A man was arrested in early 2024 for an offence the police first recorded under the Indian Penal Code. By the time his trial began, the country had switched to an entirely new criminal code. His lawyer's first argument in court was not about guilt or innocence — it was about which law applied to him at all. This scenario, repeated thousands of times across trial courts, is now working its way up through High Court and Supreme Court judgments, and it explains why recent Supreme Court round-ups and monthly digests are full of quiet but important rulings on transitional criminal procedure.