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.
Suzlon Energy, a wind-turbine manufacturer, imported customised "Engineering Design & Drawings" from its own sister companies abroad for use in manufacturing Wind Turbine Generators. It cleared these imports through customs as "paper" (goods) at a nil duty rate, and paid no service tax on them either, arguing the drawings were goods, not services. The tax department demanded over Rs.18 crore in service tax, treating the import as a taxable "design service"; the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) had ruled in Suzlon's favour, holding the same activity could not be taxed as both goods and services.
The Supreme Court held that CESTAT's reasoning was legally wrong, under the settled "aspect theory" (from BSNL vs. Union of India), the very same transaction can attract customs duty as goods on one aspect and service tax as a service on another aspect, so classifying the drawings as "paper" for customs purposes did not automatically exempt the underlying design activity from service tax. Since the design and drawings were custom, tailor-made engineering work supplied by a related company for a fee, this fell squarely within the wide statutory definition of "design services" under the Finance Act, 1994. The Court set aside CESTAT's order and ruled in the department's favour on the core service-tax liability, but sent the case back to CESTAT only to decide two narrower unresolved issues, whether services from a foreign entity fall within "design services" at all, and whether the extended limitation period was validly invoked.
Calling something "goods" for customs clearance does not automatically shield the same commercial activity from service tax: Indian tax law can validly tax different "aspects" of one transaction under different heads, so businesses cannot avoid one tax merely by structuring documentation to emphasize another.
