Real judgements, distilled
Court judgements broken down into the case type, how the decision played out, and the lesson worth remembering, with the full judgement available as a PDF.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1073
In circumstantial-evidence cases, forensic and DNA evidence must actually corroborate the alleged crime: a conviction cannot survive where the most crucial scientific evidence, on its own terms, points away from rather than toward the prosecution's theory.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1074
A conviction based purely on circumstantial evidence requires every link in the chain, timeline, witness credibility, forensic matches, and motive, to be proven beyond reasonable doubt; gaps or suppressed evidence at any link entitle the accused to the benefit of the doubt, even in a serious case like a double murder.
Criminal Miscellaneous Case · 2026:DHC:8505
Courts will not quash a criminal case merely because the accused has a plausible alibi-type defence; unless that defence is conclusive and undisputed, the matter must be tested through the ordinary trial process.
Criminal Miscellaneous Case · 2026:DHC:8547
A private compromise between victim and accused cannot by itself secure quashing of a case involving serious, heinous allegations like attempted murder with a weapon: such matters must proceed to trial regardless of settlement.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8563
Railway Claims Tribunals cannot reject a bona fide passenger's death claim based on speculative inferences when there is no direct evidence of an alternative cause of death; the compensation scheme under the Railways Act is to be interpreted generously in favour of victims' families.
Criminal Miscellaneous Case · 2026:DHC:8559
In matrimonial offences, courts can and do quash criminal proceedings once a genuine compromise is verified directly with the complainant, sparing both parties a prolonged and pointless trial.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8541
A co-accused's bail does not automatically extend to another accused where their actual roles in the offence differ materially; delay caused by one's own defence counsel cannot later be used as a ground for bail.
Execution Petition · 2026:DHC:8567
An arbitral award must be adequately stamped before a court can enforce it; courts give only a limited window to cure such defects, after which the award becomes legally unusable until the deficiency is fixed.
Arbitration Petition · 2026:DHC:8555
A genuine settlement reached through mediation renders a pending arbitration-related court petition moot, allowing parties to close out litigation quickly once they resolve their dispute privately.
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Legal Case Shots is a searchable database of Supreme Court of India judgments, each broken down into the case type, the court's key holding, and a practical lesson learnt, with the full judgment available as a PDF for citation or deeper reading.
Land belonging to the appellants was acquired in 1976 for NOIDA's industrial development, and the Reference Court enhanced their compensation to a modest per-square-yard rate. The landowners sought a much higher rate (Rs. 297 per sq. yard) by claiming parity with a separate 2004 High Court judgment (the "Mangu" case) that had granted that rate, but that higher rate had actually been fixed for land acquired in 1991, and was mistakenly extended to some unrelated 1977-acquisition appeals that were (by oversight) clubbed together with it.
The Supreme Court held that the Rs. 297 rate could not be relied upon for parity because it stemmed from an inadvertent clubbing error by the High Court, nobody had pointed out that the four other appeals actually concerned a different (1977) acquisition, and review applications against that mistake were already pending. Examining other High Court decisions consistently dealing with the 1976-77 acquisitions in the same area, the Court found the correct, consistently-applied rate was Rs. 28.12 per square yard, which had itself been affirmed by the Supreme Court in an earlier case. The appeals were partly allowed to enhance compensation to that rate, along with statutory benefits, but no further.
A favourable rate obtained by other litigants due to a court's own clubbing or procedural mistake does not create a valid precedent that others can claim parity with; courts will apply the rate that is actually, consistently correct for comparable acquisitions.
