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 appeal, along with two tagged appeals, had been referred to a larger three-judge Bench to resolve a specific legal question about Section 130A of the Customs Act, 1962: the provision allowing the Revenue or an affected party to apply to a High Court asking it to direct the Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) to refer a question of law for the High Court's opinion. A prior two-judge Bench decision (Commissioner of Customs, Bangalore v. Central Manufacturing Tech. Institute) had suggested that a High Court was mandatorily required to first call for a "statement of the case" from the Tribunal before deciding such an application, and the correctness of that view needed to be settled.
The larger Bench held that Section 130A(4) of the Customs Act, which begins with the word "if," gives the High Court discretion on the facts of each case to either call for a statement from the Tribunal or not: it does not impose a mandatory obligation to do so in every case. Finding nothing in the statutory language supporting a mandatory requirement, the Court overruled its earlier decision in Commissioner of Customs, Bangalore v. Central Manufacturing Tech. Institute as incorrect. The referred legal question was answered accordingly, and the appeals (along with the tagged matters) were disposed of.
Statutory language matters precisely: a provision phrased with the conditional word "if" generally signals that a court has discretion rather than a mandatory duty, and prior judicial interpretations inconsistent with the plain statutory wording can be overruled by a larger Bench.
