The Supreme Court Writes the Rulebook for Prosecuting Companies

Welcome to this week’s issue of the Indian Legal Brief (ILB). Here are the judgments, orders, regulatory changes, and developments that matter to your practice — without the noise.

A four-day week — the Court declared Friday a holiday for the BRICS summit and will sit on Saturday, 28 November instead — and Justice Pardiwala filled it: the corporate mens rea framework in Sanofi, the Vedanta buyback remand, the highway solatium cutoff and a Section 69 BNS quashing all carry his benches’ names. Justices Datta and Nagu sent the stamp-duty undervaluation test to a larger bench. The Chief Justice’s bench worked the institutions instead: a six-month clock for 449 exclusive NDPS courts, a same-day stopgap for the National Green Tribunal, and a refusal to put off the marital rape exception. In the High Courts, Punjab & Haryana struck down a retrospective tax validation and Delhi ordered biometric Aadhaar for every new GST registration in the country. Here’s what happened.

Supreme Court Highlights

Corporate Criminal Liability: A Three-Stage Test, and No Named Officer Required

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra — September 7, 2026

The CBI alleged that Sanofi India conspired with a scientific officer of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to supply medicines at inflated prices and in excess quantities — a wrongful loss of ₹3,53,361, against gratification of ₹42,750 — but its chargesheet named no employee of the company. Sanofi argued that a company cannot be prosecuted for an offence requiring mens rea unless the natural person whose intent is attributed to it is identified and arraigned. In Sanofi India Ltd. v. Central Bureau of Investigation, 2026 INSC 957, the Court rejected the argument — and used the occasion to write the missing chapter of Indian corporate criminal law.

At the quashing stage, the Bench held, “neither identification nor arraignment of a natural person can be read in as a prerequisite” — the test remains whether the allegations disclose the offence, and the company’s role can appear from the surrounding circumstances.

For trial, the Court laid down a three-stage inquiry for attributing an individual’s act and intent to the company. First, do the constitutional documents — memorandum, articles, company-law principles — vest that person with the power to do the act in question? Second, failing that, was the power delegated to them, expressly or impliedly, with real discretion — mere authority to sign after others have decided is not enough? Third, failing both, does the purpose of the statute require a special rule of attribution? The inquiry is transaction-specific; seniority alone attributes nothing, and the required mens rea must be found whole in at least one person — it cannot be assembled from fragments across several.

“Attribution is not a simple question with a fixed set of answers. It is an intricate inquiry, involving the consideration of several factors.”

The framework yields where the statute supplies its own attribution rule, or imposes strict or vicarious liability.

Why it matters: Every white-collar defence built on “no officer was named, so the company walks” now fails at the threshold — and every prosecutor has a map for pinning an employee’s intent on the employer. The company’s delegation matrix and transaction-level governance record just became criminal-defence documents; boards should read their authority frameworks the way the Court now will.

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Securities: Escrow Release Is No Clean Chit — SEBI’s Vedanta Buyback Probe Revives

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K.V. Viswanathan — September 9, 2026

In 2014, Cairn India — now Vedanta — announced a buyback of 17.09 crore shares at up to ₹335, and ultimately bought back about 3.67 crore shares for ₹1,225.45 crore. SEBI alleged the announcement was misleading and made without genuine intent to complete it, a fraud on the market under the PFUTP Regulations. Vedanta’s answer was structural: SEBI had itself released the cash escrow the company deposited under the Buyback Regulations, and a release conditioned on compliance was inconsistent with a live fraud case. In Securities and Exchange Board of India v. Vedanta Ltd., 2026 INSC 978, the Court refused to let one regulation swallow the other.

“The fact that the conditions governing the forfeiture or release of an escrow have been satisfied, by itself, cannot be treated as a finding on whether the PFUTP Regulations have been violated or not.”

The escrow mechanism polices completion of a buyback; the fraud inquiry asks a different question on different evidence. But SEBI did not get its penalty restored either: neither the Adjudicating Officer nor the Securities Appellate Tribunal had dealt with disputed discrepancies in the trading data on which the fraud case rests, so the matter goes back to the SAT for fresh adjudication on the limited question of fraud, to be completed within six months.

Why it matters: Compliance with one SEBI framework is not immunity under another — an argument that recurs wherever a regulated entity has cleared one procedural gate and treats it as a merits finding. For the market, a decade-old buyback is back under a fraud lens, and the SAT round will turn on trading data, not on doctrine.

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Stamp Duty: Larger Bench to Decide Whether §47A Needs Fraudulent Intent

Bench: Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu — September 7, 2026

BPCL bought land from the Government of India, paid the full consideration by cheque, and received a transfer deed in 2016. The registering authority then demanded additional stamp duty: the guideline value was ₹500 per square foot against a stated consideration working out to ₹168.30. Under the three-judge ruling in V.N. Devadoss, Section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act can be invoked only on wilful undervaluation coupled with fraudulent intent to evade duty — a test a State-to-company sale at an administratively fixed price could hardly fail. In Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. v. District Revenue Officer (Stamps), 2026 INSC 963, Justices Datta and Nagu declined to apply it.

The section itself, the Bench observed, asks only whether the authority has “reason to believe” the market value has not been truly set out; it says nothing about the parties’ state of mind.

“‘Wilful undervaluation’ and/or ‘fraudulent intention’ cannot be read as an intra-sentential component into Section 47-A of the Stamp Act for its invocation.”

Requiring proof of fraud at the threshold, the Court reasoned, turns a valuation exercise into a quasi-criminal enquiry — and shields exactly the transactions where part of the consideration changed hands in cash. Two questions go to a larger bench: whether V.N. Devadoss correctly reads fraudulent intent into Section 47-A, and whether the earlier decisions in Ramesh Chand Bansal and Shanti Bhushan state the law correctly.

Why it matters: Every undervaluation notice in the country is issued or resisted in the shadow of Devadoss, and the Court has now said, in terms, that it doubts the precedent it remains bound by. Until the larger bench answers, conveyancing counsel should assume the mens rea shield may not survive — and paper the consideration accordingly.

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Service Law: Contract Years Before Regularisation Count Toward Pension

Bench: Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar — September 8, 2026

The Punjab School Education Board engaged clerks and peons between 1993 and 1996 on contract, ad hoc, daily-wage and work-charge terms — the familiar 89-day stints — and regularised them years later, after the State’s Defined Contributory Pension Scheme had replaced the old GPF pension for entrants from 1 January 2004. The Board’s position was that service began at regularisation, so the new scheme applied. In Punjab School Education Board v. Satnam Singh, 2026 INSC 965, the Court disagreed.

“The services by respondent-employees rendered on contract/ad hoc/daily wage basis prior to regularization must be computed as qualifying service for the purpose of retiral and pension benefits.”

Where the employment was long and continuous and regularisation followed, the pre-regularisation years count. The employees are to be treated as having entered service before the 2004 cutoff, with the option to choose between the old pension scheme and the new.

Why it matters: The 89-day engagement was designed to keep exactly these years off the pension ledger, and every State board and corporation that ran the model now faces the same arithmetic. For the cohort regularised after 2004 on decades of “temporary” service, the old-pension option is the difference between a defined benefit and a market outcome.

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Real Estate: The Road That Never Came Entitles the Developer to the Zero Period

Bench: Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe — September 8, 2026

NOIDA allotted a commercial plot under its 2011 builder scheme with a sanctioned plan facing a 45-metre front road. The road was never built — the land under it remained encroached and unacquired — and construction was separately halted by the NGT’s restraint near the Okhla Bird Sanctuary. When the developer sought the benefit of NOIDA’s Zero Period policy, which reschedules instalments without penal interest when construction becomes impossible, the authority answered that partial access existed. In New Okhla Industrial Development Authority v. Sunshine Trade Tower Pvt. Ltd., 2026 INSC 975, the Court dismissed NOIDA’s appeals and ended an eleven-year stalemate.

“The provisions of a policy, such as the Zero Period Policy, are not to be interpreted like the provisions of a statute.”

A developer “has to race against time, keeping in mind contractual and financial obligations,” and cannot be denied relief because some access survives when the access the sanctioned plan was built around does not. NOIDA was directed to grant the full Zero Period benefit and to sanction a revised site plan reflecting the road it never provided.

Why it matters: A week after Granite Gate stripped NOIDA’s time-extension charges out of CIRP costs, the Court has read the authority’s own relief policy purposively against it. Developers holding plots that never received promised infrastructure have both a policy entitlement and an interpretive rule to enforce it — and development authorities can no longer answer a missing spine road with “you had a side gate.”

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Partnership: An Outgoing Partner’s Share Is Valued at Realisation, Not Dissolution

Bench: Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Vipul M. Pancholi — September 9, 2026

M/s Viraj Constructions, a partnership at will formed in 1964, owned 3.27 acres in Hyderabad when it stood dissolved in October 1983. The partners who stayed in possession reconstituted the firm and carried on, and the litigation that followed asked the recurring question: is the outgoing partner’s share in the land frozen at its 1983 value, or does it ride the asset to its present worth? In V. Sumitra Reddy v. K. Ranganadha Reddy, 2026 INSC 979, the Court held for the present.

“The reconstituted firm has no right whatsoever to utilize the assets of the dissolved firm unless all the partners of the dissolved firm reach an agreement to settle the accounts and to pay the outgoing partner his share in the value of the assets.”

On dissolution, every partner is entitled to a rateable share in the residue of the firm’s assets as realised — at market value or public auction — not at a paper figure struck on the date of dissolution. The appeal was dismissed, interim stays vacated, and the High Court’s direction for public auction of the land, with proceeds distributed by shares, restored.

Why it matters: In four decades of appreciation, the difference between dissolution value and realisation value is usually the whole dispute. Continuing partners who hold the assets and wait out their former colleagues now bear the appreciation risk of that strategy — and outgoing partners and their heirs have a clean rule to plead in every family-firm land case.

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Land Acquisition: The First Award’s Date Picks the Highway Solatium — 30% or 100%

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 8, 2026

Land acquired under the National Highways Act carries solatium and interest — that much was settled when the 2013 land-acquisition regime was extended to NH acquisitions from 1 January 2015. What remained contested was the cutoff for the richer terms: the 1894 Act’s 30 per cent solatium, or the 2013 Act’s 100 per cent. In Manav Bhanot v. National Highway Authority of India, 2026 INSC 973, the Court fixed the switch by a single date: the day the Competent Authority first determined compensation.

The award in Bhanot’s case was passed on 11 July 2014 — before the cutoff — so his solatium and interest fall to be computed under the 1894 Act, though payable they undoubtedly are. Neither the date the acquisition began, nor the date the arbitrator ruled, nor the date of payment moves the line.

“Hence, though, the solatium, interest and interest on solatium is applicable, the same shall be computed based on the provisions of the Act of 1894.”

Why it matters: Thousands of NH arbitration and execution proceedings turn on which statute prices the solatium, and claimants have routinely argued from later procedural dates to reach the 2013 Act’s doubled terms. The rule is now mechanical: find the initial award’s date, and the computation follows. Landowners with pre-2015 awards should recalibrate claims — and those with post-2015 awards should insist on the full 100 per cent.

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Criminal Law: A Marriage Promise Broken on a Mother’s Objection Is Not §69 BNS Deceit

Bench: Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran — September 7, 2026

A Vadodara FIR under Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita alleged the familiar sequence: a physical relationship on a promise of marriage, and a later refusal — here, because the man’s mother would not permit the match. The Gujarat High Court declined to quash. In Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. State of Gujarat, 2026 INSC 987, the Supreme Court did, and drew the line the new section will be policed by.

Section 69 punishes intercourse procured by deceitful means or by a promise to marry made “without any intention of fulfilling the same.” The provision reaches the promise that was false when made — not the genuine promise that later failed.

“In any event, the very complaint is that the appellant refused to marry her later, because his mother did not permit it, which indicates that the promise was made with all good intention, if at all it was made.”

The complaint itself, the Bench held, disclosed a consensual relationship, not an inducement by deception; the FIR was quashed.

Why it matters: Section 69 imported the false-promise jurisprudence of Section 375 IPC into a standalone offence, and the first wave of FIRs is testing how much of ordinary relationship failure it can absorb. The Court’s answer — family opposition, changed circumstances and cold feet are not deceit unless the intention was absent at inception — gives quashing courts a workable filter, and complainants’ counsel a pleading standard to meet.

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Evidence: A Baptismal Certificate Cannot Prove a POCSO Victim’s Age

Bench: Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N.V. Anjaria — September 10, 2026

A special court in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills convicted the accused under Section 4 of the POCSO Act for the 2019 rape of a girl the prosecution said was thirteen, and sentenced him to twenty years; the High Court affirmed. The age case rested on a baptismal certificate and the mother’s testimony — no school record, no municipal register, no ossification test. In Pynchemalangaki Bareh v. State of Meghalaya, 2026 INSC 984, the Supreme Court held that this does not prove minority.

Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice Act prescribes a hierarchy: school and board certificates, then birth registers, and only in their absence an ossification test. A baptismal certificate answers none of these descriptions, and where the listed documents are missing, the ossification test is not optional. The POCSO conviction fell with the age finding.

The accused did not walk. Penetrative sexual assault stood independently proved, and the Court converted the conviction to rape under Section 376(1) IPC — no separate charge notwithstanding — and imposed ten years.

Why it matters: Age is the jurisdictional fact of every POCSO prosecution, and investigating officers routinely rest it on whatever document the family produces. The judgment is a checklist for both sides: prosecutors must build the Section 94 record at investigation, and defence counsel now have authority that an unproved age converts, rather than acquits — the offence survives under the general law.

Other Notable SC Orders This Week

• The marital rape exception moves toward final hearing (September 7 and 9) — The Chief Justice’s bench refused to put the challenge off to November, heard the Solicitor General’s position that criminalisation is a matter of legislative policy, observed that marriage “doesn’t mean extinction of individual autonomy,” and listed the batch for final hearing after three weeks, on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
• 449 exclusive NDPS courts, six months (September 7) — Alarmed at the surge in narcotics cases, the Chief Justice’s bench directed the Centre and States to establish the full complement of 449 exclusive NDPS courts, preferably within six months; only 176 exist.
• Long possession is not adverse possession (September 10) — In Bhag Singh v. Basant Kaur, 2026 INSC 983, Justices P.K. Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar held that hostility must be affirmatively established and that revenue entries evidence possession, not title.
• A nine-year-late electricity demand is time-barred (September 10) — In Dakschinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd. v. Vidut Lokpal, 2026 INSC 985, Justices Bhatti and Anjaria held charges become “first due” on billing, and a ₹57.74 lakh minimum-consumption demand raised in 2007 for 1998 fell to Section 56(2) of the Electricity Act.
• Aravalli panel gets two months, not six (September 7) — The expert committee defining the Aravalli range sought an extension to February 2027; the Chief Justice’s bench set a hard deadline of 30 November, permitted issue-specific interim reports, and warned it would reconstitute the panel.
• The student-protest committee stays as constituted (September 10) — The Court declined to reconstitute the Justice R. Subhash Reddy High-Powered Committee over the petitioners’ independence objections, calling it the Court’s “extended hand”; the committee meets first on 15 September.
• Why does a road-rage FIR need a journalist’s X data? (September 7) — Ghaziabad’s Police Commissioner must file an affidavit explaining the notice seeking journalist Abhishek Upadhyay’s account information, the Court observing that digital footprints implicate privacy; returnable 17 September.
• Anil Ambani’s Black Money Act challenge (September 8) — The Centre pressed for transfer of the challenge from the Bombay High Court to the Supreme Court.
• Rajpal Yadav’s surrender deferred for ₹5 crore (September 8) — The actor was exempted from surrendering in seven cheque-dishonour convictions subject to depositing ₹5 crore with the Registry; returnable 15 September.
• Abu Salem stays in (September 10) — The premature-release plea in the 1993 Bombay blasts case was dismissed.

Insolvency & Corporate

The Resolution Applicant’s Death Does Not Kill the Plan — or the Company

NCLAT, New Delhi (Justice N. Seshasayee and Indevar Pandey) — September 9, 2026

The Committee of Creditors of Genius Exports approved Digvijay Nath Tripathi’s resolution plan in May 2022. He died in September 2024 with the plan still awaiting NCLT approval; the parties then settled and filed for withdrawal under Section 12A. The NCLT rejected the plan anyway and sent the company to liquidation. In Arun Kumar Singh v. Genius Exports Pvt. Ltd., the NCLAT set the liquidation aside and revived the process.

Section 33’s grounds for liquidation are exhaustive, the Tribunal held, and the death of a resolution applicant is not among them; a pending Section 12A settlement had to be decided before the company could be consigned to winding up.

“Liquidation is amputation of the corporate assets for free sale in the market whereas CIRP requires preserving the soul of the corporate debtor by saving its body and life.”

Why it matters: Plans routinely outlive their proponents in a process where approval takes years, and adjudicating authorities have treated the gap as a dead end. The ruling closes that route: the statutory grounds are a closed list, and a settlement on the table must be ruled on before liquidation is even available.

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Liquidation: The §32A Clean Slate Extends to Going-Concern Buyers

NCLAT, New Delhi (Justice N. Seshasayee and Arun Baroka) — September 9, 2026

Seam Industries went into liquidation in June 2021 and was sold as a going concern in auction, with the sale certificate issued in August 2023. When the buyers sought the protection of Section 32A — the provision that wipes the corporate debtor’s pre-insolvency liabilities on a clean-slate change of control — the NCLT Mumbai granted it only in part, carving out pending proceedings and governmental actions. In Amitkumar Rishi Kumar Bhabhda v. Amit Chandrashekhar Poddar, the NCLAT removed the carve-outs.

The clean slate, the Tribunal held, is a legal consequence of the going-concern sale, not a discretionary concession to be rationed by the adjudicating authority — and it applies in liquidation as it does in resolution.

“The clean slate theory implies that past liability, if any, of the corporate debtor, if remained unclaimed during CIRP or the liquidation cannot survive post successful completion.”

Why it matters: Going-concern buyers in liquidation have priced legacy-liability risk into every bid because their protection was treated as weaker than a resolution applicant’s. Putting both on the same footing should show up directly in auction realisations — and gives buyers holding partial-protection orders a ground to reopen them.

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IBBI Moves Twice: A Misuse Watch for IPs, and Guardrails for Personal-Guarantor Plans

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India — September 9 and 12, 2026

Two instruments in four days, each aimed at a hole the year’s caseload has exposed. Circular IBBI/CIRP/105/2026 of 9 September tells insolvency professionals that enforcement agencies report the Code being used “for purposes other than insolvency resolution or liquidation” — to mitigate tax liabilities, avoid regulatory scrutiny, blunt investigations, ring-fence assets — and directs IPs to stay vigilant for red flags: a single creditor dominating the CoC, clusters of connected corporate debtors, minimal competitive participation, realisations grossly disproportionate to claims, links to fraud proceedings. Where an IP forms a view on reasonable grounds that the process serves a fraudulent or malicious purpose, the IP shall place the facts before the Adjudicating Authority.

Then, on 12 September, a discussion paper proposing four safeguards for the personal-guarantor process that the corporate process already has: related parties of the guarantor stripped of voting rights on the repayment plan, mandatory identification of preferential and undervalued transactions, independent valuation of the guarantor’s assets, and recorded reasons for creditors’ decisions. Comments close 3 October.

Why it matters: Read the discussion paper against the Subhash Chandra repayment plan — ₹6.5 crore offered against admitted claims of ₹22,006 crore, approved over lender objections, now stayed and listed afresh before a five-member bench on 23 September. Every proposed safeguard maps onto a failure alleged in that case. And the misuse circular converts the resolution professional from process manager into gatekeeper, with an obligation — not an option — to go to the tribunal.

Other Notable Insolvency Orders

• Appeal limitation runs from the NCLAT’s provision of its order (Supreme Court, September 7) — Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi held, dismissing EPFO’s appeal in the Vas Data Services matter as 28 days late, that time under Section 62 runs from when the order is provided under the NCLAT Rules, not from receipt of a certified copy; the NCLAT’s ruling that the moratorium freezes EPFO assessment proceedings stands.
• The guarantor follows the company (NCLAT, September 9) — Personal-guarantor proceedings under Section 95 must be filed before the bench seized of the corporate debtor’s CIRP; proceedings against the Laxmi Pipes guarantor admitted in New Delhi were set aside for want of jurisdiction under Section 60(2), with the NCLT President’s power under Rule 16(d) to transfer cases across benches affirmed in a connected ruling.
• An approved plan extinguishes the State’s tax arrears (Bombay HC, September 7) — Justices M.S. Karnik and Sandesh Patil held a ₹27.91 crore MVAT demand against Aarem Insights extinguished on plan approval under Section 31, and ordered relief on the ₹58.58 lakh statutory pre-deposit.
• No further probe into Indiabulls Housing Finance (Special CBI Court, Mumbai, September 8) — The court rejected the CBI’s plea for further investigation in the Yes Bank–DHFL matter, remarking that the prosecution had first sworn there was no loss of public money and then sought further investigation — weeks after the Supreme Court directed the agency to examine all six ED allegations.

From the High Courts

Reassessment: §147A’s Retrospective Rescue of Tax Notices Is Unconstitutional

Punjab & Haryana High Court (Justices Deepak Sibal and Rupinderjit Chahal) — September 10, 2026

When the courts held that reassessment notices issued by jurisdictional assessing officers outside the faceless regime were invalid, Parliament answered with Section 147A of the Income Tax Act — inserted by the Finance Act, 2026 with retrospective effect from 1 April 2021 — validating them. Deciding a batch of roughly seven hundred writ petitions, the division bench struck the provision down.

A legislature can cure a defect the courts have identified and validate afresh; what it cannot do is retrospectively substitute its own opinion for the findings of constitutional courts while leaving the defect in place. The batch of Section 148 notices issued by jurisdictional officers falls with the validation. The faceless reassessment framework itself is untouched.

Why it matters: Thousands of reassessments across the country stand on Section 147A, and the first constitutional court to examine it has removed the floor. Expect parallel challenges in other High Courts, a revenue SLP, and — until the Supreme Court speaks — a strong new plank for every assessee served by a jurisdictional officer after the faceless regime began.

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GST: No New Registration Anywhere Without Biometric Aadhaar, Says Delhi High Court

Delhi High Court (Justices Anil Khetarpal and Shail Jain) — September 10, 2026

Hearing a matter arising from some 2,800 fraudulent GST registrations created on stolen PAN and Aadhaar credentials — linked to evasion of ₹15,085 crore on 2023–24 figures — the division bench directed that no fresh GST registration be granted anywhere in India without biometric-based Aadhaar authentication. The authorities were told to examine facial recognition, preservation of IP and device-location records, physical verification, and alerts to PAN holders when their credentials are used. The matter returns on 22 September.

Why it matters: A writ bench has effectively redesigned the country’s tax-onboarding gate in a single order: every new registrant now faces biometric friction that until now applied only in pilot States. Businesses incorporating or expanding registrations should build the authentication step into timelines — and the order’s nationwide sweep, issued by one High Court, is itself likely to be tested.

Other Notable High Court Orders

• Is Andar Bahar skill or chance? A larger bench will say (Karnataka HC, September 8) — Justice Suraj Govindaraj disagreed with the 1977 ruling in Eeranna treating the card game as skill — once the deck is shuffled “there is no other intervening factor” — and referred the question to a larger bench, unsettling the line on which Karnataka’s real-money gaming law stands (Santhosh v. State of Karnataka, 2026 LiveLaw (Kar) 339).
• The 2% cinema cess falls with its commencement (Karnataka HC, September 10) — Justice H.T. Narendra Prasad quashed enforcement of the levy on movie tickets: the 2024 welfare Act was never brought into force by notification, so the August circular directing collection from 1 September could not stand.
• A death sentence becomes a full acquittal (Madras HC, September 9) — Justices Anand Venkatesh and K.K. Ramakrishnan acquitted a prisoner sentenced to death for the sexual assault of five minors, finding material inconsistencies and a denial of fair trial, and warning of statutory provisions being “weaponized” against an innocent accused (2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 434).
• A second capital acquittal in a fortnight (P&H HC, September 8) — Justices Vinod S. Bhardwaj and Sukhvinder Kaur acquitted a death-row convict in a child’s rape-murder on a collapsed circumstantial chain, observing the investigating agency “found an easy prey” in an orphan with no family.
• A private Sharia body cannot decide marital status (Chhattisgarh HC, September 7) — Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad held the Idara-E-Shariya’s declaration of divorce without legal authority: adjudicatory power comes from legislation, not religious institutions.
• Talaq-e-Hassan is valid — and must be registered (Gauhati HC, September 10) — Justice Arun Dev Choudhury upheld the divorce form and directed the parties to the Registrar under Assam’s Compulsory Registration of Muslim Marriages and Divorces Act, 2024 — the first significant judicial reading of that Act (2026 LiveLaw (Gau) 158).
• The §74 writ wave begins (Chhattisgarh HC, September 9) — Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey quashed Section 74 show-cause notices for failing to plead foundational facts of fraud, applying the Supreme Court’s Tata Steel ruling of 25 August — with liberty to re-issue lawfully.
• The BJP can be defamed as a party (Bombay HC, September 8) — Justice Nitin Borkar declined to quash the criminal defamation case against Rahul Gandhi over the “chowkidar chor hai” remark: a registered national party is an identifiable collection of persons; whether the imputation touched all members is for trial.
• One election petition does not freeze a district’s EVMs (Calcutta HC, September 7) — Justice Ananya Bandyopadhyay confined preservation to machines connected to the challenged constituency, releasing the rest for administrative use.

At the Bar

The Appointments Machine Moves: New Chief Justices Sworn In, Fifteen More Names Cleared

Supreme Court Collegium and High Courts — September 9–10, 2026

The logjam this column has tracked since early August broke. The Centre’s 5 September notification appointing Chief Justices to eight High Courts — clearing the Collegium’s recommendations of 6 and 31 August — took effect in oaths through the week: Justice V.M. Ghuge was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court on 9 September, and Dr Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati as Chief Justice of the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court.

The Collegium then met on 10 September — the Chief Justice with Justices Vikram Nath, Nagarathna, Sundresh and Narasimha — and recommended fifteen judicial officers for High Court judgeships: eight for Delhi (among them Gurvinder Pal Singh, Nivedita Anil Sharma, Bharat Parashar and Arun Bhardwaj), three each for Jharkhand and Karnataka, and one for Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

Why it matters: Eight High Courts changed leadership in one administrative stroke, and the district judiciary’s path to the Delhi High Court reopened with its largest single batch in recent memory. The one gap that has not moved: no fresh Supreme Court recommendations, with the Court still below its expanded strength of thirty-eight.

Other Notable at the Bar

• Tejpal moves to surrender (September 11) — Tarun Tejpal filed a surrender application before the North Goa Additional Sessions Court, which directed him to surrender on 14 September; his Supreme Court appeal is listed 22 September on production of the surrender certificate.
• Perks after resignation, questioned (Supreme Court, September 7) — Notice to the Centre on a petition to withhold post-retirement benefits from judges who resign to avoid removal proceedings.
• Co-option friction in Kerala (September 7–9) — The Chief Justice’s co-option of two women members to the Bar Council of Kerala, communicated on 7 September, drew a written objection from an elected member over the choice of nominee — a preview of the compliance review the Supreme Court holds on 17 September.
• Contempt for an “ex facie false” affidavit (Supreme Court, September 9) — Justices P.K. Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar initiated contempt proceedings against Yatharth Hospital in the EWS free-treatment matter.

Legislative & Regulatory Watch

Tribunals: A Stopgap for the NGT, 31 New Members, and Still No Commission

Supreme Court and Government of India — September 8 and 11, 2026

The cliff we flagged last week arrived on schedule, and the Supreme Court caught it on the day. On 8 September — the date the stopgap tenure extensions lapsed — the Chief Justice’s bench permitted two judicial members and one expert member of the National Green Tribunal to continue in office past retirement until fresh appointments, “to ensure that day-to-day functioning of NGT is not hampered,” and directed the Centre to expedite the process. The Attorney General told the Court that 248 tribunal members had been found eligible for extension under the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2026, and that 229 had already received extension orders.

Three days later the Government moved on the bench-strength front: communications of 11 September appointed thirty-one members across the NCLT — eight judicial, ten technical — and the ITAT, ten days before the Supreme Court’s suo motu proceedings on NCLT delays return on 21 September.

What has still not happened: the National Tribunals Commission the 2026 Act creates, which is supposed to run these very selections, has not been constituted, and no rules have been notified.

Why it matters: Tribunal capacity is being run by judicial stopgap and eve-of-hearing executive action, with the statutory machinery itself still unbuilt. For NCLT practice, eighteen new members is the most consequential listing-arithmetic change in years; for the 21 September hearing, the question is whether the Court accepts appointments made under a headless framework as compliance.

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Banking: RBI Drafts the Mule-Account Playbook the Supreme Court Demanded

Reserve Bank of India — September 11, 2026

Five days before the digital-arrest suo motu proceedings return to the Supreme Court, the RBI published what the Court ordered on 4 August: draft amendments to the KYC Directions introducing a standard operating procedure for suspected money-mule accounts. Banks — commercial and cooperative — would place temporary debit holds on suspect accounts, give the holder twenty days to explain, and cap holds at sixty days absent law-enforcement instructions. Comments close 2 October, with the framework proposed to take effect on 1 April 2027.

Why it matters: Debit-hold mechanics are about to become mandatory KYC text, which means every bank’s fraud-operations team — and every customer wrongly caught in a hold — gets a codified procedure and a clock. Compliance teams should file comments now; disputes counsel should note that the twenty-day explanation window will be the new battleground when legitimate accounts freeze. The consolidated status report is listed 16 September.

Other Notable Regulatory Moves

• Commodity position limits recast after nine years (SEBI, September 9) — Client-level limits reset at 2 per cent of deliverable supply for broad commodities, 1 per cent for narrow and 0.5 per cent for sensitive, with penalties for breach capped — ending the formula-driven penalties brokers have contested since 2017.
• Angel funds get six more months (SEBI, September 7) — The accredited-investors-only mandate for angel funds is deferred to 31 March 2027; in the interim no fund may offer opportunities to more than 200 non-accredited investors.
• Debt-only FPIs shed a disclosure (SEBI, September 7) — Foreign portfolio investors investing exclusively in government securities are exempted from investor-group disclosure, whatever the route, following the RBI’s withdrawal of the concentration limit that made grouping relevant.
• Governance norms for market institutions (SEBI, September 9) — A consultation paper proposes relaxed director-eligibility rules and a standard operating procedure, with qualification norms and a three-month vacancy limit, for CTO, CISO, compliance and risk chiefs at exchanges, clearing corporations and depositories; comments by 30 September.
• The closing-auction ban lifts on deposit (SEBI, September 9) — Copthall Mauritius and Mansi Share & Stock Broking resumed trading after depositing the ₹2.96 crore impounded as alleged unlawful gains from the 13 August closing-auction trades; the manipulation investigation and a confirmatory order remain pending.
• ₹1 crore for a grievance portal that did not work (IRDAI, September 10) — IndusInd Bank, as corporate agent, was penalised for failing to run a functional policyholder grievance framework — the regulator’s test found the portal generating no acknowledgments.

What We’re Watching Next Week

• Shiv Sena symbol (September 15) — respondents’ submissions resume before the Chief Justice’s bench, the Shinde faction having argued that the 2023 judgment left a legislative-majority test open.
• Digital arrest (September 16) — the consolidated status report lands with the RBI’s mule-account draft now on the table.
• Bar Council reconstitution (September 17) — compliance review on the co-option and election timetable, with the Kerala objection already on file; the Ghaziabad Police affidavit on journalist Abhishek Upadhyay’s X data is returnable the same day.
• NCLT delays suo motu (September 21) — the Court measures the 31 eve-of-hearing tribunal appointments against a National Tribunals Commission that still does not exist.
• Tejpal (September 14 and 22) — surrender directed for Monday; the appeal is listed the following Monday on production of the certificate.
• Subhash Chandra, round three (September 23) — the five-member NCLT bench hears the ₹6.5 crore repayment plan afresh, with IBBI’s personal-guarantor safeguards paper open for comment until 3 October.
• Also on the calendar — the Delhi High Court’s GST biometric matter returns 22 September; Madras High Court hears final arguments on the five Tamil Nadu bye-elections 28 September; the marital rape batch reaches final hearing in about three weeks. Still reserved: the two-child norm challenge, the Sabarimala nine-judge reference — which the Court said this week will bear on the Shariat Act succession challenge — and the Jindal Poly Films recall order.

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