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.
This was the fifth round of litigation over the long-running Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project, a large expressway-and-townships development built under a 1997 Framework Agreement between the State of Karnataka and private developers (NICE/NECE). The developers applied directly to the local Planning Authority for permission to build a group-housing scheme on land that deviated from what had been approved in the project's original Technical Report. The Planning Authority rejected the application, but the Karnataka High Court quashed that rejection and ordered the Authority to issue a construction ("commencement") certificate. The State and the Planning Authority appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the Framework Agreement itself (Article 7.1) required the developers to first obtain the State Government's prior written approval for any deviation from the originally sanctioned project plan: they could not go straight to the Planning Authority and bypass the State. Since no such approval had ever been sought from the State, the Planning Authority's rejection was not improper, and the High Court's direction to issue a commencement certificate could not stand. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment and dismissed the developers' writ petitions, but gave them liberty to first approach the State for permission to deviate (to be decided within six months), with recourse to the agreement's dispute-resolution mechanism if the State refused.
When a project is governed by a formal agreement that lays out a specific approval sequence (here, government approval before local planning approval), a party cannot skip a step in that sequence and go directly to a lower authority: courts will enforce the agreed order of approvals even years into a project.
