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.
The respondent, a former Chief Operating/Executive Officer, resigned after about 12 years of service with a last-drawn monthly salary of Rs. 24,50,000, and received about Rs. 36.7 lakh in dues, including Rs. 10 lakh (the then-statutory cap) towards gratuity. He claimed he was entitled to a much larger gratuity of over Rs. 1.83 crore, arguing the company's own Gratuity Trust Scheme, under which 4.81% of his salary had been earmarked for gratuity each year, provided no ceiling and was more beneficial than the Act, so he was entitled to its full benefit under Section 4(5) of the Payment of Gratuity Act. The Controlling Authority, Appellate Authority, and the Delhi High Court (Single Judge and Division Bench) all ruled in his favour.
The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the company's Trust Deed and Scheme Rules themselves provided that, for employees covered by the Payment of Gratuity Act (as the respondent was), gratuity must be calculated "in accordance with the provisions of the Act", which necessarily includes the statutory ceiling under Section 4(3), not just the benefit rate under Section 4(2). The Scheme offered an uncapped alternative calculation only to employees not covered by the Act. Since the Scheme did not actually offer the respondent any genuinely better alternative package than the Act itself, Section 4(5) (which protects an employee's right to better contractual terms) was not triggered, and the earlier authorities had wrongly read the Scheme's terms selectively. The Court allowed the company's appeal and limited the respondent's gratuity to the statutory ceiling already paid.
An employer's internal gratuity scheme does not automatically override the statutory ceiling on gratuity unless it clearly and separately offers better terms than the law provides: an employee cannot mix and match the best parts of the company scheme and the statute when the scheme itself simply points back to the statutory formula.
