Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya of the Calcutta High Court has dismissed a writ petition by Tumpa Biswas alias Tumpa Roy questioning Bongaon Police Station FIR No. 703/2026, filed on an advocate’s complaint alleging fraudulent procurement and use of a Scheduled Caste certificate, holding there is no express bar on such a complaint, leaving her to seek pre-arrest bail if she fears arrest.
The criminal process cannot be used as a weapon to settle political scores or to stifle legitimate political dissent, the Madras High Court held, quashing a Section 153A complaint against former Tamil Nadu BJP chief K. Annamalai over a 2023 speech, finding no intent to promote communal enmity and no reference to two identifiable communities. […]
A WhatsApp status, visible only to one’s contacts, is not a “publication or circulation” and does not by itself attract the offence of promoting enmity between communities under Section 505(2) IPC, the Karnataka High Court held, quashing an FIR over a post uploaded after the 2024 Lok Sabha result. Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has […]
The Patna High Court has quashed, against the petitioner, a robbery FIR registered at Dhanarua police station, holding it to be an impermissible second FIR over the same transaction, the taking of a Tata Indica and mobile phones, that had already been the subject of an earlier case at Deepnagar. Applying the T.T. Antony ‘test of sameness’, Justice Chandra Shekhar Jha held that continuing the later case would be an abuse of the process of the court.
The Madras High Court quashed an animal-cruelty case against a man accused of pelting a stone at a neighbour’s pet dog, holding that the offence is non-cognizable and carries a maximum fine of Rs 50, so the police were required to obtain the Magistrate’s prior permission before registering the FIR, and had not. Chennai: The […]
Holding that liability under Section 82 of the BNS attaches to the spouse who already has a subsisting marriage and not to the person they marry, the Madras High Court granted anticipatory bail to a woman arrayed as the second accused, observing that on her case she and the complainant stand as two women wronged by the same man rather than as accused and victim.
The Bombay High Court quashed an FIR against two men booked for drunkenly shouting at each other on a public street, holding that mere loudness, without obscenity or disturbance to a third party, does not attract the Prohibition Act, while using the occasion to lay down that criminal law cannot be a “bargaining chip” and […]
The Supreme Court quashed a POCSO case against a schoolteacher accused of hitting inattentive girl students, holding that corporal punishment, however inappropriate, does not amount to “aggravated sexual assault” without sexual intent, and warning that a wrongful POCSO accusation can be a “death knell” for a teacher. New Delhi: The Supreme Court has quashed criminal […]
In one of the first Supreme Court readings of Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Court quashed a “false promise of marriage” FIR, holding that the new offence carries the same rigour as the old law: the promise must have been made with no intention of ever fulfilling it. New Delhi: The Supreme […]