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.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1066
Courts will not infer a concluded oral contract for the sale of immovable property just because the other side's witnesses seemed evasive: the party seeking specific performance must independently and affirmatively prove every essential term was genuinely agreed.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1065
Even in serious, high-value corruption cases, prolonged pre-trial detention cannot be used as a substitute for punishment when the trial is unlikely to conclude soon and the evidence is already secured: bail remains the touchstone principle under Article 21's personal liberty protection.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1067
Preventive detention cannot be used as a backdoor way to keep someone in custody once the ordinary criminal process, including bail, has already run its course on the same facts; the detaining authority must show a genuine, independent risk of future harm, not just recycle the criminal case file.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1068
In land acquisition disputes, courts will readily restore a uniform, fair market rate across similarly-situated parcels, but ancillary compensation heads (like moveable equipment such as tubewells) still require the claimant to prove their case with admissible evidence, not private reports whose authors were never examined in court.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8447
If you are injured while genuinely trying to board or exit a train, you are very likely covered under railway "untoward incident" compensation law, even if you technically hadn't fully boarded yet: courts read this protection broadly in favour of passengers, and contemporaneous official records (station logs, police diary entries) carry more weight than a statement taken from you much later.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8404
Courts will not entertain vague, unsubstantiated allegations of judicial bias, and a request to combine cases becomes moot once the other related proceedings have already concluded: genuine grievances about trial delay or procedure must be backed by specific, demonstrable facts, not just repeated litigation.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8403
Anticipatory bail can be granted even in matrimonial cases involving serious sexual-offence allegations where there is unexplained delay in reporting, no evidence substantiating the need for custodial interrogation, and the investigating agency's own conduct (e.g., undocumented "verbal" notices) fails to justify arrest, though this is assessed only for bail purposes, not as a finding on guilt.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8407
In family property disputes, signing a Relinquishment Deed acknowledging receipt of consideration, and then waiting years without challenging it or pursuing your claimed share, will make it very difficult to later prove you were never actually paid; courts expect contemporaneous action (a legal notice, a suit) and corroborating evidence, not delayed assertions alone.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8401
A tenant who claims to have paid a large sum toward an informal "mortgage" or side arrangement must be able to prove it with solid evidence (receipts, corroborating witnesses): bare assertions, especially when contradicted by one's own family members under cross-examination, will not defeat a landlord's claim for rent and possession.
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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 Directorate of Revenue Intelligence suspected that M/s Ganpati Overseas, run by Yashpal Sharma, had imported electronic tuners and saw filters from a Hong Kong supplier (owned by his relative) at grossly under-invoiced prices to evade customs duty of roughly Rs. 1.16 crore. The department's case rested heavily on statements recorded from both men under Section 108 of the Customs Act (later retracted by Yashpal Sharma) and on export declarations obtained from the Hong Kong Customs authority showing a higher declared export value than the import invoice value. The Commissioner of Customs adjudicated against the importer, enhancing the value of the goods and imposing penalties and confiscation, but the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) set aside that order, prompting the department's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court reaffirmed settled law (from Eicher Tractors, South India Television, and Varsha Plastics) that under Section 14(1) of the Customs Act, the invoice/transaction price is presumed correct unless the department affirmatively proves otherwise: mere suspicion or an unverified foreign export declaration is not enough. To reject a declared transaction value and invoke the higher-value determination methods under Rules 5 to 8 of the Customs Valuation Rules, the department must first show one of the specific vitiating circumstances in Rule 4(2), typically by producing evidence of contemporaneous imports of identical or similar goods at a higher price. The Court found the department had not done this: it relied only on the retracted statements and unverified/unattested Hong Kong export declarations (which the foreign supplier itself later said were erroneous and corrected), without any independent evidence of comparable import prices. Since the charge of under-invoicing was not backed by the required standard of proof, the benefit of doubt had to go to the importer, and CESTAT was right to reject the enhanced valuation, penalties, and confiscation. The Supreme Court accordingly dismissed the department's appeals and upheld CESTAT's order, with no costs.
In customs disputes, the government cannot enhance the value of imported goods and penalize an importer for under-invoicing merely on the basis of suspicion, statements later retracted, or an uncorroborated foreign declaration. It must affirmatively prove undervaluation with concrete evidence such as prices of comparable contemporaneous imports; absent that proof, the invoice price stands and the benefit of the doubt goes to the importer.
