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.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1056
In railway accident compensation claims, a victim's family does not have to produce the physical train ticket to prove bona fide travel. A sworn statement explaining its loss is enough to shift the burden onto the Railways, and any delay by the Railways in conducting its own mandatory investigation cannot be used against the claimants.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1055
In a bareboat charter with a clause designating the charterer a mere "gratuitous bailee" after termination, a validly served termination notice ends the charterer's status immediately. Physical handover of the vessel is just the mechanical follow-through, not a condition for the termination to take legal effect; this matters directly for maritime creditors deciding whom, and which vessel, to target for arrest.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1054
A court cannot pick and choose parts of a witness's testimony to convict on one charge while rejecting the same testimony to acquit on a closely related charge arising from the same facts. If the witness's account is unreliable for one charge, that unreliability cannot simply be set aside for a more serious, connected charge.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1050
Even in the gravest crimes, a death sentence cannot be sustained unless the prosecution affirmatively rules out the possibility of the offender's reform and shows that no lesser punishment (including life imprisonment without remission) would meet the ends of justice, and courts must give the accused a genuine, separate hearing on sentence with full background material, not decide punishment on the same day as conviction.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1057
When commercial parties in an arbitration-bound contract are willing to agree on a sole arbitrator, courts will readily facilitate that agreement and let the arbitral tribunal itself take over interim relief, rather than continuing to litigate stay applications through multiple court levels.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1047
In government/paramilitary service disputes over wrongful dismissal, what matters under Article 311 is the officer who actually issued the final, unconditional appointment order (not a preliminary conditional call-letter or offer), and courts will read the specific service rules to see which ranks are legally empowered to both appoint and discipline an employee. A call for training is not the same as an appointment.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1048
A trial court cannot order that a convict "remain in prison for the rest of their natural life" without any possibility of remission, only the Supreme Court or a High Court can impose such a sentence, and even then only in appropriately grave cases, after weighing both the brutality of the crime and factors like time already served and conduct in custody.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1049
A criminal complaint under a special protective law like POCSO is not automatically true merely because it was registered; courts must carefully scrutinise such allegations, especially when they surface during an acrimonious custody battle, since false accusations of this kind cause lasting damage both to the falsely accused parent and to the child caught in the middle.
Civil Appeal (Interim Order) · 2026 INSC 1043
There is no final ruling yet. The present custody arrangement is temporary, and the case is still pending.
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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.
Civil Appeal No. 9190 of 2013
Omaxe Limited, a real-estate company, had gone to the Income Tax Settlement Commission (ITSC) to settle its tax dues for Assessment Year 2006-07, including a large deduction claimed under Section 80IB(10) of the Income Tax Act for housing projects. The ITSC passed a final settlement order in 2008 accepting the company's disclosed income. Later, after a fresh survey uncovered internal documents suggesting the company was restructuring some commercial areas of its projects to keep claiming this deduction, the tax department issued a notice to reopen the assessment and disallowed over Rs. 65 crores of the deduction. The Delhi High Court quashed this reassessment, holding the ITSC's order was conclusive and could not be reopened by the Assessing Officer.
The Supreme Court traced the entire statutory scheme of Chapter XIX-A of the Income Tax Act (the Settlement Commission mechanism), holding that once the ITSC admits a settlement application, it acquires exclusive jurisdiction over the case for that assessment year, displacing the ordinary assessment machinery. Once the ITSC passes its final order, that order is conclusive under Section 245-I and cannot be reopened by an Assessing Officer through a reassessment notice. The only route available to the tax department to reopen a settlement is to approach the ITSC itself under Section 245D(6), alleging fraud or misrepresentation, which the department in this case had already tried and lost. Since the department's own remedy before the ITSC had already been rejected on merits (a finding that had become final), the Court held there was no independent legal basis left for the reassessment notice, and dismissed the Revenue's appeal.
Once a taxpayer's dispute has gone through the Settlement Commission and a final settlement order is passed, that order is conclusive and cannot be undone through an ordinary reassessment notice. The tax department's only recourse against an allegedly fraudulent settlement is to go back to the Settlement Commission itself, not around it.
