Appearing for the victims in the Lakhimpur Kheri case, Prashant Bhushan told the Supreme Court that recent developments in the trial would shock the Court’s conscience, alleging that the presiding officer issued a non-bailable warrant against an ill witness who had sought exemption, and, in other matters, withdrew NDPS and SC/ST Act cases to his own court. The Court asked the State to name a senior public prosecutor, sought a sealed-cover report, and directed that the plea be placed before the Allahabad High Court Chief Justice. The allegations are untested.
Hearing SASTRA University’s plea against eviction from government land in Thanjavur, the Supreme Court asked Tamil Nadu to consider accepting alternate land, or its market value, rather than demolishing an academic building, calling the State’s insistence on eviction ‘obstinate’. The Court said it would have ‘thrown out’ a commercial encroacher, but the land housed an educational institution, and questioned why the State’s open-air jail project had stalled since 1985. The State sought time for instructions.
The State of Uttar Pradesh has told the Supreme Court that the chargesheet in the Ayodhya Ram temple donation case will be filed within two days, ahead of the September 25 expiry of the 90-day period from the first arrest, beyond which the accused would become entitled to default bail. A Bench led by CJI Surya Kant, hearing petitions seeking an independent probe, perused the SIT’s status report.
In a fresh affidavit in the West Bengal SIR matter, the Election Commission has given the Supreme Court the break-up it had sought: of 38,31,429 appeals before the Appellate Tribunals, 22,21,118 were filed by voters whose names were deleted, and 16,10,311 challenge the inclusion of names. The Commission has proposed increasing the number of Tribunals to match the State’s parliamentary constituencies, and contested the claim that the appeals process altered any electoral outcome.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes has amended Rule 225 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 to remove arrest and detention as modes of recovering tax arrears, with retrospective effect from April 1, 2026. Notified through the Income-tax (Fourth Amendment) Rules, the change aligns the recovery process with the Finance Act, 2026 and shifts the emphasis to attachment and sale of property, though other recovery mechanisms remain available.
The CBI has registered an FIR on a complaint by the Life Insurance Corporation of India against Reliance Capital, its former chairman Anil Ambani, former group managing director Satish Seth and others, over an alleged wrongful loss of Rs 2,684.57 crore on LIC’s investment in the company’s debentures. A spokesperson for Anil Ambani has denied any wrongdoing. The allegations are untested.
Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan has voiced concern over a rise in extra-judicial killings and custodial violence, questioning why accused persons are taken out at 3 am for crime-scene reconstruction and whether ‘shortcut methods’ are used to cover gaps in investigation. Speaking at a New Delhi event, he said the constitutional system does not approve of such situations, and expressed unease at young IPS officers personally assaulting demonstrators.
The Election Commission has told the Supreme Court, in an affidavit filed in the West Bengal SIR matter, that of more than 38 lakh appeals filed before the Appellate Tribunals against the revised electoral rolls, only about 1.02 lakh, under 3%, have been disposed of, with over 37 lakh pending. The Commission has not given the break-up of appeals against exclusions versus inclusions that the Court had sought.
Trinamool Congress founder Mamata Banerjee has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission’s interim order freezing the party’s ‘All India Trinamool Congress’ name and ‘Flowers and Grass’ symbol. The petition, filed on September 18, names the ECI and rival faction leader Ritabrata Banerjee as respondents. The Commission has, for now, allotted separate names and symbols to the two factions for the October 6 bypolls.
The Supreme Court has clarified that the grievousness of an injury, or its capacity to cause death, is not a necessary ingredient of the offence of attempt to murder under Section 307 IPC; what the section requires is an act done with the intention or knowledge that it could cause death. Even so, the Court declined to add a Section 307 charge in an assault case, holding that no such intention had been alleged at any stage and that the prayer to alter the charge came too late.