Supreme Court of India: the major rulings of mid-2026

TL;DR: The period from April to June 2026 was one of the busiest stretches the Supreme Court has had in years. A two-judge bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant upheld the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls. A separate bench restored a roughly ₹21,000 crore tax demand against Gameskraft and held that online money gaming attracts 28 percent GST on the full stake, skill or no skill. A nine-judge bench reserved judgment in the Sabarimala reference after 57 hours of argument, which means the essential religious practices doctrine itself is now on the table. The Court also referred the UAPA bail question to a larger bench, issued nationwide stray-dog directions, struck down degrading bail conditions, and read down the long shadow of the November 2025 Presidential Reference on Governors. This digest walks through ten verified matters - parties, bench, the question, the holding or status, and why each one matters. Where a matter is still pending, it is flagged as such.

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How to read this digest

A digest like this one has a single job. It has to be accurate. A summary of recent Supreme Court work is only useful if every case name, every citation, and every holding can be traced back to the record. So that is the rule we have followed here. Every matter below has been checked against reporting from Supreme Court Observer, LiveLaw, SCC Online, Verdictum and, where available, the judgment text itself. Citations are given in the form courts and reporters actually use - the neutral 2026 INSC number where we found it, and the SCC OnLine SC number otherwise.

A short note on language. When a bench has delivered a final judgment, we say so. When a matter has only been argued and the bench has reserved its opinion, we say “reserved” or “status pending”. When a question has been sent to a larger bench, we say “referred”. These are not interchangeable. A reserved judgment can still surprise everyone when it is finally pronounced, and a referral can sit for years. Treat the pending items here as snapshots taken in the second week of June 2026, not as settled law.

One last framing point. The mid-2026 docket was not random. Several of these matters trace back to the same tension - how far a court can go, and where the line falls between deciding a case and rewriting a statute or a constitutional scheme. That theme runs from the Presidential Reference on Governors right through to the Gameskraft tax ruling. We come back to it at the end.

The cases at a glance

The table below is the quick version. Each row links to a fuller treatment further down. “Status” tells you whether the matter is decided, reserved, or referred as of mid-June 2026.

MatterBenchQuestionStatus
ADR v. Election Commission (Bihar SIR)CJI Surya Kant, Joymalya Bagchi, JJIs the Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s rolls valid?Decided - SIR upheld
DGGI v. Gameskraft TechnologiesJ.B. Pardiwala, R. Mahadevan, JJDoes 28 percent GST apply to online money gaming on the full stake?Decided - GST upheld
Kantaru Rajeevaru (Sabarimala reference)CJI Surya Kant, nine judgesIs the essential religious practices test sound, and was the 2018 verdict right?Reserved on 14 May 2026
Syed Iftikhar Andrabi v. NIA (UAPA bail)B.V. Nagarathna, Ujjal Bhuyan, JJCan Section 43-D(5) UAPA displace “bail is the rule”?Referred to larger bench
In re Assent (Presidential Reference)CJI B.R. Gavai and four judgesCan courts set timelines or “deem” assent under Articles 200-201?Decided in Nov 2025 - shapes 2026 docket
Stray dogs suo motuVikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, N.V. Anjaria, JJHow must the ABC Rules be enforced nationwide?Decided - directions issued
Bail conditions suo motuCJI Surya Kant, Joymalya Bagchi, JJCan an accused be told to clean a police station for bail?Decided - condition struck down
Manjula v. D.A. Srinivas (Benami)J.B. Pardiwala, R. Mahadevan, JJDo the 2016 Benami amendments apply retrospectively?Decided
Prajwala v. Union of India (trafficking)J.B. Pardiwala, R. Mahadevan, JJHow must trafficking survivors be protected and rehabilitated?Decided - victim protection plan
Jaya Thakur v. Union (ECI appointments)Dipankar Datta, S.C. Sharma, JJIs the 2023 Election Commissioners appointment law valid?Argued - reference sought

Bihar SIR: the Election Commission’s powers upheld

The biggest electoral-law ruling of the period came on 27 May 2026, when a two-judge bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, sitting with Justice Joymalya Bagchi, upheld the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar. The case is Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India, reported as 2026 INSC 564 and 2026 SCC OnLine SC 990. The petitioners were a well-known set - Association for Democratic Reforms, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, and several political figures including Manoj Jha and Mahua Moitra.

The Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, was an extraordinary verification of the entire Bihar roll. It is not the routine summary revision that happens before most elections. The Commission asked existing electors to furnish fresh documentation, and a very large number of names were placed in a draft deletion list. By the Court’s own interim order in August 2025, the Commission was directed to publish a district-wise list of more than 65 lakh deleted electors with reasons, and to accept Aadhaar and other documents for inclusion claims, online or in person. The hearings ran for close to seven months across 29 sitting days, which is itself a measure of how seriously the bench took the challenge.

On the merits the Court held that the SIR was within the Commission’s powers under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The bench found that the measures the Commission adopted were “not excessive” and were not “manifestly arbitrary”, and that the whole purpose of the exercise - preserving the “integrity, accuracy and credibility” of the rolls - was a legitimate constitutional aim. The Court also accepted that the Commission can examine the question of a person’s entitlement to be on the roll, which necessarily touches citizenship.

It is worth dwelling on what the Court did not do, because that is where the result bites. The petitioners had asked the bench to read the SIR as a backdoor citizenship screening that the Commission has no business running, and to hold that asking a sitting voter to prove their entitlement all over again is disproportionate. The bench declined both invitations. It accepted that the power to prepare and revise the roll necessarily includes the power to ask whether a person is entitled to be on it, and entitlement under the Representation of the People Act is tied to citizenship and ordinary residence. The interim safeguards the Court had ordered along the way - the published deletion list with reasons, the wide menu of acceptable documents, the online and physical claim routes - did a lot of work here. They let the bench treat the exercise as careful rather than arbitrary.

Why it matters: the rolls are the foundation of every election, and the question of who controls their accuracy is a recurring fight. By upholding the SIR, the Court has given the Commission considerable room to run similar revisions in other states, and several states were already watching this judgment to gauge their own exposure. Opposition figures read the result as a setback, while the Commission read it as a green light. The deeper point is that the safeguards mattered to the outcome - a revision run without published reasons and document flexibility might well have failed the same test. For a longer treatment of the SIR fight and how it reached this point, see our piece on the Bihar SIR and electoral rolls.

Gameskraft: 28 percent GST on online money gaming

If one ruling will be felt in boardrooms more than any other, it is the online gaming tax decision. On 27 May 2026, a bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan delivered judgment in Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (HQs) v. Gameskraft Technologies Private Limited, reported as 2026 INSC 595. The Court set aside the Karnataka High Court ruling that had gone in Gameskraft’s favour and restored the September 2022 show-cause notice demanding roughly ₹21,000 crore from the company.

The legal heart of the case was an old distinction that the industry had relied on for years - the difference between a game of skill and a game of chance. Skill gaming, the argument went, is not gambling, so it should not face the 28 percent rate that applies to betting. The bench rejected that line for GST purposes. It held that once participation is conditioned on staking money on an uncertain outcome, the transaction takes on the character of betting and gambling whatever the underlying game is. Online gaming platforms, the Court said, are suppliers of actionable claims in betting and gambling, not mere intermediaries, and the tax falls on the full value of the stakes placed, not just the platform’s fee. Challenges under Articles 14, 19, 20, 21 and 265 were turned away.

The numbers are large enough to reshape an industry. Reporting put the total tax exposure on past transactions across the sector at roughly ₹1.5 trillion, with some estimates higher. This lands on top of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, which banned online money gaming and came into force in May 2026. So operators are facing a double squeeze - the core business is barred going forward, and a retrospective tax bill is now enforceable for the years behind them.

There is also a doctrinal point that will outlive the gaming sector. For years the actionable-claim category in GST law was treated as a narrow, almost technical idea. By holding that an online platform supplying the chance to win against a stake is supplying an actionable claim in betting and gambling, the Court has put real weight on that category. Tax practitioners will be reading the judgment closely for how it characterises the supply, because the same reasoning could touch other staking and prize-based models that have until now assumed they sat outside the betting bracket. The skill-versus-chance line is not dead everywhere - it still does work in some state gaming statutes - but for GST it has been firmly set aside.

The reaction was sober. Technology and gaming lawyer Jay Sayta called the verdict a “big setback” for the sector and said companies would now look to policymakers rather than the courts for relief. Several commentators flagged the real prospect of insolvency proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal as firms struggle to meet the retrospective demand, since the back-dated bills in many cases dwarf the revenue these companies ever booked. The likely next move, by most accounts, is not more litigation but a plea to the government for some form of settlement or amnesty. For the wider context of the gaming ban and the verdict together, see our analysis of the Online Gaming Act and the SC verdict.

The Sabarimala reference and the essential religious practices test

The most constitutionally significant matter of the period is not a judgment at all yet. It is a reserved opinion. On 14 May 2026, a nine-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant reserved judgment in the Sabarimala reference after 57 hours of argument spread across 16 days. The lead matter is Kantaru Rajeevaru v. Indian Young Lawyers Association, the reference that grew out of the review of the 2018 Sabarimala verdict. The bench also includes Justices Joymalya Bagchi, B.V. Nagarathna, R. Mahadevan, M.M. Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, A.G. Masih and Prasanna B. Varale.

What makes this reference unusually wide is that it is not really about one temple. When the 2018 judgment allowing women of all ages into Sabarimala went into review, the Court framed a set of larger questions, and 66 connected matters were tagged to it. Those tagged matters include the right of Muslim women to enter mosques, the right of Parsi women who marry outside the community to enter a fire temple, and the practice of female genital cutting in the Dawoodi Bohra community. So the bench is being asked to settle the framework, not just the outcome.

At the centre of that framework sits the “essential religious practices” doctrine - the test the Court has used for decades to decide which religious practices get constitutional protection and which do not. During the hearings the Union itself challenged the test, and counsel on several sides criticised its inconsistencies. As Supreme Court Observer reported on day one, the argument quickly became a debate about whether courts should be deciding what is essential to a faith at all, and what should replace the test if it goes. There was, by most accounts, little consensus on an alternative.

There is a structural curiosity here that is easy to miss. The matter started life as a review of a 2018 judgment, and a review is normally a tightly confined procedure - you do not get to re-argue the whole case. Yet the questions referred out of that review were broad enough to put the essential religious practices doctrine itself in issue before a nine-judge bench. That widening is part of why the hearing took 57 hours. The bench heard the review petitioners first, in early April, then the parties opposing the review, and finally rejoinder, before reserving. Whether the eventual opinion stays close to Sabarimala or rewrites the framework for all religious-practice claims is genuinely open, and anyone telling you they know the outcome is guessing.

Why it matters: whatever the nine judges hold will govern how Indian courts approach religious-freedom claims under Articles 25 and 26 for a generation. If the essential religious practices test is narrowed or replaced, a long line of precedent shifts with it, and the connected mosque-entry, fire-temple and Dawoodi Bohra matters move with it. If the test survives, the Court will have to explain why, given how much criticism it drew in argument. For how the nine-judge reference came to be constituted, see our explainer on the Sabarimala nine-judge reference. Status: reserved, no verdict yet.

UAPA bail: the liberty question goes to a larger bench

On 22 May 2026 the Court did something that often matters more than a final ruling - it admitted that two of its own lines of authority do not sit comfortably together, and sent the conflict up. In Syed Iftikhar Andrabi v. NIA, reported as 2026 SCC OnLine SC 881, a bench of Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan referred to a larger bench the question of how to balance the Article 21 guarantee of personal liberty against the stringent bail bar in Section 43-D(5) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

The tension is real and well known to anyone who practises in this area. On one side is the constitutional principle, repeated in case after case, that “bail is the rule and jail is the exception”. On the other is Section 43-D(5), which tells a court it cannot grant bail if, on the case diary and the chargesheet, there are reasonable grounds to believe the accusation is prima facie true. Read strictly, the section makes bail very hard to get and keeps undertrials in custody for long stretches before any finding of guilt. The referring bench took the view that the primacy of personal liberty cannot simply be displaced by the statute, and that smaller benches cannot quietly walk away from larger-bench precedent on liberty.

Why it matters: UAPA bail is one of the sharpest pressure points in Indian criminal justice, because the people affected are often held for years on charges that are never proved. A larger bench reconciling Article 21 with Section 43-D(5) could reset how trial courts and High Courts handle these applications across the country. This sits within the broader “bail is the rule” jurisprudence we cover in our piece on bail as the rule under Article 21. Status: referred, awaiting constitution of the larger bench.

The Presidential Reference on Governors and its afterlife

To understand the 2026 docket you have to look back a few months. On 20 November 2025, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by then Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, sitting with Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P.S. Narasimha and A.S. Chandurkar, answered the Presidential Reference in In re Assent, Withholding or Reservation of Bills by the Governor and the President of India, 2025 INSC 1333. President Droupadi Murmu had referred fourteen questions under Article 143(1) about the meaning of Articles 200 and 201, after a two-judge bench in State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu had, in April 2025, fixed timelines for Governors and the President to act on bills and used Article 142 to “deem” a set of re-passed Tamil Nadu bills as assented.

The advisory opinion pulled the reins back. The bench held that courts cannot fix rigid timelines for Governors or the President to act on bills, that there is no concept of “deemed assent”, and that an exercise of Article 142 to deem a bill assented is “virtually a takeover” of a separate constitutional authority. Article 142, the Court said, cannot be used to supplant express constitutional provisions. It did leave a narrow door open - where there is “prolonged, unexplained and indefinite inaction”, limited judicial review remains available to prevent a constitutional standstill.

The opinion drew careful criticism. Constitutional law writer Gautam Bhatia argued that the Reference amounted to “a constitutional mulligan” granted to the central executive - a second bite at questions the Union had already lost in the Tamil Nadu case, without going through the high thresholds of review or curative jurisdiction. Whatever one makes of that critique, the practical effect carried straight into 2026. Tamil Nadu’s own dispute over its pending bills now sits in the long shadow of this opinion, and the bench has told the state it must await further orders.

Why it matters: this is the clearest recent statement of the limits of Article 142, the Court’s power to do “complete justice”. For the full story of that power and how it has been used and curbed, see our deep dive on Article 142 and complete justice.

Stray dogs: nationwide directions and the ABC Rules

Some of the Court’s most visible work in 2026 came in a suo motu matter that began with a newspaper report. After taking cognisance in mid-2025 of alarming figures on dog bites and rabies, a three-judge bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N.V. Anjaria issued a set of nationwide directions in May 2026 in the stray-dog case, reported as 2026 SCC OnLine SC 894.

The directions are concrete. Every state and union territory must set up at least one fully operational Animal Birth Control centre in every district, and Chief Secretaries must file proof of compliance before their respective High Courts by 7 August 2026. The bench affirmed its earlier 7 November 2025 directions, including the part that excludes certain premises - gated societies and housing complexes among them - from the re-release requirement under Rule 11(19) of the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023. The National Highways Authority was directed to deal with stray cattle on national highways, and defaulting officers were warned of contempt. The Court kept the matter on a short leash, scheduling a review of state-wise compliance for 17 November 2026.

Why it matters: this is a working example of the Court running a long-term, administrative-style remedy through continuing mandamus, balancing public safety under Article 21 against animal welfare. It also shows the friction in that approach - the bench has had to return to the issue again and again to keep authorities moving. Status: directions issued, compliance under review.

Bail conditions: cleaning a police station is not a condition

A smaller but telling order came on 4 May 2026, when a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, sitting with Justice Joymalya Bagchi, struck down a bail condition that had required an accused person to clean public premises. The order is reported as 2026 SCC OnLine SC 809 in the suo motu matter on conditions imposed while granting bail.

The Court’s reasoning was short and firm. A condition of that kind is degrading, it serves no purpose connected to the reasons bail conditions exist - securing attendance and preventing tampering - and it is, in the Court’s phrase, “unknown to law”. The bench treated such conditions as null and void. Bail conditions can restrain, but they cannot humiliate.

Why it matters: trial courts impose bail conditions every day, and creative or punitive conditions creep in more often than they should. An order like this gives defence lawyers a clear handle to challenge conditions that punish before any conviction. It belongs to the same family of personal-liberty reasoning that runs through the UAPA referral above. Status: decided.

Benami property: the 2016 amendments and retrospectivity

On 15 May 2026, the bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan decided an important benami-law question in Manjula v. D.A. Srinivas, reported as 2026 SCC OnLine SC 831. The case turned on whether the 2016 amendments to the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act apply to transactions that predate them, and on how confiscation relates to criminal prosecution.

The Court held that the 2016 amendments operate retrospectively in the relevant sense, and it drew a clean line between two consequences. Confiscation of benami property, the bench said, is a civil consequence that follows a judicial declaration, and it is distinct from criminal prosecution under the Act. The Court also addressed the fiduciary exceptions the statute carves out, holding that they apply only where there is a genuine fiduciary relationship rather than a label dressed up to defeat the law.

Why it matters: benami disputes are common, and the retrospectivity question has produced conflicting outcomes in the High Courts. A clear statement from the Supreme Court on how far the 2016 amendments reach, and on the civil-versus-criminal divide, gives lower courts and litigants a firmer footing. For more on how benami cases have been moving through the Court, see our piece on the benami property ruling. Status: decided.

Human trafficking: a victim protection plan from the bench

On 29 May 2026, the same bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan delivered a substantial order in Prajwala v. Union of India, the long-running public-interest matter on trafficking, moving on a miscellaneous application in the case. The question was practical and human - how should survivors of trafficking be protected and rehabilitated across the whole arc from rescue to prosecution to reintegration.

The Court held that rehabilitation is not a matter of charity but a constitutional obligation under Article 21, and it framed a comprehensive “victim protection plan” addressing each stage of a survivor’s journey. The order also carried legislative recommendations, pointing to gaps the executive and Parliament would need to fill. This is the Court using a PIL to build a working framework where the statutory scheme has fallen short.

Why it matters: trafficking survivors fall through the cracks between criminal procedure and welfare administration. By anchoring rehabilitation in Article 21 and laying out a stage-by-stage plan, the Court has given High Courts and state agencies a template to hold authorities to. Status: decided, with continuing oversight expected.

The election appointments challenge and other pending matters

Two further matters from the period are worth flagging precisely because they are not finished. They show where the Court’s attention is heading.

The first is Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, the challenge to the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. A division bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and S.C. Sharma heard three days of argument in May 2026. The petitioners say the 2023 law, which changed the composition of the panel that selects election commissioners, undercuts the Court’s earlier insistence on an independent appointment process. The Union asked that the matter go to a larger bench. As of mid-June 2026 the question is open, and the eventual answer will sit alongside the Bihar SIR ruling to define how much independence the Election Commission really has.

The second is the challenge to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment, on which the Court issued notice on 4 May 2026 and declined interim relief, directing the matter to a three-judge bench. The petitioners argue the amendment departs from the self-identification principle the Court laid down in NALSA v. Union of India (2014) and offends Articles 14, 19 and 21. There is no ruling yet. We flag both as pending because their outcomes are not knowable from the record so far, and any confident prediction would be guesswork.

A few other May matters round out the picture. The Court extended the deadline for teachers to clear the Teacher Eligibility Test to 31 August 2028 in a review in Anjuman Ishaat-e-Taleem Trust v. State of Maharashtra, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 998, while holding that the test remains mandatory. And it clarified, on 21 May 2026, that sedition proceedings under the old Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code may continue where the accused chooses to let them, modifying the 2022 order that had frozen fresh sedition cases.

What ties these rulings together

Step back from the individual matters and a pattern shows. A large share of the mid-2026 docket is about the same underlying question - how far a court can reach. The Presidential Reference said Article 142 cannot be used to rewrite the assent provisions of the Constitution. The Gameskraft ruling refused to let a judge-made skill-versus-chance distinction override the tax statute. The Sabarimala reference is, at bottom, an argument about whether courts should be deciding what is essential to a religion at all. Even the UAPA referral is a question about which court, and how large a bench, gets to reconcile a statute with a constitutional right.

The other thread is institutional. Several of the biggest rulings touch the machinery of the state directly - the Election Commission’s power over the rolls, the Governor’s role in the legislative process, the appointment of election commissioners. The Court has, on balance, been cautious about expanding its own writ over these institutions in 2026, even where it has been asked to. The Bihar SIR ruling deferred to the Commission. The Presidential Reference deferred to the constitutional offices of Governor and President. That restraint is worth noticing, because it cuts against the easy story of an ever-expanding judiciary.

There is a third thread, quieter than the other two, that runs through the criminal-side orders. The bail-conditions order, the UAPA referral, the trafficking victim plan and the sedition clarification all circle the same concern - that the machinery of criminal process should not punish, degrade or detain a person before guilt is established, and that liberty under Article 21 is the default the system has to justify departing from. None of these is a blockbuster on its own. Read together they show a bench that is willing to police the everyday workings of bail, custody and prosecution, not just the constitutional set-pieces. For a working litigator, that is often more useful than a landmark, because these are the orders you cite in a district court on a Tuesday morning.

For a litigant or an in-house team, the practical lesson is narrower. The Court is reading statutes closely and is reluctant to stretch equitable powers to paper over gaps in legislation. If your argument depends on the Court doing “complete justice” against the grain of a clear statute, mid-2026 is not the season for it. Build the case on the text first, and keep the equitable plea as a fallback rather than the spine of the argument.

Research these judgments with Niyam

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Frequently asked questions

What was the most important Supreme Court ruling of mid-2026?

It depends on whose practice you are in. For tax and the gaming industry, the Gameskraft ruling of 27 May 2026 (2026 INSC 595), which upheld 28 percent GST on online money gaming on the full stake, is the headline. For election law it is the Bihar SIR ruling of the same week (2026 INSC 564), which upheld the Election Commission’s power to revise the rolls. The single matter with the widest constitutional reach is the Sabarimala reference, but that judgment was only reserved on 14 May 2026 and has not been pronounced.

Did the Supreme Court allow retrospective GST on online gaming?

Yes. In the Gameskraft case the bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan set aside the Karnataka High Court ruling and restored the September 2022 show-cause notice for roughly ₹21,000 crore, holding that online money gaming attracts 28 percent GST on the full value of stakes whether the game is one of skill or chance. Total sector exposure on past transactions has been reported at around ₹1.5 trillion.

What did the Court decide in the Bihar SIR case?

A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, with Justice Joymalya Bagchi, upheld the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls as constitutionally valid, proportionate and within the Commission’s powers under Article 324 and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The Court found the Commission’s measures were not excessive or manifestly arbitrary.

Is the Sabarimala question settled now?

No. The nine-judge bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant reserved judgment on 14 May 2026 after 57 hours of argument. No verdict has been pronounced as of mid-June 2026. The reference is unusually broad because it also covers the essential religious practices doctrine and 66 connected matters, including mosque and fire-temple entry questions, so the eventual opinion could affect religious-freedom law well beyond Sabarimala.

What is the UAPA bail referral about?

On 22 May 2026 a bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan referred to a larger bench the question of how to reconcile the Article 21 principle that “bail is the rule” with the strict bail bar in Section 43-D(5) of the UAPA. There is no answer yet. The referral matters because UAPA undertrials are often held for years before any finding of guilt.

How does the November 2025 Presidential Reference affect 2026 cases?

The advisory opinion in In re Assent (2025 INSC 1333) held that courts cannot fix timelines for Governors or the President to act on bills, that there is no “deemed assent”, and that Article 142 cannot be used to supplant the Constitution’s assent scheme. That reasoning shaped the Court’s cautious approach to its own powers through 2026, and it left Tamil Nadu’s pending-bills dispute waiting on further orders.

Where can I read the full judgments?

The judgment texts are available on the Supreme Court’s own site at sci.gov.in and through the eCourts and National Judicial Data Grid services. Reporting and case pages are available on Supreme Court Observer, LiveLaw and SCC Online. Niyam links each ruling to its source so you can move from a summary to the paragraph that matters in a couple of clicks.