General Legal

The Meghalaya Official Language Ordinance, 2026, promulgated on 27 April 2026 with the assent of Governor Chandrashekhar H. Vijayashankar, has officially declared Khasi and Garo as the official languages of Meghalaya alongside English. The Ordinance was issued under Article 213(1) of the Constitution as the State Legislative Assembly was not in session. This ends decades of advocacy by Khasi and Garo linguistic communities, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the stat

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) issued a Gazette Notification dated February 4, 2026, replacing the startup recognition framework that had been in place since 2019. The 2026 Notification marks a significant policy shift by formally recognising and defining "deep tech startups" for the first time in Indian law, while expanding eligibility thresholds and strengthening the regulatory framework for innovation-driven enterprises. Deep tech start

The Ministry of Finance has approved UAE-based Emirates NBD Bank's proposal to acquire up to 74 per cent of the total paid-up equity share capital of RBL Bank Limited. The deal, valued at approximately $3 billion (Rs 26,850 crore), is the largest foreign direct investment in the history of India's financial services sector. The RBI had earlier accorded its approval for the acquisition. The investment agreement was first executed on October 18, 2025, when Emirates NBD expresse

The Delhi High Court on May 18, 2026, ordered the attachment of District Judge Rakesh Kumar V to the Delhi Judicial Academy after a video of a heated altercation between the judge and an advocate at Rohini Court went viral on social media. The incident, which took place on May 16 during court proceedings, involved a clash between the judge and Advocate Rajiv Tehlan, President of the Rohini Court Bar Association. The video showed an increasingly volatile courtroom environment

The Union Cabinet on May 5, 2026, approved an amendment to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, making any insult or obstruction to the singing of the national song Vande Mataram a punishable offence carrying up to three years of imprisonment, a fine, or both. The amendment places Vande Mataram on the same legal footing as the national anthem Jana Gana Mana, which has long been protected under the same Act. The proposed change follows the Home Ministry's Fe

The Assam Cabinet on May 13, 2026, approved the draft Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill, making Assam the latest Indian state to move towards implementing a uniform set of personal laws. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that the Bill will be tabled in the Assam Legislative Assembly on May 26, the final day of the upcoming session. The Assam UCC Bill has been tailored to the state's demographic and cultural realities, with complete exemptions for tribal communities in

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has constituted a Judicial Infrastructure Advisory Committee to prepare a comprehensive roadmap for strengthening judicial infrastructure across India. The committee's mandate includes identifying infrastructural constraints, recommending technology upgrades, and securing governmental support and funding in the range of Rs 40,000 crore to Rs 50,000 crore for courts nationwide. This initiative comes at a time when the Supreme Court's pendency

The Karnataka High Court passed an interim order permitting transwomen to continue their hormone replacement therapy while a constitutional challenge to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act remains pending. The order reflects the Court's recognition that abruptly discontinuing medically supervised hormone therapy poses serious health risks and that the right to healthcare and bodily autonomy cannot be suspended merely because the underlying legislation

The Supreme Court of India has clarified an important procedural aspect of criminal trials: an accused person can exhibit documents that form part of the chargesheet without being required to formally prove the signature or authorship of those documents under Section 294 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (now Section 293 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023). This ruling addresses a practical difficulty that accused persons frequently encounter when seeking t

The Delhi High Court in 2026 passed an order protecting the personality rights of Aman Gupta, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of boAt, the popular consumer electronics brand. The Court restrained unnamed entities from using Gupta's name, image, likeness, or voice without authorisation, particularly in connection with fraudulent endorsements, misleading advertisements, and AI-generated deepfake content. The order adds to a growing body of Indian jurisprudence recognisin

The Bombay High Court on May 7, 2026 dismissed the appeals filed by the family members of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, upholding the acquittal of all 22 accused in the 2005 alleged fake encounter case. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad found that the prosecution had failed to establish the essential elements of its case, including the alleged abduction, illegal detention, and staged encounter killing. The ruling brings to a close one of t

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules 2026, which came into force on May 1, 2026, establish the Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI) as the centralised regulator for the online gaming industry. Constituted as an attached office of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and headquartered in New Delhi, the OGAI represents a fundamental shift from the earlier fragmented state-level regulatory approach to a unified national framework. This article

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is advancing towards imposing what could become the largest antitrust penalty in Indian history against Apple Inc. for alleged abuse of dominant position in the iOS app distribution market. In an order dated 8 April 2026, the CCI noted that Apple has failed to submit details of its global financials and its views on the investigation since October 2024, and scheduled a final hearing for 21 May 2026 on the quantum of penalty. Under Sec

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and its accompanying Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026 came into force on 1 May 2026, establishing India's first comprehensive regulatory framework for the online gaming sector. The Act and Rules create the Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI) as a unified regulator under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), introduce a binary classification system for online games, prohi

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026 on April 22, 2026. These rules operationalise the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (commonly referred to as the PROGA), and will come into force on May 1, 2026. The 26-rule, six-part regulatory architecture establishes a comprehensive framework for governing online gaming in India. For years, gaming regulation in India was a fragmented a