CLAT PG Current Affairs — 14 September 2026

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Act, 2023, reserves one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies, including within SC and ST quotas. However, the reservation will not operate until after a delimitation exercise is conducted following the first census after the Act's commencement. Home Minister Amit Shah has noted that SC and ST seat counts will increase with delimitation, indirectly affecting how the women's quota is distributed across constituencies.

The women's reservation law — formally the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Act, 2023, also called the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam — inserts Articles 330A and 332A into the Constitution. Article 330A reserves not less than one-third of the total seats in the Lok Sabha for women, with a sub-reservation for SC and ST women within their existing quotas. Article 332A does the same for State Legislative Assemblies. A corresponding provision covers the NCT of Delhi.

The critical constitutional condition — and the examiner's favourite pressure point — is the activation clause: the reservation will not come into force until after (a) the first census conducted after the Act's commencement is published, and (b) a delimitation exercise is completed on the basis of that census. This creates a two-step prerequisite. The 2021 Census has been delayed; until it is conducted and its results used for delimitation, the reservation remains dormant.

The reservation is also rotational: reserved constituencies will be allotted by rotation after each delimitation, preventing permanent lock-in of any seat. The sunset clause mirrors existing SC/ST reservation — women's reservation will cease after fifteen years from commencement, unless extended by Parliament.

This Act amends Part XV (Elections) of the Constitution and required a special majority under Article 368 plus ratification by at least half the State Legislatures, which it received. Notably, the Act does not provide sub-reservation for OBC women, a point of ongoing political debate.

For CLAT PG, the doctrine of conditional constitutional rights and the distinction between enactment and operationalisation is the core testable principle.

The 106th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2023, known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, has come into force, mandating one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies, and the Delhi Legislative Assembly. Passed by Parliament in September 2023, the amendment inserts Articles 330A and 332A into the Constitution. Crucially, the reservation will activate only after the next delimitation exercise following a Census, making immediate implementation contingent on future administrative processes.

The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam is the 106th Constitutional Amendment and represents the most significant structural change to Parliament's composition since reservation for SCs and STs was introduced. It inserts three key provisions: Article 330A (reservation for women in the Lok Sabha), Article 332A (reservation in state legislative assemblies), and a provision for the Delhi Legislative Assembly under Article 239AA.

The reservation quantum is one-third of total seats, including one-third of seats already reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes — meaning women from SC/ST communities will have dedicated sub-reservation within the broader women's quota.

The critical legal nuance is the deferred commencement clause: the reservation will not take effect immediately. It activates only after (a) a fresh Census is conducted, and (b) a delimitation exercise is carried out on the basis of that Census. This two-stage conditionality means the reservation's actual implementation could be many years away, making the Act's coming into force largely symbolic in the immediate term.

The reservation is also designed to rotate — reserved constituencies will be allotted by rotation after each delimitation, preventing permanent entrenchment of reserved seats in specific geographic areas.

For CLAT PG aspirants, the amendment raises questions about affirmative action jurisprudence, constitutional validity of political reservations, and the legislative competence of Parliament to restructure electoral representation. For UPSC, the precise constitutional articles, amendment number, and conditionality clauses are high-priority recall facts.

On September 2, plainclothes Delhi Police personnel picked up retired IAS officer Ashish Joshi and interrogated him for several hours over a tweet he had posted. No formal arrest memo was issued, making the detention procedurally irregular under constitutional guarantees. Former bureaucrats publicly condemned the action, calling it a brazen violation of Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution, which protect personal liberty and prescribe safeguards against arbitrary detention.

This incident squarely engages Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution. Article 21 guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. The Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) expanded this to require that the procedure must be fair, just, and reasonable — not merely any procedure the legislature chooses to enact.

Article 22 adds procedural safeguards specifically against arbitrary arrest and detention: the arrested person must be informed of the grounds of arrest, must be allowed to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner, and must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours. Crucially, 'detention' without following these steps — even if the police call it 'questioning' rather than 'arrest' — has been treated by courts as constructive arrest attracting Article 22 protections (D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, 1997).

The D.K. Basu guidelines, now statutorily incorporated in the Code of Criminal Procedure (and its successor BNSS), require that plainclothes officers identify themselves, prepare a detention memo, and inform a relative. Failure to do so exposes the State to constitutional tort liability. The sovereign immunity defence is no longer available when fundamental rights are violated — a principle solidified in Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (1993), where the Supreme Court awarded compensation under Article 32 for custodial death.

The Ashish Joshi detention thus raises the classic CLAT PG triad: the right (personal liberty under Art. 21), the limitation (procedure established by law, now read as due process), and the test (is the procedure fair, just, and reasonable per Maneka Gandhi?).

The Allahabad High Court's weekly digest covering September 7–13, 2026 spans citations 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 661 to 702, capturing rulings across criminal procedure, bail jurisprudence, and custodial rights. Key cases include Bhola Prasad vs. State of U.P. and Seema Ray and 3 others. The digest reflects the court's application of CrPC and BNSS provisions to recurring questions about bail cancellation standards, personal liberty, and the hierarchy of judicial discretion in granting or withdrawing bail.

This weekly digest is exam-relevant primarily for its bail law rulings. Under CrPC Section 439 (now BNSS Section 483), the High Court and Sessions Court have concurrent jurisdiction to grant bail in non-bailable offences. The examiner's favourite trap in CLAT PG is the cancellation standard: bail once granted cannot be cancelled merely because a higher court might have decided differently, or because the prosecution disagrees with the lower court's reasoning. Cancellation requires a supervening circumstance — tampering with evidence, threatening witnesses, flight risk, or commission of a fresh offence during bail.

The Supreme Court's settled position, traced through cases like Dolat Ram vs. State of Haryana (1995) and reaffirmed in Mahipal vs. Rajesh Kumar (2020), is that the threshold for cancellation of bail is higher than the threshold for refusing bail in the first place. This distinction is the exact kind of principle CLAT PG examiners place in a passage and then test through a hypothetical — 'accused granted bail by Sessions Court, prosecution moves High Court only because it disagrees with the order; should bail be cancelled?' The correct answer is no, absent a supervening cause.

The BNSS (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita), which replaced CrPC from July 1, 2024, renumbers these provisions but preserves the substantive framework. CLAT PG 2026 questions will likely test both numbering systems.

The Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth approximately ₹2,425.99 crore linked to Raheja Developers, alleging the builder collected funds from around 4,600 homebuyers across multiple real-estate projects without delivering promised properties. Despite the scale of the attachment — one of the largest in a real-estate money-laundering case — the promoter father-son duo behind Raheja Developers has not been taken into custody, raising pointed questions about custodial thresholds under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

This case sits at the intersection of two exam-critical legal frameworks: the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and the Rights of homebuyers under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) / RERA. The ED's power to attach 'proceeds of crime' flows from Section 5 of PMLA, while arrest requires 'reasons to believe' recorded in writing under Section 19 PMLA — a higher threshold than mere attachment. The tension here — massive attachment without arrest — directly tests whether aspirants understand that attachment and arrest are distinct, independent powers under PMLA, not sequential steps.

For CLAT PG, the more important doctrinal layer is the Supreme Court's evolving jurisprudence on custodial rights in financial crime cases. In Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India (2022), the SC upheld PMLA's stringent bail provisions under Section 45 (twin conditions for bail) but also clarified that the ED must have concrete 'reasons to believe' — not mere suspicion — before arrest. The present Raheja case tests whether a massive attachment order alone justifies deprivation of liberty — and the answer, under current law, is no.

Homebuyers' rights are separately protected: since the IBC Amendment 2018, homebuyers are treated as 'financial creditors,' giving them standing to initiate insolvency proceedings. RERA (Real Estate Regulation and Development Act, 2016) provides a parallel regulatory remedy. Understanding which forum — ED/PMLA, NCLT/IBC, or RERA Authority — applies in which scenario is a classic CLAT PG multi-forum distinction question.

The Allahabad High Court ruled that a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution is maintainable against an order of the Small Causes Court rejecting a stay application. The court held that the Small Causes Court, being a court subordinate to the High Court, falls within its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227. The High Court can thus correct jurisdictional errors or patent illegalities in such orders, even when a statutory appeal may not lie against interlocutory orders of that court.

Article 227 of the Constitution vests every High Court with the power of superintendence over all courts and tribunals within its territorial jurisdiction, except those constituted under any law relating to the Armed Forces. This is a constitutional power — broader than the appellate jurisdiction under Article 226 — and cannot be excluded by ordinary legislation.

The key doctrinal distinction is between Article 226 (writ jurisdiction, remedy-oriented) and Article 227 (supervisory jurisdiction, correctional in nature). Under Article 227, the High Court does not act as an appellate court; it intervenes only when a subordinate court acts without jurisdiction, exceeds its jurisdiction, or commits a jurisdictional error or patent illegality causing grave injustice.

The Small Causes Court was established under the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act, 1882 (for Mumbai and Chennai) or equivalent state legislation. Being a creature of statute subordinate to the High Court, it squarely falls within Article 227's sweep. The Allahabad HC's ruling reinforces that even interlocutory orders — such as refusal of a stay — can be reviewed under Article 227 when they reflect a failure to exercise jurisdiction or a jurisdictional error, even if no appeal is prescribed against them.

Landmark precedents shaping Article 227: Waryam Singh v. Amarnath (1954) first defined its scope; L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) affirmed it cannot be ousted by statute; Surya Dev Rai v. Ram Chander Rai (2003) drew the precise line between Articles 226 and 227.

The Rajasthan High Court dismissed a petition challenging deletion of a petitioner's name from the voter list ahead of municipal elections. The court held that when a specific statutory remedy exists under the relevant election law, a writ petition under Article 226 is not maintainable. The right to vote is a statutory right, not a fundamental right, so its deprivation must be addressed through the prescribed electoral grievance mechanism, not directly through the High Court.

This ruling sits at the intersection of two settled constitutional doctrines: the nature of the right to vote and the principle of exhaustion of statutory remedies.

First, the right to vote in India is not a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution. The Supreme Court established this in Jyoti Basu v. Debi Ghosal (1982) and reaffirmed it in PUCL v. Union of India (2003). Voting rights flow from statute — primarily the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (for electoral rolls) and corresponding state municipal laws — not from Article 19 or Article 21. Because the right is statutory, its violation cannot be directly agitated before a High Court under Article 226 as a breach of a fundamental right.

Second, when Parliament or a state legislature creates a detailed statutory mechanism for a grievance, courts ordinarily insist that mechanism be exhausted first. For voter list disputes, the Representation of the People Act, 1950 provides for an Electoral Registration Officer and an appellate authority. A party aggrieved by deletion must use that hierarchy before approaching the High Court.

The Rajasthan HC's ruling applies both doctrines together: because the right is statutory and a statutory remedy exists, writ jurisdiction is barred at that stage. This is the classic 'alternative remedy' bar on Article 226 petitions, which, unlike Article 32 for the Supreme Court, is discretionary but consistently enforced in election matters.

For CLAT PG aspirants, the key distinction is between fundamental rights (enforceable directly under Articles 32 and 226) and statutory rights (requiring exhaustion of the prescribed remedy first).