CLAT PG Current Affairs — 21 October 2026

The Supreme Court of India, frustrated by inaction from both the government and technology platforms, has proposed its own regulatory framework to address child sexual exploitation and abuse material online. The Court's intervention follows the failure of existing mechanisms under the POCSO Act and IT Act to curb the spread of such content. The framework targets detection, reporting obligations, and platform accountability — areas where legislative and executive action has stalled.

This case sits at the intersection of three major legal domains: child welfare, public interest litigation, and platform intermediary liability.

The Supreme Court's intervention is a textbook example of judicial activism through PIL. The Court stepped in because neither the legislature nor the executive had operationalised effective enforcement mechanisms against child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) online, despite the POCSO Act (2012) and the IT Act (2000) providing the statutory skeleton.

The key legal tension here is between intermediary safe harbour under Section 79 of the IT Act and the affirmative duty to report CSEAM under Section 19 of the POCSO Act. Platforms claim immunity from liability for user-generated content, yet POCSO creates a mandatory reporting obligation on any person — including corporations — who becomes aware of child sexual abuse.

The Court's proposed framework likely addresses: (1) mandatory proactive detection using hash-matching or AI tools, (2) a time-bound reporting obligation to law enforcement, and (3) consequences for platform non-compliance that pierce the Section 79 safe harbour.

For PIL doctrine, the Court's action reaffirms that where executive inaction causes harm to a vulnerable class — children being the paradigmatic example — courts may issue structural directions even in the absence of a specific petitioner's personal grievance. This is the Vishaka principle applied to a digital context: gap in enforcement triggers judicial standard-setting.

The Supreme Court, in a recent ruling, quietly altered the standard of proof for an alibi plea in criminal trials. Traditionally, courts required the accused to prove alibi conclusively. The Court clarified that an accused only needs to raise a reasonable doubt about presence at the crime scene — not establish alibi beyond reasonable doubt. This shifts the evidentiary burden and aligns alibi with the general principle that the prosecution must prove guilt.

An alibi (Latin: 'elsewhere') is a defence where the accused claims to have been at a different location when the offence occurred. Under Section 11 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (now Section 9 of BSA, 2023), facts inconsistent with the facts in issue are relevant — and alibi operates on this logic.

The traditional judicial position, reflected in cases like Dudh Nath Pandey v. State of U.P. (1981), held that the burden of proving alibi lies on the accused and it must be proved like any other fact — meaning a preponderance of probability. Courts often confused this with requiring near-conclusive proof, effectively treating alibi as a special positive defence that had to succeed entirely or fail.

The Supreme Court's latest ruling corrects this by holding that an alibi need not be proved beyond reasonable doubt by the accused. Instead, a successful alibi merely needs to create a reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case. The burden never shifts from the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt — the accused's alibi evidence is simply one tool to create that doubt.

This distinction matters enormously in practice: a weak alibi that cannot be proven conclusively can still succeed if it raises enough doubt. For CLAT PG aspirants, this intersects with Section 103 of the Indian Evidence Act (burden on person asserting a fact), Section 105 (burden of proving exceptions), and the constitutional presumption of innocence under Article 21.

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, leaders of the Citizens for Justice and Peace, have approached the Delhi High Court challenging an extension of their police custody. They allege the extension violates their fundamental rights under the Constitution, particularly protections against arbitrary detention. The petition raises questions about procedural compliance under the Code of Criminal Procedure and the limits of lawful custodial authority, making it a live test case of constitutional safeguards against extended pre-trial detention.

This case sits at the intersection of two foundational areas of criminal procedure: the statutory limits on police custody remand and the constitutional right to personal liberty under Article 21.

Under Section 167 of the CrPC (now Section 187 of the BNSS), a Magistrate may authorise police custody for a maximum of 15 days in the first instance, with any further detention shifting to judicial custody. The total period of remand before charge-sheet must not exceed 60 or 90 days depending on the severity of the offence. If the accused is not charge-sheeted within that period, they acquire an indefeasible right to default bail under the proviso to Section 167(2) CrPC.

Any extension beyond the statutory ceiling without legal authority constitutes an illegal detention, directly engaging Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) and Article 22 (protection against arbitrary arrest and detention). Courts have repeatedly held that custodial extensions that breach these provisions are void ab initio.

The Supreme Court in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) laid down binding guidelines on arrest and detention, and in Joginder Kumar v. State of U.P. (1994) held that arrest without sufficient justification infringes on personal dignity and liberty. The CLAT PG examiner frequently tests whether aspirants can identify which landmark case corresponds to which custodial rights principle, making fact patterns like this one directly relevant.

The Calcutta High Court upheld the life sentences of a married couple convicted for murdering a six-year-old girl and concealing her body. Both accused admitted the child was killed inside their room but each blamed the other. The court affirmed the trial court's conviction, applying principles of criminal procedure under which mutual incrimination between accused does not absolve either party when the death occurred within their exclusive custody and control.

This case engages two critical doctrines in criminal procedure that CLAT PG regularly tests.

First, the last-seen theory and exclusive custody principle: when a victim is last seen alive in the exclusive custody of the accused, and the accused cannot offer a satisfactory explanation for the death, the court may draw an adverse inference against them. This principle, rooted in Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act (Section 111 BNSS/BSA), places a burden on the accused to explain circumstances within their special knowledge.

Second, the doctrine of common intention under Section 34 IPC (Section 3(5) BNS): when two persons act in furtherance of a common intention, each is as liable as if the act were done by them alone. Crucially, the fact that two co-accused blame each other does not break the chain of joint liability — it can actually reinforce the inference that both participated.

Third, the court reinforces that mutual finger-pointing between accused persons does not create reasonable doubt in favour of either. If the prosecution establishes that the crime occurred in circumstances exclusively under the accused's control, courts are entitled to reject the defence of mutual blame as self-serving.

For CLAT PG, the key skill is identifying which evidentiary principle governs — exclusive custody, common intention, or adverse inference — when a hypothetical involves co-accused blaming each other.

The Supreme Court ruled on appeals against NCDRC orders involving homebuyer disputes with builders over delayed possession. The Court confirmed that buyers who seek a full refund of the amount paid are entitled to 12% interest per annum as compensation for the builder's delay. However, the Court rejected claims for rent paid during the delay period as a separate head of compensation, holding that the 12% interest adequately covers all consequential losses arising from delayed possession.

This ruling sits at the intersection of consumer law and contract law — both tested heavily in CLAT PG. The doctrinal question is: what constitutes adequate compensation for breach of a construction contract under the Consumer Protection Act?

The Court applied the principle that compensation must be just and reasonable, not punitive, and must avoid double recovery. By awarding 12% interest on the refunded amount, the Court treated interest as the comprehensive remedy that subsumes consequential losses like rent. This reasoning draws from the general principle under Section 73 of the Indian Contract Act — compensation for loss or damage caused by breach — which limits recovery to losses that naturally arose from the breach, not every incidental expense.

The NCDRC (National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission) is the apex consumer forum below the Supreme Court, whose orders are challenged under Section 23 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (now mirrored in Section 67 of the 2019 Act), directly before the Supreme Court.

For CLAT PG, the critical doctrinal point is the principle against double recovery: a claimant cannot receive both interest on the principal (which compensates for loss of use of money) and rent (which compensates for the same loss in a different form). Understanding how courts quantify consumer compensation — and what claims they reject as duplicative — is exactly the kind of applied reasoning the examiner tests through passage-based questions.

The Supreme Court has referred to a larger bench the question of whether past judgments barring recovery of excess payments made under a mistake of law were decided without considering Section 72 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. Section 72 entitles a person who pays money by mistake to recover it. The Court found that earlier precedents may not have adequately engaged with the statutory provision, creating a need for authoritative reconsideration of the rule against recovering such payments.

Section 72 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 states: 'A person to whom money has been paid, or anything delivered, by mistake or under coercion, must repay or return it.' This provision creates a statutory right of restitution — an obligation to restore what was received unjustly. The doctrine it encodes is quasi-contractual liability, sometimes called the law of unjust enrichment.

Historically, English common law drew a sharp distinction between mistakes of fact (recoverable) and mistakes of law (irrecoverable). Indian courts imported this distinction despite Section 72 containing no such limitation. Landmark judgments — particularly those involving excess government salary payments — denied recovery on the ground that employees had already spent the money in good faith, relying on the equitable doctrine of 'change of position.'

The Supreme Court's referral challenges this approach. It signals that the textual width of Section 72 — which says 'mistake' without qualification — may override judge-made exceptions. The larger bench will decide whether the no-recovery rule rests on solid statutory ground or was built entirely on common law precedent that overlooked the Indian statute.

For CLAT PG, this is textbook territory: the examiner loves testing the interplay between a codified rule (Section 72) and equitable doctrines (estoppel, change of position), and whether statutory text can be narrowed by judicial gloss. The distinction between mistake of fact and mistake of law, and whether Section 72 covers both, is a precision point that separates genuine understanding from rote memorisation.