A. Constitution of India—Article 21—Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973—Sections 391 and 367—Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023—Sections 432 and 408—Fair trial—Capital case—Effective legal assistance—Where the mother of the child victim, being the star prosecution witness, was cross-examined by legal-aid counsel appointed on the same day without adequate opportunity for preparation, the procedure caused prejudice and fell short of effective legal assistance—However, the defect being confined to cross-examination of one witness did not vitiate the entire trial—Further cross-examination before the Supreme Court by counsel of the accused’s choice constituted a proportionate curative measure and, upon full cross-examination and absence of residual prejudice, the infirmity stood remedied [Paras 23–26, 138].B. India...
A. Indian Penal Code, 1860—Section 302—Punishment for murder—Imprisonment for life—Special category sentence—Competence of Sessions Court—Section 302 IPC prescribes death or imprisonment for life and fine, but does not expressly provide that imprisonment for life shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s natural life without remission—Though life imprisonment ordinarily extends for the remainder of natural life, it remains subject to statutory powers of remission and commutation under Sections 432 to 435 CrPC and constitutional powers under Articles 72 and 161—A Sessions Court is competent to impose imprisonment for life under Section 302 IPC, but is not competent to impose a special category sentence directing that the convict shall remain imprisoned till the end of natural life by excluding or curtaili...
A. Constitution of India, 1950—Article 311(1)—Railway Protection Force Act, 1957—Sections 6 and 9—Railway Protection Force Rules, 1959—Rules 20 and 43, Schedules I and II—Removal from service—Authority by which appointed—The authority competent to appoint an employee for purposes of Article 311(1) must be determined from the actual appointment order read with the statutory and regulatory framework—Call letter dated 03.05.1979 issued by the Commandant, making proposed appointment conditional upon successful completion of initial training, did not constitute the operative appointment order—Battalion Order dated 04.12.1979 issued by the Assistant Commandant, expressly appointing the respondent as Rakshak upon successful completion of training with effect from that date, operated as both appointment and posting order—Sub...
A. Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996—Section 34—Limitation—Challenge to arbitral award—Section 34 petition filed within three months from date of arbitral award—Where award was dated 25.10.2021 and petitions under Section 34 were filed on 08.12.2021, finding of High Court that petitions were barred by limitation was contrary to admitted facts and was rightly conceded to be erroneous by respondent—Petitions could not therefore be dismissed as time barred [Paras 17–21, 32].B. Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996—Sections 2(1)(e), 11(6), 34 and 42—Territorial jurisdiction—Seat and venue of arbitration—Mere fact that arbitral proceedings were conducted at Cuttack pursuant to appointment of Arbitrator by Orissa High Court under Section 11(6) did not make Cuttack the juridical seat of arbitration—In absence of exp...
A. Constitution of India, 1950—Article 226—Public Interest Litigation—Tender validity—Challenge to award of tender involving inter-se comparative assessment of competing bidders—Where the grounds raised in PIL predominantly concern comparative assessment of the bids of two competing tenderers, validity of tender process cannot ordinarily be converted into a subject matter of PIL—More so, where the plea of wastage of public resources is not supported by work of such magnitude as to justify PIL intervention—In the present case, the unsuccessful bidder had itself complained against the successful bidder and subsequently withdrawn the complaint, and the PIL petitioner was found to be the alter ego of such unsuccessful bidder—PIL therefore involved essentially a private/inter-se tender dispute rather than a genuine issue of pub...
A. Code of Civil Procedure, 1908—Anti-suit injunction—Foreign proceedings—Principles governing—Indian Courts possess power to grant anti-suit injunction against a party amenable to their personal jurisdiction—Such jurisdiction is equitable and discretionary and must be exercised with great caution—Court must consider whether refusal of injunction would defeat the ends of justice, whether the foreign proceedings are oppressive or vexatious, the availability and appropriateness of an alternative forum, and the principle of comity of courts—Anti-suit injunction is not a routine remedy. [Paras 5–5.6]B. Code of Civil Procedure, 1908—Anti-suit injunction—Foreign matrimonial proceedings—Forum non conveniens—Where proceedings are pending before a foreign court having substantial connecting factors with the parties and disp...
A. Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act, 1937, Section 3(1) and (2)—Hindu widow—Devolution of husband's interest—Where a Hindu male dies intestate, his widow succeeds to the interest which the statute confers upon her, subject to the limitation contained in Section 3(3)—The statutory devolution is not dependent upon a prior partition or upon survivorship alone—Section 3(2) operates to confer upon the widow the right of her deceased husband in the property, notwithstanding that the property remains undivided. [Paras 13, 15] B. Hindu Succession Act, 1956, Section 14(1)—Hindu widow—Limited interest becoming absolute ownership—Right acquired by a Hindu widow under Section 3(1)/(2) of the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act, 1937, is enlarged into an absolute right by operation of...
A. Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, Section 31(7)(a)—Interest—Pre-reference and pendente lite interest—Contractual prohibition—Party autonomy—Under the 1996 Act, the power of an Arbitral Tribunal to award interest is subject to the opening words “unless otherwise agreed by the parties”—An express contractual bar on payment of interest excludes the Tribunal’s power to award pre-reference and pendente lite interest, even if the contractual clause does not expressly refer to the arbitrator’s jurisdiction—This marks a departure from the position under the Arbitration Act, 1940. [Paras 13–15] B. Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, Section 31(7)(a)—Pre-reference interest—Nature of claim—Substantive law—Pre-reference interest stands on a...
A. Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, Section 482—Quashing of criminal proceedings—Successive challenge to order framing charge—Issue estoppel. Where the accused had earlier challenged the FIR, chargesheet and order framing charge under Section 482 CrPC, and the High Court, after considering the contention regarding absence of the original forged document, had declined to interfere, such order having attained finality, the accused could not re-agitate the same ground in a subsequent writ petition. The principle of issue estoppel bars re-agitation of an issue already directly raised and decided between the same parties in the same proceedings. A subsequent challenge cannot be maintained merely because the accused seeks to present the same objection in another proceeding under Section 482. [Paras 12–15] B. Indian P...
A. Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, Sections 7, 13(1)(d)(i) and (ii)—Illegal gratification—Demand and acceptance—Proof—Sine qua non. Proof of demand of illegal gratification and its subsequent acceptance by the public servant is a sine qua non for establishing guilt under Sections 7 and 13(1)(d)(i) and (ii) of the Act. Mere acceptance or recovery of tainted money, dehors proof of demand, is not sufficient to sustain conviction. The prosecution must establish the demand/offer and acceptance as facts in issue, either by direct evidence or, where permissible, by circumstantial evidence. [Paras 13–14.3] B. Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, Sections 7, 13(1)(d)(i) and (ii)—Demand and acceptance—Direct evidence—Circumstantial evidence—Proof. Constitution Bench decision in Neeraj Dutt...
A. Indian Penal Code, 1860—Section 307—Attempt to murder—Essential ingredients—Intention or knowledge is the decisive requirement and not the actual consequence of the act—The prosecution must establish that the accused intended to cause death or intended to cause such bodily injury as was likely to cause death, or possessed the requisite knowledge contemplated by Section 300 IPC—The intention being a state of mind, direct evidence is ordinarily unavailable and may be inferred from the weapon used, nature and location of injuries, persistence of assault, preparations, words uttered and surrounding circumstances—The physical act need not be the penultimate act and the fact that death did not result is immaterial where the requisite intention or knowledge is established [Paras 23–23.3]. B. ...
A. Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023—Sections 438(3) and 528—Criminal revision—Inherent powers of High Court—Bar against second revision—Where a party has already availed the remedy of revision before the Sessions Court and the revision has been dismissed, the same party cannot ordinarily re-agitate the same issue by invoking inherent powers under Section 528 BNSS, as that would amount to circumventing the express prohibition contained in Section 438(3) BNSS—Inherent powers, though wide, are required to be exercised sparingly and cautiously and cannot be used as a routine backdoor entry to what the statute expressly prohibits [Paras 10–10.4]. B. Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023—Sections 438(3), 528 and 175(3)—Criminal revision—Exceptional exercise of inherent ju...
A. Penal Code, 1860—Sections 302 and 201—Murder and causing disappearance of evidence—Hostile witness—Conviction—Where the informant supported the prosecution case in examination-in-chief but completely resiled from it in cross-examination, and all other prosecution witnesses also turned hostile, conviction could not be sustained merely by relying upon the uncorroborated examination-in-chief of the informant—Though testimony of a hostile witness is not liable to be discarded in its entirety, the portion relied upon must find corroboration from other trustworthy evidence—In absence of such corroboration, reliance by the Trial Court upon the partial testimony of PW-1 was legally untenable [Para 13].B. Penal Code, 1860—Sections 302 and 201—Extra-judicial confession—Evidentiary value—Extra-judicial confession is a weak p...
A. Indian Penal Code, 1860—Section 304 Part II—Culpable homicide not amounting to murder—Absence of intention to cause death—Single fatal blow during sudden altercation between brothers over family property—Fatal injury caused on head, but no other serious injuries found on deceased—Trial Court rightly declined conviction under Section 302 IPC and held that the case fell under Section 304 Part II IPC, there being no premeditation or intention to cause death, though the act resulted in death—Conviction under Section 304 Part II IPC upheld [Paras 18–20]. B. Indian Penal Code, 1860—Sections 304 Part II and 325—Conviction of one accused despite acquittal of co-accused—Acquittal of co-accused on grounds personal to him, namely advanced age, physical incapacity and weaker moti...
A. Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021—Section 35(1), proviso—Appeal—Pre-deposit—Condition precedent—The requirement of depositing fifty per cent of the entire payable amount under the impugned order is a statutory condition precedent for maintainability of an appeal—The initial deposit made at the time of institution of the appeal is referable to the liability required to be secured for maintaining the appeal and does not, by itself, exhaust the statutory obligation where the impugned order creates a recurring liability [Section 35(1), proviso].B. Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021—Section 35(1), proviso—Appeal—Recurring liability—Monthly rent—Where the order under challenge determines a liability which continues to accrue from month to month, the statutory requirem...
A. Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021—Section 35(1), proviso—Appeal—Pre-deposit—Condition precedent—Proviso to Section 35(1) expressly provides that no appeal shall lie unless the appellant deposits fifty per cent of the entire payable amount under the impugned order—Requirement of pre-deposit is mandatory and constitutes a condition precedent to maintainability of the statutory appeal—Right of appeal being a creature of statute, it is available subject to the conditions prescribed by the legislature—Pre-deposit is not a matter of discretion of the appellate authority [Paras 6–8].B. Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021—Section 35(1), proviso—Appeal—Recurring liability—Monthly rent—Where the order under challenge determines or revises a liability payable periodic...
A. Motor Vehicles Act, 1988—Section 173(1)—Compensation—Permanent physical disability—Loss of future earning capacity—Permanent physical disability cannot mechanically be treated as equivalent to loss of earning capacity; Tribunal must consider the nature of injury, affected body part, occupation, duties performed and actual functional impact of disability upon earning capacity; where claimant resumed employment and no permanent functional disability or loss of income was established, no compensation for loss of future earning capacity was warranted. [Paras 16-19] B. Motor Vehicles Act, 1988—Section 173(1)—Compensation—Injured claimant—Loss of income—Where claimant remained away from employment due to accident-related injuries from 1-5-2014 to 15-6-2015, documentary and oral e...
A. Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021—Section 33(2)—Rent Appeal—Expeditious disposal—Where a Rent Appeal arising from an order under Section 21(2) of the Act is pending before the Rent Tribunal and repeated adjournments have delayed its disposal, the statutory mandate under Section 33(2) requires the Tribunal to endeavour to dispose of the proceedings expeditiously and preferably within sixty days—High Court may, in exercise of its jurisdiction, direct the concerned Court to conclude the pending proceedings at an early date keeping in mind the statutory mandate [Section 33(2)].B. Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021—Section 33(2)—Rent Appeal—Time-bound disposal—Direction of High Court—While directing expeditious disposal, the Court may direct the concerned Court to ende...
A. Code of Civil Procedure, 1908—Section 114 read with Order XLVII Rule 1—Review—Scope and ambit—Review jurisdiction is strictly confined to the grounds prescribed under Order XLVII Rule 1 and cannot be exercised as an appellate power—Review is maintainable on discovery of new and important matter or evidence despite due diligence, mistake or error apparent on the face of the record, or any other sufficient reason analogous to the specified grounds—A review cannot be sought merely because an alternative view is possible or because the applicant seeks rehearing and correction of an erroneous decision [Paras 6–8, 9].B. Code of Civil Procedure, 1908—Section 114 read with Order XLVII Rule 1—Error apparent on the face of record—An error apparent must be self-evident and must strike on mere looking at the record without requ...
A. Indian Penal Code, 1860—Sections 376(2)(i), 361—Rape of Minor—Kidnapping from Lawful Guardianship—Child Victim—Proof— The testimony of a child victim, if consistent and trustworthy on the essential features of the occurrence, can form the basis of conviction without mandatory corroboration—Minor variations regarding time, subsequent state of consciousness or persons accompanying the victim to hospital do not discredit the prosecution case when the core version remains intact—Conviction under Sections 376(2)(i) and 6 POCSO Act upheld. [Paras 5.2–5.9, 8–9] B. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012—Section 6—Penetrative Sexual Assault—Medical Evidence—Absence of Spermatozoa—Effect— Absence of spermatozoa in the vaginal swab do...