3 November 2026
The Allahabad High Court has held that a department which rests its charges on documents lying in the custody of a criminal court cannot use that custody as a reason to refuse the employee inspection of those documents. Justice Irshad Ali ruled in Raghuraj Singh against the Director of Agriculture of Uttar Pradesh and others. Where the papers are essential for the employee to meet or rebut the charges, the department has to take reasonable steps to get access to them, or else explain why access could not be arranged. The Court added that an employee's written reply to a charge-sheet does not relieve the department of its duty to prove the charges, and that the legality of an inquiry turns on the procedure actually followed. Giving only part of the documents does not satisfy natural justice when material papers are still withheld. The Court set aside the order of dismissal along with the recovery and suspension period directions, and left consequential claims to the competent authority. It made clear that the order rests on procedural defects alone.
Principle applied:
natural justice
Petitioner:
Raghuraj Singh
Why it matters for exams: States the natural justice rule in departmental inquiries that an employee must be allowed inspection of the documents relied on, and that partial disclosure is not enough.
UPSCSSC
In plain words
Natural justice Natural justice — The rule that a person facing action must get a fair hearing, including the material relied on against them.
28 October 2026
The Allahabad High Court has held that its supervisory power under Article 227 of the Constitution can be used to direct an executing court to dispose of an objection within a fixed period, without touching the merits of that objection. Justice Dr. Yogendra Kumar Srivastava was hearing Smt. Nirmala Devi against Punjab National Bank and others. The objection in question was one under Order XXI Rule 97 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the rule under which a person resisting delivery of possession to a decree holder raises a claim. The Court said the power exists so that execution proceedings are not left pending for an unduly long time, and that fixing a time limit does not take away the executing court's task of settling the disputed questions. The objector keeps the full chance to argue the objection, and nothing is settled in advance. The Additional District Judge at Meerut was asked to dispose of the objection preferably within three months of receiving a certified copy of the order. The Court also held that the earlier rejection of an impleadment application does not by itself settle whether res judicata applies.
Constitutional provision:
Article 227
Objection in execution:
Order XXI Rule 97
Time fixed for disposal:
three months
Why it matters for exams: Names Article 227 of the Constitution as the High Court's power of superintendence over courts below it, and Order XXI Rule 97 of the Code of Civil Procedure as the objection route in execution proceedings.
UPSC
In plain words
Decree holder Decree holder — The person in whose favour a civil court has passed a decree, and who seeks its execution.
Background
In a ruling this month the Allahabad High Court said an accused need not obtain bail first in order to move a discharge application in the trial court, and may ask to be excused from appearing in person under Section 355 of the BNSS, which answers to Section 317 of the CrPC, by showing cogent and substantial grounds. The court that gave that ruling was itself created by the Uttar Pradesh High Courts Amalgamation Order, which was published on 19 July 1948. Through that Order the High Court at Allahabad and the Chief Court in Oudh, which sat at Lucknow, were merged to constitute a new court named the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad. Under Clause 14 the new court, its judges and its Division Courts are to sit at Allahabad, and elsewhere in the United Provinces only at places the Chief Justice appoints with the Governor's approval. The first proviso to that clause adds that at least two judges of the new court, nominated by the Chief Justice, shall sit at Lucknow for cases arising in such areas in Oudh as the Chief Justice may direct, unless the Governor directs otherwise with the Chief Justice's concurrence. That first proviso is the legal basis of the court's sitting at Lucknow, which handles cases from the Oudh region. A second proviso lets the Chief Justice order, in his discretion, that any case or class of cases from those areas be heard at Allahabad instead.
Court created by:
Uttar Pradesh High Courts Amalgamation Order, published 19 July 1948
Courts merged:
High Court at Allahabad and Chief Court in Oudh
Judges to sit at Lucknow:
not less than two
Why it matters for exams: The Order that created the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, the two courts it merged, and the clause that keeps judges sitting at Lucknow are standard Uttar Pradesh polity questions.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSCBank
In plain words
Proviso a clause that carves out an exception — A proviso limits or qualifies the main rule in the clause it is attached to.
Background
The Haiderpur wetland lies near the Bijnor barrage on the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh, and it took shape after the Madhya Ganga Barrage was built. It spreads over nearly 69 sq km, sits inside the Hastinapur Wildlife Sanctuary and was added to the Ramsar list as India's 47th site. People living around it call it Barragewali Jheel. More than 25,000 waterbirds depend on it, among them greylag and bar-headed geese, ducks and waders, and threatened breeders such as the Indian skimmer, the black-bellied tern, the bronze-winged jacana, the sarus crane and the steppe eagle. Gangetic river dolphins, turtles, gharials, mugger crocodiles and golden mahseer live in its waters, while leopards, wild boar, spotted deer and wild cats use the land around. Uttar Pradesh has one of the richest wetland networks in the country, covering about 4 per cent of the State's area, and it has ten Ramsar sites, among them the Nawabganj, Saman, Samaspur and Sandi bird sanctuaries, Sarsai Nawar Jheel, Sur Sarovar and the Upper Ganga River stretch. Satellite studies show the State lost nearly 2.5 lakh hectares of wetland, about a fifth of the total, over eight years. Water chestnut, grown over about nine square kilometres of the wetland, is one of the crops the villages around it live on, and Haiderpur is one of the wetlands, with Bakhira, Sur Sarovar, Samaspur and Nawabganj, in which the State has put money into visitor facilities.
Area:
Nearly 69 sq km
Sanctuary it lies within:
Hastinapur Wildlife Sanctuary
Ramsar sites in Uttar Pradesh:
10
Waterbirds dependent on it:
More than 25,000
Why it matters for exams: Haiderpur as India's forty-seventh Ramsar site, the Hastinapur Wildlife Sanctuary it sits in, and Uttar Pradesh's ten Ramsar sites are regular geography and environment questions.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
Ramsar site A wetland listed under the Ramsar Convention as being of international importance — Haiderpur was the 47th such site in India.
Singhara Water chestnut — Grown on floating mats over about nine square kilometres of the wetland.
Background
The Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh holds a part of the Girwa river, and it came onto the conservation map in the nineteen seventies for its part in safeguarding the Critically Endangered gharial. The gharial takes its name from ghara, the Indian word for a pot, after the bulbous knob at the end of its snout, and of India's three crocodilians it is the most efficient fish catcher. Gharials are endemic to South Asia and were once found in the rivers of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the southern parts of Bhutan and Nepal. The Union government launched a crocodile conservation project to build up the numbers of the freshwater crocodile, the gharial and the saltwater crocodile by breeding them in captivity and releasing them in the wild. Katarniaghat was among the first five sanctuaries taken up under that project, with the National Chambal Sanctuary, the Satkosia Gorge Wildlife Sanctuary, the Son Gharial Sanctuary and the Ken Gharial Sanctuary. The National Chambal Sanctuary, spread across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, is the largest gharial reserve in the country. Eggs from Katarniaghat went to the Kukrail Gharial Rehabilitation Centre at Lucknow, and the reared young were put back into rivers including the Ramganga. Gharial nests in the sanctuary rose from 19 to 36 in three years, and Katarniaghat is one of the Uttar Pradesh forests in which the State has put money into visitor facilities.
Sanctuary:
Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, Bahraich
River:
Girwa
Largest gharial reserve:
National Chambal Sanctuary
Gharial nests in the sanctuary:
Rose from 19 to 36
Why it matters for exams: The gharial, the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary on the Girwa, the crocodile conservation project's first five sanctuaries and the National Chambal Sanctuary across three States are frequent environment questions.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
Gharial A fish-eating crocodilian of South Asian rivers — Named after the ghara, or pot, shaped knob on its snout.
Crocodile conservation project The Union government's captive breeding and release programme for India's three crocodilians — Katarniaghat was one of its first five sanctuaries.
Background
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur describes itself as established in 1959 and as one of the first generation IITs set up by the Government of India. The statement of objects and reasons printed with the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 instead says the institutes at Bombay, Madras and Kanpur were started in 1958, 1959 and 1960 respectively, so the two records differ on the Kanpur year. That Act declares the institutes it covers, Kanpur among them, to be institutions of national importance, and gives each of them a Board of Governors and a Senate. The Institute lists a campus of 1055 acres on which nearly all its students live, and a faculty strength of 570. Its motto is तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय, transliterated as Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya and translated as Lead me from darkness to light. From 1962 the Institute ran the Kanpur Indo-American Programme, under which it received technical assistance from a consortium of nine leading institutions in the United States. That programme ran until 1972 and has since ended. The Institute marked its 67th Foundation Day at Kanpur this month, honouring 23 recipients across four award categories.
Campus:
1055 acres
Faculty:
570
American consortium:
nine institutions, 1962-1972
Why it matters for exams: The Act that declares the IITs institutions of national importance, the Board of Governors and Senate it gives them, and the nine-institution American consortium behind the Kanpur programme are the durable facts here.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSCBank
In plain words
Institution of national importance a status given by an Act of Parliament — Parliament declares such an institute by law, and it then works as an autonomous body corporate.
Background
Uttar Pradesh is one of a small number of States in India whose legislature has two Houses rather than one. Article 168 of the Constitution provides for a Legislature in every State, and says that where there are two Houses, one is known as the Legislative Council, or Vidhan Parishad, and the other as the Legislative Assembly, or Vidhan Sabha. Hearing Lal Bihari Yadav's petition on the withdrawal of his recognition as leader of the opposition in that House, the Allahabad High Court set out these provisions and recorded that six States have a Legislative Council: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. The Legislative Council of Uttar Pradesh is a permanent House, which means it is not dissolved as a whole. It consists of 100 members, of whom 90 are elected and 10 are nominated. The Council meets at the Vidhan Bhawan in Lucknow. Recognition of the leader of the opposition in that House is dealt with under the Uttar Pradesh State Legislature (Members, Emoluments and Pension) Act, 1980.
Constitutional provision:
Article 168
States with a Legislative Council:
6
Council strength:
100 (90 elected, 10 nominated)
Why it matters for exams: Article 168, the list of six States with a Legislative Council and the strength of the Uttar Pradesh Council at 100 are among the most frequently asked facts on State legislatures.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSCBank
In plain words
Vidhan Parishad Legislative Council of a State — The upper House of a State legislature, present in only six States.
Background
Fatehpur Sikri, in Agra district of Uttar Pradesh, is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It was built in the second half of the sixteenth century by the Mughal emperor Akbar, and its name is given as the City of Victory. It was the capital of the Mughal Empire for only some ten years, and the city as a whole was constructed between 1571 and 1585. Its monuments and temples are in a uniform architectural style and include one of the largest mosques in India, the Jama Masjid, which was the earliest building raised on the summit of the ridge. That mosque holds the tomb of Saikh Salim Chisti, and to the south of the court stands the Buland Darwaza, the Lofty Gate, 40 m high. Other buildings include the Panch Mahal, an entirely columnar five-storey structure, and the hall known as Diwan-i-Khas. UNESCO inscribed the property in 1986 under cultural criteria (ii), (iii) and (iv), and the Archaeological Survey of India manages the property and its visitors.
District:
Agra, Uttar Pradesh
Built by:
Emperor Akbar
Inscribed:
1986, criteria (ii)(iii)(iv)
Buland Darwaza height:
40 m
Why it matters for exams: Fatehpur Sikri's builder, its district, its short spell as Mughal capital, the Jama Masjid and the height of the Buland Darwaza are standard art and culture questions on Uttar Pradesh.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSCBank
In plain words
Buland Darwaza the Lofty Gate at Fatehpur Sikri — A gateway 40 m high to the south of the court, completed to commemorate a victory.