Criminal Law – Abetment of Suicide – Appeal Allowed – Appellants, senior employees of Hindustan Lever Ltd, were accused of abetting the suicide of their colleague, Rajeev Jain, by allegedly harassing and humiliating him due to his refusal to accept a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) – High Court dismissed their plea to quash the criminal proceedings under Section 306 of th...
Criminal Procedure – Successor Judge’s Role Post Conviction – Appeal Dismissed – The appellant sought a re-hearing of his case on the question of conviction by the successor judge after the original judge who convicted him was transferred – Held: Once a judgment of conviction is pronounced, the Trial Court becomes functus officio regarding conviction under Section 235...
Criminal Law – Discharge of Appellants – Abuse of Process of Law – Jurisdictional Court’s Decision – The jurisdictional Court exercised discretion under Section 245(2) Cr.P.C. to discharge the appellants, finding no grounds to proceed, given the concluded disciplinary proceedings against the respondent, which were carried out by appellants as officers of the Airports ...
Bail Application – Section 439 Cr.P.C. – Petitioner accused of sexual assault on a minor – Bail application filed after one month of judicial custody – Defence claims false implication and completed investigation – Prosecution contends risk of intimidation and tampering with evidence – Supreme Court precedents emphasize bail as the rule and jail as the exception...
Criminal Procedure – Quashing of FIR – Petitioner, a neighbor in a land dispute, alleged to have been maliciously implicated in the criminal case – Contention that dispute is civil in nature, lacking ingredients of offences under SC/ST (PoA) Act – Reliance on Supreme Court judgments emphasizing scrutiny of allegations for malicious prosecution [Paras 1-4].
SC/S...
Negotiable Instruments Act – Section 138/141 – Acquittal – Trial Court acquitted the accused persons on the grounds that the company was not made a party to the case as required under Section 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. The Appellant’s contention was that the company was initially made a party, but due to non-appearance, the prosecution against the company ...
Criminal Law – Relevance of Evidence from Another Crime – Section 311 CrPC – The prosecution sought to introduce evidence from a subsequent crime (Cr.No.1031 of 2021) in the ongoing trial (SC.No.113 of 2018) – Held: The evidence relating to the subsequent crime was irrelevant to the current trial, as the accused had not been charged in the latter case, and the pro...
Criminal Law – Murder – Appeal against conviction - Acquittal –Anti-Timed First Information Report (FIR) – Credibility of Prosecution Case – Benefit of Doubt – The prosecution claimed that the FIR was lodged promptly after the murder, yet testimonies indicated it may have been lodged after the body was taken to the police station and post-mortem conducted &ndash...
Criminal Law – Cruelty and Abetment of Suicide – Section 498-A and 306 of IPC – Dying declarations – Whether conviction based on dying declarations is sustainable – Held, inconsistencies in the three dying declarations recorded by different officers without clear endorsement of fitness and absence of thumb impressions cast doubt on their reliability – Court emph...
Criminal Procedure Code, Section 439 – Bail – Third Application – Offences under Sections 498-A, 406, 323, 326A, 302, and 304-B IPC – Accusation of administering acid to the deceased leading to her death – Second bail applications were dismissed with liberty to file afresh – First bail application dismissed as not pressed – Bail granted due to lack of prim...