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 1094
An older qualification must still satisfy the eligibility rules governing the appointment sought. Here, the certificate's early date did not secure reinstatement, and rejection of eligibility should not be confused with a conclusive finding that the certificate was forged.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1095
A party benefiting from a conditional stay must meet its deposit requirement or face enforcement. The additional ₹15 crore deposit secures the pending dispute; it does not settle the land's final compensation or amount to an immediate payment to the landowners.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1093
An alleged attempt to kill does not become a lesser offence simply because the victim avoided a fatal injury. Restoring this charge means the accusation must be tried; it does not establish that the accused is guilty.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1090
For the assessment in this case, assistance reducing ordinary manufacturing costs was taxable even though the government wanted to encourage industry. The purpose and actual operation of the particular subsidy mattered more than its general development label.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1091
Proof that someone caused a serious injury does not by itself prove the additional ingredients of robbery. A court can substitute a lesser offence supported by the evidence; the sentencing reduction here depended on Appa's particular circumstances.
Special Leave Petition (Civil) · 2026 INSC 1092
Someone challenging an election must ensure that the personal-presentation requirement is met and can be proved. Merely entering the court building does not establish compliance, and a filing defect can end the challenge before the election allegations are examined.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1088
An employee who retires on 30 June may be entitled to the increment that falls due on 1 July after completing a year of service. Authorities that delay paying the amounts due must pay interest after the deadline set by the court.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1089
Recruitment must follow the qualifications stated in the advertisement and the governing Recruitment Rules. A court will not override a merit-based eligibility decision made under those rules merely because the candidate concerned was higher in the written test.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8797
A person who occupied property only because of employment has no independent right to remain once the employment and decree end. Even when a petition fails, courts can make practical arrangements to let a person recover personal belongings.
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Log in to see moreThe respondents were former Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) employees who had taken voluntary retirement, but were denied pension because certain periods when they had remained absent without authorisation (and were not paid salary for that period) were excluded from their "qualifying service," leaving them short of the 10-year minimum needed for pension. An earlier two-judge DTC v. Lillu Ram ruling had upheld a similar exclusion, but a different two-judge bench in this very appeal doubted that reasoning and referred the question to a larger bench, raising concerns such as whether unauthorised-absence periods should count against pension without the employee ever being formally notified that it would.
The three-judge bench held that the applicable Pension Rules unambiguously excluded from "qualifying service" any period for which leave salary was not paid, and that this plain, literal rule could not be overridden by administrative circulars or by requiring prior formal notice to the employee that the absence would count against them. The Court rejected the argument that the DTC's Pension Scheme (introduced shortly before the VRS but not actually implemented until 1995) should have required service-record entries flagging the unauthorised absence, holding that since the scheme was not even operative at the relevant time the question of such entries did not arise, and in any case could not override the Rule's plain language. The Court therefore agreed that the respondents did not qualify for pension for the disputed period, reaching essentially the same outcome as the earlier Lillu Ram decision but via different reasoning (literal rule-construction rather than a notice requirement). It accordingly allowed DTC's appeal and set aside the order below that had favoured the employees, while directing that DTC would not seek a refund of any amounts already paid to the respondents under an earlier interim order, to avoid hardship.
Pension and service-benefit eligibility is governed strictly by the plain wording of the applicable rules: a period for which an employee was not paid leave salary can be excluded from "qualifying service" for pension even without a separate, formal notice to the employee that it would be so treated.
