CLAT PG Current Affairs — 26 September 2026

The Supreme Court upheld a High Court judgment holding that offering a 'dua' (prayer) seeking God's blessings for electoral victory does not amount to soliciting votes on the ground of religion under Section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The Court distinguished between a personal religious expression and a corrupt practice of appealing to voters on religious grounds, reinforcing that intent and direct appeal to voters are essential ingredients of the corrupt practice provision.

Section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 defines a 'corrupt practice' as an appeal by a candidate or their agent to vote or refrain from voting on the ground of religion, race, caste, community, or language. The Supreme Court's ruling draws a critical line between two very different acts: a private or public prayer invoking divine blessing for a candidate's success, and a direct appeal to voters asking them to vote on religious grounds.

The distinction matters constitutionally. Article 19(1)(a) protects freedom of speech and expression, and Article 25 protects freedom of religion. A candidate uttering a prayer is exercising both rights. However, Section 123(3) curtails this freedom when the religious expression is instrumentalised as a tool to solicit votes — i.e., when the religious act is directed at the electorate with the purpose of influencing their vote on religious grounds.

The Court's reasoning follows the test laid down in Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2017), where a seven-judge constitutional bench held that 'his' in Section 123(3) refers not just to the candidate's religion but to anyone's religion — making any religious appeal in election campaigning a corrupt practice. However, that ruling also implicitly required a direct nexus between the religious appeal and the solicitation of votes. A dua, offered as a spiritual expression rather than a voter-directed campaign tool, lacks that nexus. Thus, the two essential ingredients — a direct appeal and an intent to solicit votes on religious grounds — were absent, and the corrupt practice charge could not sustain.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed on September 25, 2026 that Article 300A of the Constitution is not merely a statutory right but a constitutional guarantee against deprivation of property without authority of law. The Court held that any state action dispossessing a person of property must satisfy the triple test: backed by law, serve a public purpose, and pay just compensation. Absence of any one element renders the deprivation unconstitutional, regardless of the state's claimed justification.

Article 300A, inserted by the 44th Constitutional Amendment in 1978, removed the right to property from Part III (Fundamental Rights) but preserved it as a constitutional right under Part XII. This shift is doctrinally critical: it means property cannot be protected through Article 32 writs directly, but the right survives against arbitrary executive action.

The Supreme Court in Waman Rao v. Union of India (1981) and later in K.T. Plantation Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Karnataka (2011) clarified that Art 300A imposes a positive obligation on the state — deprivation must be 'by authority of law,' meaning a valid law must exist, it must serve public purpose, and compensation must be adequate and just. The 2026 ruling tightens this into an explicit three-pronged test.

The distinction from Art 19(1)(f) (repealed) matters: the old right was a fundamental right enforceable under Art 32; Art 300A is enforceable only under Art 226 (High Court writ jurisdiction). However, if deprivation also violates Art 21 (life and personal liberty), it can attract Art 32 jurisdiction — a nuance CLAT PG frequently tests.

The phrase 'authority of law' under Art 300A has been interpreted to mean a valid enacted law, not mere executive order or administrative direction. This is the core principle the Court restated in 2026, reinforcing that even welfare states cannot dispossess citizens through executive fiat alone.

The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on a plea filed by the Sambhal Mosque Management Committee challenging a trial court's order directing a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh. The mosque committee argued that the survey order was passed ex parte, without giving them an opportunity to be heard, violating natural justice. The case raises critical questions about the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 and due process rights under Article 21.

This case sits at the intersection of three constitutional and statutory layers that CLAT PG and UPSC CSE examiners frequently test.

**First, the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.** This Act freezes the religious character of all places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947, and bars courts from entertaining suits seeking to convert the character of any place of worship. The sole exception is the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, which was explicitly carved out. The Sambhal case tests whether a court-ordered survey to 'ascertain' the original character of a mosque is itself a proceeding barred by this Act — because it effectively entertains the very inquiry the Act prohibits.

**Second, natural justice under Article 21.** The Supreme Court has consistently held, from Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) onwards, that any procedure affecting a person's rights must be fair, just, and reasonable. An ex parte survey order affecting a mosque's legal status without hearing the mosque committee arguably violates the audi alteram partem principle — a core component of procedural due process.

**Third, the Order VII Rule 11 CPC angle.** The mosque committee likely argued that the underlying suit itself was not maintainable under the 1991 Act and should have been rejected at the threshold before any survey was ordered.

The SC's reserved judgment will clarify how far trial courts can go in ordering religious-site surveys, and whether the 1991 Act creates an absolute bar or merely a procedural one.

The Supreme Court acquitted a man convicted of rape, holding that courts cannot selectively accept parts of the prosecutrix's testimony while rejecting other parts. The bench found that the High Court had erred by accepting portions of the victim's statement that supported conviction while discarding portions that created doubt. The Court reaffirmed that a victim's sole testimony can sustain conviction, but only if it is wholly reliable — internal inconsistencies make selective reliance legally impermissible.

This ruling crystallises a well-established but frequently misapplied evidentiary principle in sexual assault cases: the 'sterling witness' standard. Indian courts have long held that the testimony of a prosecutrix, if credible and reliable, does not require corroboration — this principle flows from the general law of evidence and has been reinforced in cases like State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh (1996). However, reliability is an all-or-nothing assessment of the core narrative, not a cafeteria selection exercise.

What the Supreme Court corrected here is a logical fallacy courts sometimes commit: using the victim's statement where it helps the prosecution and discarding it where it creates inconsistency. If a material portion of the testimony is unreliable, that unreliability infects the whole account — a court cannot quarantine the 'inconvenient' part while convicting on the 'convenient' part.

The distinction CLAT PG tests repeatedly is between corroboration (not required but permissible as supporting evidence) and reliability (mandatory — the sole yardstick when a prosecutrix testifies alone). The examiner often presents a passage stating one principle and then asks whether a given fact pattern — where a trial court accepted some parts and rejected others — constitutes a correct application. Understanding that selective acceptance is impermissible, and why, is the core testable concept here.