Criminal Law

How to File a Mercy Petition Under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution of India A mercy petition is the last constitutional remedy available to a person who has exhausted all judicial options. When every avenue of appeal has been closed, executive clemency stands as the final safeguard against irreversible injustice. Under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution of India, the President and the Governor respectively hold the authority to grant pardons, commutations, and re

The Supreme Court of India, in Alfiya.A v. State of Kerala, 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 775, quashed a preventive detention order passed under the PITNDPS Act 1988. A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta held that the detaining authority's failure to inform the detenu of his right to make a representation to the detaining authority itself was a fatal infirmity that vitiated the entire detention order. The Court ruled that this failure violated Article 22(5) of the Con

The Supreme Court on August 6, 2026, indicated that it may transfer the investigation into the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) bribery case against Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer Ankit Tiwari to an independent central investigating agency, while making it clear that it would not vacate the stay on the State's proceedings. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant was hearing a writ petition (W.P.(Crl.) No. 23/2024) filed by the E

The Supreme Court on August 6, 2026, refused to grant interim bail on medical grounds to self-styled godman Asaram Bapu (formally known as Asha Ram alias Ashumal), who is serving a life sentence for the rape of a minor devotee. However, the Court permitted him to have a trained caretaker of his choice on a round-the-clock basis inside the jail, in line with a medical report submitted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and P

The Supreme Court on August 6, 2026, stayed the arrest of Sumit Roy, the Personal Assistant of Trinamool Congress (TMC) Member of Parliament Abhishek Banerjee, in connection with the Salboni land-grabbing case in West Bengal. While granting interim protection from arrest, the Court directed Roy to fully cooperate with the ongoing investigation and remain available for questioning between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. with usual breaks. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sur

The Supreme Court of India on August 5, 2026, heard arguments from a petitioner who urged the Court not to permit the Union Government and State Governments to withdraw criminal cases registered against student protesters involved in recent agitations over examination paper leaks. The case, Maneesh Kumar Solanki v Union of India, W.P.(C) No. 958/2026, was heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice V Mohana. Advocate Rizwan Ahmed

The Supreme Court of India, in a significant judgment delivered on August 4, 2026, acquitted Arjun Jani, a man who had spent 22 years in prison after being convicted for the murder of three women. The two-judge bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandran set aside the conviction, finding that the prosecution's case rested on shaky and unreliable evidence. The Court described the ordeal as a collective failure of the criminal justice system, where the trial cour

A Delhi court on August 3, 2026, acquitted former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president and ex-BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and former WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar in the sexual harassment case filed by six women wrestlers. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Ashwini Panwar of the Rouse Avenue Courts pronounced the acquittal, citing inconsistencies, contradictions, and unexplained delays in the complainants' testimonies. The prosecution had examined

The Supreme Court of India on July 31, 2026, stayed the arrest of DMK leader and former Tamil Nadu Minister V Senthil Balaji in a corruption case registered by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) relating to alleged irregularities in the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC). A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi granted interim anticipatory bail to Balaji while issuing notice on his appeal challenging the Madras High Co

A Delhi court on July 31, 2026, sentenced former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain and four co-convicts to life imprisonment for the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 North-East Delhi riots. Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh of the Karkardooma Court pronounced the sentence after rejecting the prosecution's demand for the death penalty, holding that the threshold for capital punishment had not been established. The Febru

The Supreme Court of India, in Mahendra Singh v. State of Chhattisgarh (2026 LiveLaw (SC) 747), delivered on July 31, 2026, has acquitted a murder accused by holding that witness testimony recorded during the trial of a co-accused cannot be used against an absconded accused in a subsequent trial unless the mandatory procedural requirements under Section 299 (now Section 335, BNSS) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), corresponding to Section 335 of the Bharatiya Na

The Supreme Court of India, in its judgment dated July 30, 2026, in State of Rajasthan v. Dev Kant Meena (2026 INSC 752), has held that the granting of prosecution sanction under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 cannot be a matter of political dictate. A bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandra dismissed the State of Rajasthan's petition and imposed costs of Rs 50,000 each before the High Court and Supreme Court, to be paid within

The Supreme Court of India has upheld the constitutional validity of sentences directing imprisonment for the remainder of a convict’s natural life without remission. In a judgment cited as 2026 INSC 764, a bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Augustine George Masih dismissed a batch of writ petitions filed by four sets of convicts, including death row prisoners whose sentences had been commuted by constitutional authorities or modified by courts. The ruling reaf

The writ of habeas corpus, meaning "you shall have the body," is the most powerful constitutional remedy against unlawful detention in India. When a person is detained without legal authority, held beyond the authorized period of custody, or confined in violation of their fundamental rights, a habeas corpus petition compels the detaining authority to produce the detained person before the court and justify the legality of the detention. Under Article 226 of the Constitution o

Securing bail in cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) is significantly harder than in most other criminal cases. Section 37 of the NDPS Act imposes strict twin conditions that must be satisfied before bail can be granted in cases involving commercial quantities of drugs. This guide explains the Section 37 framework, the distinction between commercial and non-commercial quantities, the default bail route under the BNSS, and recent Sup