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 a batch of 15 tax appeals by the Revenue against various High Courts, all raising the same core question: companies (led by Jindal Steel and Power Ltd.) that ran their own "captive" power plants to supply electricity to their factories, and sold only the surplus to the State Electricity Board, had claimed a tax deduction under Section 80-IA calculated using Rs. 3.72 per unit, the price the State Electricity Board charged ordinary industrial consumers, as the "market value" of the electricity used internally. The tax department argued the true market value should instead be the lower Rs. 2.32 per unit that the companies themselves received for surplus power sold to the Electricity Board under a compulsory power-purchase agreement, which would sharply reduce their claimed deduction. Three smaller connected issues were also argued: whether a company must formally "opt" for a specific depreciation method before claiming it, whether a disallowed expense payment (to one Mr. S.K. Gupta) should be restored, and whether carbon-credit sale proceeds are capital or taxable revenue income.
The Supreme Court held that "market value" under Section 80-IA(8) means the price of goods in a genuine open market shaped by free competition between willing buyers and sellers, and the Rs. 2.32/unit rate was not that, since it was a price fixed unilaterally by the monopoly State Electricity Board under a compulsory, non-negotiable statutory arrangement, essentially a forced sale with no bargaining power for the company. By contrast, Rs. 3.72/unit was the price the company's factories would have had to pay any ordinary consumer-facing supplier (the Electricity Board) for the same power in the open market, making it the correct benchmark, so the Tribunal and High Courts were right to accept the higher figure and the Revenue's appeals on this core issue were dismissed. On the depreciation issue, the Court held there is no legal requirement to formally declare a choice of depreciation method before the tax-return deadline: simply claiming the method in the return itself, on time, is sufficient compliance, following its earlier ruling in CIT vs. G.R. Govindarajulu. On the disputed expense payment, the Court upheld restoring the deduction because the tax officer relied only on a witness's initial statement while ignoring his prompt formal retraction and denied the taxpayer a chance to cross-examine him. On carbon credits, the Court declined to rule at all, since the Revenue itself never appealed that specific point to the High Court and could not raise it for the first time before the Supreme Court, leaving that legal question open for a future case.
For tax purposes, the "market value" of goods transferred between a company's own divisions must reflect a genuinely competitive price available to an ordinary buyer or seller, not a price fixed by compulsion or monopoly power, and taxpayers generally only need to make and record an election (like a depreciation method) within the filing deadline, without any extra formal declaration, for it to be valid.
