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.
Jaypee Infratech Limited (JIL), a company that later went into insolvency, had mortgaged its own land and buildings as collateral security for loans that various banks had given to its parent company, Jaiprakash Associates Limited (JAL), not to JIL itself. When JIL's insolvency process began, its court-appointed Resolution Professional asked the tribunal to cancel ("avoid") these mortgage transactions as unfair preferences, while the lender banks argued they should be recognized as "financial creditors" of JIL because of the mortgage security they held over its property.
The Supreme Court held that these mortgages were "preferential transactions" under Section 43 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code because they gave JAL's lenders an advantage over JIL's genuine creditors without JIL receiving any corresponding benefit, restoring the insolvency tribunal's original order cancelling the mortgages and reversing the appellate tribunal's decision in the banks' favour. The Court further held that merely holding mortgaged security over a company's assets does not make a lender a "financial creditor" of that company for insolvency purposes; that status under Section 5(8) of the Code requires that money actually be disbursed to, or for the direct benefit of, the company whose insolvency is in question, which never happened here, since the money went to JIL's parent company, not to JIL.
Using a company's assets to guarantee a parent or group company's debt can be struck down in that company's insolvency if it unfairly favours the group's lenders over its own creditors; and simply holding a mortgage over a company's property does not automatically entitle a lender to be treated as that company's "financial creditor" with a say in its insolvency proceedings.
