Service Law - Pension benefits - Calcutta State Transport Corporation framed Regulations, 1990 - to get the benefit of the said scheme, existing employees of the Corporation will have to submit written option within six months from the date of publication - Respondent no.1 opted for pension scheme - On his retirement the respondent no.1 was paid certain retiral benefits, however, no pension was paid to him for which he had exercised the option - Single Judge of the High Court allowed the writ petition of the respondent no.1 - Division Bench upheld the order passed by the Single Judge – Appellant moved to Supreme Court.

Issue: Whether technical objections raised by the Corporation can be allowed to defeat the employee's claim.

Held - employee had a legitimate right to receive pension benefits under the 1990 Regulations, and that any technical objections raised by the Corporation cannot be allowed to defeat his claim - Corporation had wasted about five years’ time in avoidable litigation and deprived the employee of his rightful claim. Appeal Dismissed.

Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 - Section 37 - Development Control Regulations - Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) - Surrender of land - Development of amenity - Additional TDR - Whether appellant entitled to Additional TDR for development of amenity - Held, appellant did not develop amenity so as to be entitled to Additional TDR - No activities undertaken by appellant till the handing over of possession of land were towards the development of amenity and for the grant of Additional TDR - Works undertaken by appellant were part of the effort to make the Corporation accept the surrender of land and to grant TDR - Idea of developing an amenity and seeking additional TDR had cropped up only after entry of Mayfair Housing into picture - Corporation made it clear that Mayfair Housing will not be entitled to Additional TDR - Mayfair Housing had nothing to do with surrendered land when they sent letter seeking permission to develop and maintain recreation ground - Independent analysis of correspondence between parties shows no amenity developed by appellant as required by law to be entitled to Additional TDR - High Court's finding that appellants did not develop amenity so as to be entitled to Additional TDR upheld - Appeal dismissed.                                                                         (Para No. 42 to 47)

Issue: Whether the demand of additional price made by the Haryana Urban Development Authority from the allottees of a plot of land was justified, and whether the appeal filed by the appellants despite a previous judgment on the same issue was justified.

Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) - Allotment of plot - Demand of additional price - Condition 9 of allotment letter - Enhancement of price - Land Acquisition Act - Appeal filed despite precedent judgment - Guilty officials to bear litigation cost - Sanjay Gera vs. Haryana Urban Development Authority & Anr. referred - Held, the price demanded cannot be enhanced if there is no award by the competent authority under the Land Acquisition Act as per condition of allotment - Officers who opine case to be fit for filing appeals despite being covered by judgment of this Court shall be held accountable and cost shall be recovered from them - Appeals filed without any justification and resulting in addition to the pendency of cases shall burden appellants with costs - Appellants to pay Rs. 1,00,000/- as cost for burdening Courts with unnecessary litigation - Additional cost of litigation to be borne by guilty officials who filed the appeal despite precedent judgment - Appeal dismissed.

Service Matter - Promotion of Assistant Engineers - Qualifying degree or diploma holder - Time period of service prior to acquisition of degree - Distinction between diploma holder and degree holder - Whether to be counted - Interpretation of service rules - Seniority - Practice of the department – Held - there is no distinction between the time period served before or after the acquisition of the degree so long as the degree is acquired and is the basis for consideration of the promotion - The time period spent in the service as Junior Engineer was at variance dependent on whether the person had a qualifying Degree or a qualifying Diploma - Past practice being of significance - Principle of seniority from the date of appointment - Rules do not stipulate from which date the time period of regular service has to be counted - View taken in D. Stephen Joseph v. Union of India, (2013) 14 SCC 225 held to be applicable law - Appeals dismissed.

Bail Application - Rejection of bail - Appellant, along with others, accused of offenses under the GCTOC Act and IPC - Allegations of intimidation, threats, and extortion - Prima facie material indicating regular participation in crime - Bail application dismissed by High Court - Appeal filed seeking bail - Court declining bail considering alleged role of appellant, existence of other cases, and statements of witnesses - Exercise of judicial discretion - Need for sound discretion guided by law - Detailed examination of evidence and merits not required at this stage - Bail application rejected. [Para 8-13]

Applicability of GCTOC Act - Not addressed - Appeal filed solely for seeking bail during trial - Court refraining from going into legal aspect of applicability of GCTOC Act at present stage. [Para 8]

Parity in granting bail - Not automatically granted based on similarity of circumstances - Role of accused, position in relation to incident and victims, and individual considerations of utmost importance - Merely showing similarity of weapon possession insufficient to establish case for bail based on parity. [Para 12]

Examination of protected witnesses - Request by respondent-state to consider bail application after their examination - Court granting six months' time for recording statements of protected witnesses - Appellant allowed to renew bail application after their examination. [Para 14-15]

Background: The present appeal was filed against the judgment and order passed by the High Court and ITAT in a tax dispute between the appellant (Commissioner of Income Tax, Mumbai) and the respondent (Kunal Constructions) relating to the nature of a certain transaction in the assessment year 2010-11.

Issue: Whether the transaction in question was a sale of capital assets or a sale of stock in trade?

Held: The Supreme Court held that the ITAT had failed to consider the relevant aspects/relevant factors while considering the transaction in question as stock in trade and had not considered the relevant aspects which were required to be considered by the ITAT. Therefore, the matter was remanded back to the ITAT to consider the appeal afresh in light of the observations made by the Supreme Court and to take into consideration the relevant factors while considering the transaction as stock in trade or as sale of capital assets or business transaction.(Para No. 7 & 8)

Ratio: Merely on the basis of recording of inventory in the books of accounts, the transaction in question would not become stock in trade. In order to examine whether a particular transaction is sale of capital assets or business expense, multiple factors like frequency of trade and volume of trade, nature of transaction over the years etc., are required to be examined.

Decision: The impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court and that of the ITAT were quashed and set aside and the matter was remitted back to the ITAT to consider the appeal afresh in accordance with law and on its own merits, while taking into consideration the observations made by the Supreme Court and to take an appropriate decision on whether the transaction in question is the sale of capital assets or sale of stock in trade and other aspects referred hereinabove.

Sale deed - Nature of transaction - Burden of proof - Admissibility of parol evidence - Inter-se dispute between co-defendants - Order VIII Rule 6A CPC - Validity of sale deed executed by defendant against co-defendant - Sale deed registered and executed by defendant not in dispute - Presumption of genuineness - Extent of property described in sale deed - Inconsistency in defendant's stand - Extraneous evidence not necessary in the presence of clear recitals in the registered document - Finding on the voidness of sale deed under Fragmentation Act unsustainable - Second defendant cannot raise counter-claim against co-defendant - Sections 91 and 92 of the Evidence Act - Sale deed classifiable under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act and Section 17 of the Registration Act - Sale deed covering immovable property worth more than Rs. 100/- - Extraneous evidence admissible only when recitals in the document are indecisive and ambiguous - Second defendant's oral evidence cannot override registered sale deed - High Court erred in setting aside the judgment and decree of the First Appellate Court and restoring the decree of dismissal of the suit of the trial court.

Registration and admission of execution of the sale deed carried a presumption of genuineness - burden of proof was on the second defendant to prove that the transaction did not reflect the true nature of the transaction - in the absence of anything on record establishing the annulment of the sale deed in question, and with nothing reflecting a contra intention not to pass the title and ownership, it was not necessary to enter into extrinsic evidence relating to the sale transaction.

Civil Procedure Code, 1908 - Order 41 Rule 31 - High Court's duty in Second Appeal - should not interfere with the findings of fact unless there is perversity in the appreciation of evidence or the findings of the lower courts are vitiated by non-consideration of relevant evidence, misreading of evidence or if such findings are based on inadmissible evidence - High Court had erred in setting aside the judgment and decree of the First Appellate Court and restoring the decree of dismissal of the suit of the trial court. Appeal Allowed. (Para Numbers: 33-36)

Land acquisition - Deemed lapse of acquisition - Challenge by subsequent purchaser - Locus standi - Compensation not paid/tendered - Appeal against High Court's declaration of deemed lapse of acquisition - Applicability of earlier decision in Manav Dharma Trust case - Held, subsequent purchaser has no locus to challenge the acquisition and pray for deemed lapse of acquisition - Decision in Manav Dharma Trust case not good law - Relying on Shiv Kumar and Godfrey Philips cases, it is observed that subsequent purchaser has no locus to challenge acquisition - High Court's judgment unsustainable - Appeal allowed.

Criminal trial - Circumstantial evidence - Duty of prosecution to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt - Heavy burden on prosecution in case of circumstantial evidence - Chain of circumstances must point to only one conclusion which is that accused is guilty - Each piece of evidence in chain must stand on firm grounds - Prosecution failed to prove case beyond reasonable doubt in present case. [Para 15]

Evidence - Circumstantial evidence - Last seen theory - Importance and limitations of last seen evidence - Close proximity of time between accused being last seen with deceased and discovery of body or time of death strengthens last seen evidence - Long gap between last seen and death weakens last seen evidence - Prosecution must establish that during this gap no other person had access to deceased. [Para 12, Para 14]

Evidence - Circumstantial evidence - Discovery of evidence - Burden of proof on prosecution - Prosecution must establish complete chain of evidence pointing to guilt of accused - Discovery of items not sufficient to fix guilt if not linked to accused or deceased - Prosecution failed to meet burden of proof in present case. [Para 14]

Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act - Burden of proving fact especially within knowledge - Exception to general rule that burden of proof lies on prosecution - Section 106 applicable only when other facts have been established by prosecution - In present case, where last seen evidence is weak, Section 106 does not come into play. Appeal Allowed. [Para 13]

Beyond Reasonable Doubt - prosecution failed  to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt - evidence of last seen, only leads up to a point and no further - failed  to make a complete chain- discovery of ‘Parna’ and watch of the deceased - not sufficient to fix guilt on the appellant - case based on the circumstantial evidence - burden on the prosecution - circumstances collected by the prosecution must complete the chain -  point to only one conclusion which is that it is the accused who had committed the crime, and none else - orders of the trial court and the High Court set aside. Appeal Allowed. (Para No. 15 & 16)