CLAT PG Current Affairs — 19 August 2026

India has deployed facial recognition technology (FRT) across airports, railway stations, and public spaces, yet no dedicated statute regulates its use. The Supreme Court's 2017 Puttaswamy ruling established privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21, and its nine-judge bench laid down the proportionality test. FRT, which processes biometric data without consent, challenges Articles 14, 19, and 21 simultaneously. The absence of a data protection framework specific to biometric surveillance leaves citizens without statutory remedy against state overreach.

The constitutional challenge to facial recognition technology rests on the architecture of three fundamental rights simultaneously.

Article 21 and the Privacy Foundation: In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), a nine-judge bench unanimously held that privacy is a fundamental right intrinsic to Article 21. The court identified three components of privacy — spatial (home), decisional (choices), and informational (data about oneself). FRT intrudes on all three: it maps public space, infers personal choices from movement patterns, and harvests biometric data without consent.

The Proportionality Test: Puttaswamy adopted a four-part proportionality test drawn from German constitutional law — (1) the measure must be sanctioned by law; (2) it must pursue a legitimate aim; (3) it must be the least restrictive means; and (4) there must be procedural safeguards. FRT currently fails the first limb — there is no statute authorising it. The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 permits collection of biometric measurements but does not specifically govern real-time facial mapping of the general public.

Article 14 — Algorithmic Arbitrariness: FRT systems globally show racial and gender bias. Arbitrary identification producing false positives and disproportionate targeting of minorities violates the non-arbitrariness strand of Article 14 established in E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu (1974).

Article 19 — Chilling Effect: Pervasive surveillance suppresses free speech and assembly (Articles 19(1)(a) and (b)). The chilling effect doctrine, recognised in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), means that even if FRT is not used to prosecute, its presence deters constitutionally protected behaviour.

The regulatory vacuum is the central problem. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) governs personal data processing but exempts state agencies on national security grounds, leaving the core surveillance question unanswered.

The Karnataka High Court decided to quash Enforcement Directorate proceedings against Sammaan Capital, after resolving its own jurisdictional doubts. The ED's complaint was rooted in five FIRs registered in Karnataka, which the court found unrelated to any pending Supreme Court proceedings. The HC's willingness to interfere with ED action — an agency whose powers under PMLA are routinely contested — makes this ruling significant for understanding the limits of money-laundering jurisdiction and predicate offence linkage.

This case sits at the intersection of PMLA enforcement and High Court writ jurisdiction — a zone CLAT PG tests frequently. Under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, the ED can initiate proceedings only when a 'scheduled offence' (predicate offence) exists. The scheduled offence provides the jurisdictional foundation: without it, or if the underlying FIRs are independently resolved or unconnected to a superior court's seisin, the PMLA complaint may lack legal grounding.

The Karnataka HC's reasoning appears to turn on two linked points. First, the ED's complaint was based on five state-registered FIRs — meaning the predicate offences were state-law matters. Second, those FIRs had no connection to any Supreme Court proceedings, so there was no question of the HC being barred from interference on grounds of comity or overlapping jurisdiction. Once the court satisfied itself on these jurisdictional doubts, it felt empowered to quash.

For CLAT PG, the key doctrinal takeaway is the predicate-offence requirement under PMLA: ED jurisdiction is derivative — it follows the scheduled offence. If the scheduled offence proceedings collapse, are quashed, or are shown to be unrelated to the ED complaint, the money-laundering action is vulnerable to challenge. This is distinct from SFIO's statutory basis under Section 212 of the Companies Act, but both agencies share the feature that their powers are tethered to a prior triggering event — government order for SFIO, scheduled offence for ED.

The Kerala High Court closed a contempt of court case against a magazine editor, holding that the judiciary is not immune from outspoken criticism. The Court ruled that stray remarks made in a news report do not constitute contempt. The observation reinforces the threshold test for scandalising the court — criticism that falls short of undermining public confidence in judicial administration is protected expression, not punishable contempt.

The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 distinguishes between civil contempt (wilful disobedience of a court order) and criminal contempt (publication that scandalises or tends to scandalise the court, or prejudices any judicial proceeding). The threshold for criminal contempt by publication is deliberately high: the publication must have a real and substantial tendency to lower the authority of the court in the eyes of the public — mere criticism, however sharp, does not cross that line.

The Kerala HC ruling reaffirms a principle with a long constitutional pedigree. In E.M.S. Namboodiripad v. T.N. Nambiar (1970), the Supreme Court upheld contempt for statements that attributed class bias to judges as an institution. But in subsequent decades, courts have carved out a wider space for press commentary. The critical distinction is between fair criticism of judgments based on legal reasoning (protected) and personal attacks or imputations that destroy public confidence in the administration of justice (actionable).

The 'stray remarks' doctrine applied here is a proportionality filter: isolated, contextualised critical observations in a news report, read by a reasonable reader as opinion rather than deliberate scandalisation, will not meet the threshold. For CLAT PG, the examiner will test whether the aspirant can apply this threshold test — not just name the Act — to a given fact pattern involving media commentary about courts.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday announced it will constitute a high-powered committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge to examine allegations of police action against student protesters. The move reflects the Court's exercise of its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 32, treating the matter as raising fundamental rights concerns under Articles 19 and 21. The committee model follows the Court's established practice of fact-finding through retired judicial officers in sensitive public-order situations.

When the Supreme Court constitutes an independent committee headed by a retired judge to examine police conduct, it is exercising a layered constitutional power. First, under Article 32, the Court is the guarantor of fundamental rights and can issue any direction necessary to enforce them — not merely writs of the five enumerated kinds. Second, the Court's supervisory role over the executive extends to police action because law-enforcement conduct can violate Article 19(1)(b) (right to assemble peaceably), Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of expression through protest), and Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty, including bodily integrity).

The 'high-powered committee' device is a judicially developed tool — seen earlier in cases like Prakash Singh v. Union of India (2006), where the Court issued binding directions on police reform, and in the Bilkis Bano panel after the 2002 Gujarat riots. It allows the Court to gather facts without converting itself into a trial court, and to retain oversight through periodic reporting obligations.

The constitutional tension here is precise: the right to protest is not absolute. Under Article 19(2) and 19(3), the State may impose 'reasonable restrictions' on free expression and assembly in the interests of public order, sovereignty, or security. The question the committee will address is whether the police action was a proportionate restriction or an unconstitutional excess. The proportionality standard — imported through K.S. Puttaswamy (2017) into Art. 21 and now applied to Art. 19 as well — requires the State's action to be (i) lawful, (ii) necessary, (iii) proportionate to the legitimate aim, and (iv) accompanied by procedural safeguards. This is the test CLAT PG is most likely to frame a hypothetical around.

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that an illegal appointment cannot acquire legality simply because the employee continued in service for a long duration. The Court ruled that time alone cannot regularise what was void from inception. Prolonged continuance in an illegally obtained post does not create a vested right to regularisation. The ruling reinforces that public employment must follow constitutional and statutory procedures, and sympathy cannot override the rule of law in matters of irregular government appointments.

This ruling operationalises a well-settled constitutional doctrine at the intersection of Article 14 (equality before law) and public employment law. The Supreme Court has consistently held — starting from State of Mysore v. S.V. Narayanappa (1967) and reinforced decisively in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (2006) — that regularisation of illegal appointments violates Article 14 because it creates an unfair back-door entry into public service, bypassing eligible candidates who followed due process.

The Umadevi Constitution Bench (5-judge) is the landmark anchor here. It held: (1) temporary or daily-wage employees engaged without following proper procedure cannot claim regularisation as a right; (2) the passage of time does not legalise an illegal appointment; (3) only a one-time regularisation under a valid scheme by the government, for those who had served for ten or more years without court orders or judicial intervention, was permissible. This ruling closed the door on routine regularisation claims.

The current ruling reaffirms Umadevi's ratio. The constitutional test applied is whether the appointment process conformed to Articles 14 and 16 (equality of opportunity in public employment). If it did not, no subsequent fact — including long service — can cure the original illegality. This is rooted in the principle that 'what is void ab initio remains void'; courts cannot validate what the Constitution prohibits. The examiner tests whether aspirants can distinguish valid compassionate appointments, one-time regularisation schemes, and void ab initio appointments under this framework.

The Supreme Court has held that when multiple sentences are awarded alongside life imprisonment, all additional sentences must run concurrently with the life sentence, not consecutively. The Court also ruled that a High Court cannot exercise revisional powers suo motu to enhance punishment while hearing a convict's appeal. Both principles operate as safeguards against judicial overreach in sentencing, grounding the decision in Sections 427 and 397 of the CrPC and their BNSS equivalents.

This ruling addresses two distinct but related principles of criminal sentencing procedure.

**Concurrent vs. Consecutive Sentences:** Under Section 427 CrPC (Section 484 BNSS), when a person already undergoing a sentence of imprisonment is convicted and sentenced for another offence, the subsequent sentence runs concurrently with the prior one unless the court directs otherwise. The Supreme Court has now crystallised this further — where one of the sentences is life imprisonment, no additional sentence can run consecutively. This is because life imprisonment is a sentence for the remainder of the convict's natural life; stacking another sentence after it is legally meaningless and conceptually contradictory. The principle preserves internal coherence in sentencing law.

**Revisional Power and Enhancement:** The second limb is equally significant for procedure. When a convict appeals to the High Court, the High Court exercises appellate jurisdiction. It cannot simultaneously invoke suo motu revisional powers under Section 397 CrPC to enhance the sentence — doing so would convert an appeal by the accused into a proceeding against them. This violates the principle that a party cannot be worse off by exercising their legal right to appeal. The distinction between appellate and revisional jurisdiction is a perennial CLAT PG examiner favourite, tested through passage-based and statement-evaluation questions.

Both principles connect to broader themes of proportionality, procedural fairness, and the limits of judicial power in criminal proceedings.

The State of Goa has approached the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court's sentence of ten years' rigorous imprisonment awarded to journalist Tarun Tejpal for rape. Goa seeks enhancement to life imprisonment. Tejpal was convicted under Section 376 IPC for sexually assaulting a junior colleague inside a hotel elevator in Goa in 2013. The trial court had acquitted him, but the Bombay High Court reversed that acquittal and imposed a ten-year sentence, which the state now contests as inadequate.

This case sits at the intersection of several criminal law principles that CLAT PG tests heavily: appellate enhancement of sentence, the scope of Section 376 IPC (now Section 64 BNS), and the State's right to appeal against inadequate sentences.

Under Section 377 CrPC (Section 419 BNSS), the State government may appeal to the High Court against an acquittal or against a sentence on the ground that it is inadequate. The State may further appeal to the Supreme Court under Section 379 CrPC (Section 421 BNSS) if the High Court has, on appeal, reversed an acquittal and imposed a sentence. This is precisely the procedural posture here: the trial court acquitted Tejpal; the High Court reversed and convicted; now the State challenges the quantum of the High Court's sentence before the Supreme Court.

The substantive law angle: Section 376 IPC prescribes a minimum of seven years' rigorous imprisonment, extendable to life or ten years under the base provision, and life imprisonment in aggravated forms under Section 376(2). The examiner will test whether an appellate court can enhance a sentence beyond what a lower appellate court imposed, and under what conditions life imprisonment becomes the appropriate sentence versus the default ten-year term. The distinction between Section 376(1) and 376(2) IPC — and the role of aggravating circumstances — is precisely the kind of 'identify statutory scope' question the CLAT PG examiner has used repeatedly.

The Madras High Court has directed that judges presiding over POCSO cases must be trained to handle child witnesses with empathy, comparing the approach to a mother showing the moon to a baby while feeding. The court emphasised that children cannot be examined as adult witnesses and that special sensitivity is required in POCSO courts. The ruling underscores the child-friendly procedure mandated under the POCSO Act and Evidence Act provisions governing competency of child witnesses.

This ruling engages two intersecting areas of law: the POCSO Act, 2012, and the law on competency and examination of child witnesses under the Indian Evidence Act (now Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023).

Under Section 33 of the POCSO Act, the Special Court must ensure that the child is not exposed to the accused while testifying, that the child's identity is not disclosed, and that the examination is conducted in a child-friendly manner. The Act also mandates that a child may not be subjected to aggressive or intimidatory cross-examination. Section 26 requires that statements be recorded in the presence of parents or trusted persons.

On competency, Section 118 of the Indian Evidence Act (Section 119, BSA 2023) holds that every person is competent to testify unless the court considers them incapable of understanding questions or giving rational answers. A child witness is competent if they understand the duty to speak the truth — there is no minimum age requirement. The court need only conduct a preliminary examination (voir dire) to satisfy itself of the child's competency.

The Madras HC's direction adds a judicial training dimension: procedural correctness is not enough if the manner of examination re-traumatises the child. This is consistent with the Supreme Court's evolving child welfare jurisprudence, where the 'best interests of the child' operates as the paramount consideration — echoing the parens patriae principle tested in CLAT PG 2025.

The Supreme Court on 18 August 2026 held that an insurer cannot be held liable for a loss occurring when the insured's actual turnover had exceeded the sum assured under a policy, unless the insured had paid an additional premium in advance to cover the enhanced risk. The ruling reaffirms the indemnity principle in commercial insurance: liability is strictly co-extensive with the premium-backed coverage, and no windfall recovery beyond the contractually secured sum is permissible.

This judgment crystallises two foundational insurance-contract doctrines that CLAT PG tests with regularity.

**Principle of Indemnity (Section 31, Indian Contract Act read with insurance law):** A contract of insurance indemnifies the insured only to the extent of the actual loss, and crucially, only within the ceiling of the sum assured. The sum assured is not a bonus—it is the outer boundary of contractual risk the insurer has accepted in exchange for a specific premium. If the insured's exposure grows (here, through increased turnover), the insurer's liability does not automatically expand. The insured must seek an endorsement and pay an additional premium before the loss occurs.

**Advance Premium as Condition Precedent:** The Court treated pre-payment of premium as a condition precedent to extending coverage. This is consistent with the doctrine that an insurer's promise to cover enhanced risk is executory until the premium consideration is furnished. Without that consideration, there is no binding obligation—mirroring the classical rule under Section 2(d) of the Indian Contract Act that consideration must move at the desire of the promisor.

**Commercial Policy Context:** In stock-throughput or turnover-based policies, the sum assured is often declared as an estimate at inception. If actual turnover overshoots the declared figure, the insured carries the underinsurance risk for the excess. This ruling makes clear that post-loss attempts to argue implied coverage will fail.

For CLAT PG, the examiner routinely tests whether aspirants can identify the correct legal proposition governing indemnity, uberrimae fidei, and the consideration requirement in insurance contracts.

The Delhi High Court imposed costs of ₹5 lakh on the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation for misusing a provision meant solely for correcting clerical or arithmetical errors in judgments. DMRC had filed an application under this provision but used it to reargue substantive merits already decided, which the court termed a sham plea. The ruling reaffirms that procedural provisions cannot be weaponised to reopen concluded disputes, and courts will impose exemplary costs to deter such abuse.

At the heart of this ruling is the distinction between a slip or clerical error and a substantive challenge to a judgment. Courts have inherent power — and specific procedural rules — to correct accidental mistakes in their own orders: wrong dates, typographical errors, arithmetic mistakes. This is sometimes called the 'slip rule.' The provision exists to serve justice by tidying genuine inadvertent errors; it is emphatically not a second avenue to relitigate what was argued and decided.

When a litigant — particularly a public-sector undertaking with legal resources — files an application under the slip rule but actually argues that the court reached the wrong conclusion on the merits, it commits two distinct wrongs. First, it misrepresents the nature of its grievance to access a procedural shortcut. Second, it wastes judicial time that could serve genuine litigants, undermining the right of access to justice protected under Article 21.

The imposition of exemplary costs is the court's primary deterrent tool against procedural abuse. In PIL and public law litigation, courts have repeatedly held that costs serve not just a compensatory function but a disciplinary one — signalling that courts will not be instrumentalised. For CLAT PG, the examiner will test whether you understand the boundary between correcting a clerical error and reopening a merits dispute, and whether you can identify when a court's cost imposition is judicially appropriate versus punitive overreach.