Author: Anvita Dwivedi

The appointment of the country’s top election officials has once again come under direct judicial scrutiny, with a fresh petition before the Supreme Court seeking writs of quo warranto against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The petition, filed under Article 32 by Suri Payala, challenges the legality of the appointments on the ground that the procedure prescribed under the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 was allegedly not followed. The challenge is particularly significant because it comes at a time…

The Supreme Court has acquitted a former government employee in a 16-year-old bribery case, setting aside his conviction on the ground that the prosecution failed to establish the foundational ingredients of demand and acceptance of illegal gratification beyond reasonable doubt. The judgment in Ajit Kumar v. State of Jharkhand, delivered by a Bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar on October 5, 2026, is significant not merely because it brings an end to an unusually prolonged criminal proceeding, but because it once again places the evidentiary architecture of corruption prosecutions under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, in…

The Supreme Court has opened another significant constitutional dimension in the long-running Shiv Sena split dispute, questioning whether the Election Commission of India’s decision to recognise the Eknath Shinde faction as the Shiv Sena and allot it the party’s reserved “bow and arrow” symbol can continue to stand if the Court ultimately concludes that the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker was wrong in refusing to disqualify the rebel MLAs under the Tenth Schedule. The question, raised by Justice Joymalya Bagchi during Tuesday’s hearing, goes to the heart of the relationship between two constitutionally significant adjudicatory processes: the Speaker’s determination of defection…

The Supreme Court has expressed strong disapproval over the Uttar Pradesh Government’s failure to release pensionary and other retiral benefits to a Class-IV employee for nearly a decade after his retirement, observing that the prolonged delay amounted to “grave injustice” to a person who had devoted more than three decades of his life to government service. A Bench of Justice K.V. Viswanathan and Justice Arun Palli, hearing Jagdish Prasad Tripathi v. State of U.P. through its Principal Secretary & Ors., not only questioned why the petitioner had been deprived of his legitimate dues for so many years but also directed…

The Madras High Court has raised a significant question concerning the legal consequences of inaccuracies in election affidavits, asking whether the alleged non-disclosure of assets worth about ₹30 crore by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay could, by itself, constitute a “corrupt practice” sufficient to put his electoral victory at risk when he had otherwise disclosed assets worth around ₹600 crore. The question arose during the hearing of Vijay’s application seeking rejection of an election petition challenging his victory from the Perambur Assembly constituency. Justice V. Lakshminarayanan’s observations bring into focus a difficult balance in election law: while voters…

The legal battle surrounding JioHotstar’s Malayalam web series Anali, reportedly inspired by the widely publicised Koodathayi deaths, has entered a significant new phase after the Third Additional Munsiff Court, Ernakulam, refused on October 5 to vacate the interim restraint that had prevented the series from being released and circulated in the form challenged by the petitioner. The court dismissed Jiostar’s application seeking vacation of the earlier ex parte ad interim injunction and, by a common order, also allowed the injunction application moved by Jollyamma Joseph alias Jolly Joseph, who is presently facing criminal proceedings in connection with the deaths of…

The Supreme Court has clarified an important aspect of the law relating to disputed signatures, handwriting and finger impressions under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, holding that courts cannot mechanically send every disputed signature or handwriting for expert examination merely on the assumption that a judge is not technically qualified to compare handwriting. A Bench of Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Justice Manmohan held that Section 72 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 expressly empowers a court to compare a disputed signature, writing or seal with an admitted or proved specimen, and that obtaining an expert opinion is a matter of…

The Kerala High Court has once again placed the autonomy of a Muslim woman at the centre of the law governing khula, holding that a husband’s consent or acceptance is not a prerequisite for the validity of a wife’s invocation of this form of extra-judicial divorce. A Division Bench of Justice J. Nisha Banu and Justice Shoba Annamma Eapen, in K v. I, dismissed a husband’s challenge to orders of the Family Court and reaffirmed that a proceeding seeking endorsement of khula does not ordinarily call for a prolonged trial into the circumstances of the marriage. The ruling is important…

The Calcutta High Court has raised a significant constitutional and administrative question over the manner in which the citizenship status of four migrant workers from Murshidabad is being examined in Chhattisgarh while their appeals against deletion from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) remain pending before the appellate tribunal constituted pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directions. Justice Krishna Rao, while hearing a petition seeking expeditious disposal of those appeals, questioned how the Foreigners Registration Office (FRO) at Bilaspur could proceed to determine the nationality of the concerned persons when the very electoral status which had triggered the…

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed an important principle of fiscal interpretation by holding that the classification of goods for the purpose of taxation must ordinarily be determined with reference to the form and character of the goods at the time of the taxable event, and not by speculating about what the consumer may subsequently do with them. In Additional Commissioner, Commercial Tax & Ors. v. Cadila Health Care Ltd. & Anr., Civil Appeal Nos. 9788-9789 of 2013, a Bench comprising Justice Manmohan and Justice Arun Palli dismissed the appeals preferred by the Madhya Pradesh Commercial Tax Department and upheld the…