appeal against conviction, however, the presumption of innocence stands displaced upon conviction, and the case against the convict is further reinforced where concurrent findings of conviction are rendered by the Trial Court and the High Court. (Para 13) B. Indian Penal Code, 1860—Sections 302, 364, 201, ...

A. Motor Vehicles Act, 1988—Section 147(5); Contract of insurance—Extra-territorial use of vehicle—Clause "Limitations as to Use" vis-à-vis clause "Geographical Area"—Held, an insurance policy must be read as a whole and its clauses harmoniously construed, and one clause cannot be cherry-picked in isolation—Where the policy's "Limitations as to Use" clause covered use of the vehicle under a valid "permit" within the meaning of Section 2(31) of the MVA, in general and unqualified terms without any geographical limitation, and the offending vehicle possessed a special permit issued under Section 88(8) of the MVA specifically authorising travel from Durg to Nepal, the vehicle was covered by the policy notwithstanding the "Geographical Area" clause rest...