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.
Land in Delhi was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 for the Delhi Development Authority. Possession of the land was taken and handed over to the beneficiary department on 27 December 1990, with the remaining 1 bigha handed over on 9 February 2007. Nem Chand Sharma and others filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court claiming the acquisition had lapsed under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act. The High Court accepted that possession had been taken, but still declared the acquisition lapsed because it was unclear what compensation had been paid and whether the payment procedure under Sections 30 and 31 of the 1894 Act had been followed, relying on Pune Municipal Corporation (2014).
The Supreme Court allowed the DDA's appeal and quashed the High Court's judgment. It pointed out that Pune Municipal Corporation, the decision on which the High Court relied, had been overruled by the Constitution Bench in Indore Development Authority vs Manoharlal (2020). Under that Constitution Bench ruling, Section 24(2) requires twin conditions to be met before an acquisition lapses: possession must not have been taken and compensation must not have been paid/tendered; if either one has happened, there is no lapse. Since the High Court itself accepted that possession had been taken in 1990 and 2007, the acquisition could not lapse merely because of doubts about compensation. The Court reproduced the Constitution Bench's nine-point summary of the law on Section 24 and set aside the High Court's order, with no order as to costs.
Under the 2013 land acquisition law as interpreted by the Constitution Bench, an acquisition lapses only if the government has neither taken possession nor paid compensation for five years or more before 1 January 2014; once possession is taken, doubts about whether compensation was properly paid cannot undo the acquisition. They only give rise to a claim for the money.
