Month: August 2026

Specific Relief Act, 1963 — Section 20 — Specific performance — Discretionary and equitable relief — Clean hands — Grant of specific performance is discretionary, not automatic even where a valid contract subsists; a plaintiff must approach the Court with clean hands. Where the plaintiff’s spouse lodged a criminal complaint seeking recovery of the advance paid, alleging the vendor fraudulently suppressed a subsisting injunction, while simultaneously maintaining a civil suit for specific performance, such conduct amounts to blowing “hot and cold” and disentitles the plaintiff to equitable relief.

2026 INSC 776 SUPREME COURT OF INDIA DIVISION BENCH V.N.A.S. CHANDRAN Vs. S. VENILA AND OTHERS ( Before : Prashant Kumar Mishra and N.V. Anjaria, JJ. ) Civil Appeal Nos.…

Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC) — Section 299 — Absence of order — Effect on conviction — Where no order under S. 299 was ever passed at the stage the co-accused was tried (case having been split due to abscondence), the earlier deposition of a witness (since deceased) could not be relied upon to convict the accused apprehended and tried years later; identification by surviving eyewitnesses being doubtful and other witnesses having turned hostile, conviction based on such uncorroborated prior testimony unsustainable — appellant acquitted.

2026 INSC 775 SUPREME COURT OF INDIA DIVISION BENCH MAHENDRA SINGH Vs. THE STATE OF CHHATTISGARH ( Before : J. B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran, JJ. ) Criminal Appeal…

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