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.
Land Acquisition Appeal · 2026:DHC:8039
Deadlines for filing appeals matter, and courts are unlikely to excuse very long, poorly-explained delays. A litigant who accepts a particular valuation or benchmark at the trial stage, without presenting evidence to the contrary, will generally not be allowed to seek a better outcome later on appeal.
Civil Miscellaneous (Main) Petition · 2026:DHC:8010
Even a short delay in responding to a summary suit can nearly cost a person their right to defend themselves in court. Even so, courts will usually give a genuine, honestly-explained short delay the benefit of the doubt rather than shutting the door entirely, especially when doing so avoids a decree being passed without a hearing on the actual merits.
Criminal Appeal · 2026:DHC:7989-DB
A conviction cannot rest on the "last seen together" circumstance alone, however suspicious it looks. The prosecution must build a complete, gap-free chain of evidence that leaves no reasonable possibility of innocence, and any genuine doubt must benefit the accused, not the prosecution.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:8044
An employer, including a government body, cannot dismiss even a daily-wage or temporary worker as punishment for alleged wrongdoing without first giving them a fair, formal inquiry with a real chance to defend themselves; skipping that step can make the termination illegal regardless of how the employer labels it.
Regular Second Appeal · 2026:DHC:8003
When a special law like the Electricity Act sets up its own dedicated authority to resolve a particular type of dispute (here, compensation for unauthorised power lines), ordinary civil courts generally cannot step in even if the other side's conduct was clearly improper. The aggrieved person must go to that specific authority (District Magistrate/Police Commissioner) instead, and must also be ready to prove the actual amount of loss suffered, not just assert a claim.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8047
A long gap between a person's death and a Will being taken to court for probate is not automatically suspicious if there's a reasonable family explanation for it; and a party who repeatedly fails to use the opportunities a court gives them to produce evidence cannot expect a second chance for the same evidence at the appeal stage.
Criminal Miscellaneous Case · 2026:DHC:8035
Where a genuine compromise is reached in a case involving non-serious, personal-dispute offences, courts can quash the FIR to spare both sides a lengthy trial, but only after the judge is personally satisfied that the settlement is voluntary and genuine, not merely on paper.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:7977-DB
Being investigated twice over GST credit from the same supplier is not automatically illegal. The "same subject matter" protection only kicks in when both proceedings target the exact same contravention, so a genuine fraud probe can run independently of an earlier routine tax assessment.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8014
In Indian property law, being physically absent from a jointly-inherited property does not by itself strip a family co-owner of their rightful share. The other occupants must prove they treated the absent owner as clearly and knowingly excluded, not just that they lived there without them.
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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.
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This case (and several tagged appeals) arose from a recurring dispute in government/public sector contracts: arbitration clauses that let one party, typically a public sector undertaking like the Railways, either unilaterally appoint the sole arbitrator, or require the other party to choose its arbitrator only from a panel curated by the first party. Earlier Supreme Court decisions had reached inconsistent conclusions on whether such clauses were valid under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, particularly given Section 12(5)'s independence/impartiality safeguards and Section 18's requirement that both parties be treated equally. The matter was referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench to settle the law.
By a 3:2 majority, the Court held that the principle of equal treatment of parties (Section 18) applies at every stage of arbitration, including the appointment of arbitrators, not just during the hearing itself. While a public sector undertaking may maintain a broad panel of potential arbitrators, it cannot compel the other party to select solely from that panel. A clause allowing one party to unilaterally appoint a sole arbitrator raises justifiable doubts about that arbitrator's independence and impartiality and was held to violate Article 14 of the Constitution in public-private contracts. However, recognising the disruption this would cause to ongoing and completed arbitrations, the Court expressly made the ruling prospective, applying only to arbitrator appointments made after the date of this judgment (8 November 2024), and only to three-member tribunals. Justices Hrishikesh Roy and P.S. Narasimha dissented in part, taking the view that unilateral appointments should generally remain permissible as an exercise of party autonomy, since the Arbitration Act's own provisions (Sections 12 to 15) already provide adequate safeguards against a genuinely biased appointment, and courts should intervene only case-by-case rather than through a blanket rule.
Going forward, arbitration clauses in government or public-private contracts that let only one side unilaterally pick the entire arbitral tribunal are constitutionally suspect and generally invalid, both parties must have an equal voice in constituting the tribunal that will decide their dispute, though this new rule only affects arbitrator appointments made from November 2024 onward, not arbitrations already completed or underway.
