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.
10422 more judgements for members
You're seeing the newest cases. Log in — it's free — to keep scrolling, search by name or judge, and filter by court or legal area.
Log in to see moreLegal Case Shots is built to help you quickly identify and understand relevant precedent. For citation in pleadings or filings, always verify against the full judgment PDF and current citation format (e.g., 2026 INSC ___).
The holding is what the court legally decided. The lesson learnt translates that into a practical takeaway: what a lawyer should factor into case strategy or client advice as a result of this precedent.
Both. Each case shows a distilled summary (case type, key holding, and lesson learnt) and links to the full judgment as a PDF for when you need the complete text for research or citation.
Yes. Use Advanced Filters to narrow results by decision date and by practice area, including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Service & Administrative Law, Family Law, Civil Property & Inheritance, and Labour & Industrial Law.
Yes. You can filter judgments by the judge or bench that decided the case, which is useful for tracking how a particular judge has reasoned on similar issues across multiple rulings.
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 appellant's wife died by hanging in 1990; her family attended and performed the last rites without raising any suspicion of foul play at the time, but her father lodged a police complaint more than three months later. The appellant was tried along with seven others and was convicted by the trial court under Sections 498A (cruelty to a wife) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the IPC, while the other seven were acquitted. Decades later, the High Court acquitted him of the cruelty charge under Section 498A but upheld his conviction under Section 201, reasoning essentially that he had failed to inform the police of the unnatural death and had not arranged a post-mortem.
The Supreme Court surveyed decades of its own precedent on Section 201 IPC and reaffirmed that a conviction under that section requires proof that an offence was actually committed, that the accused knew or had reason to believe this, and that he deliberately caused evidence of it to disappear with intent to screen the offender: mere suspicion or an unnatural death by itself is not enough. The Court found that the family members who attended the last rites (including the deceased's own brother, a doctor) had no suspicion of any offence at the time, the deceased had left a suicide note taking the blame on herself, and there was no charge of intentionally omitting to inform the police. Since neither the Sessions Court nor the High Court had actually found that the appellant knew an offence had occurred and acted to conceal it, the essential ingredients of Section 201 were not made out, so the Court allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction.
Failing to inform the police of an unnatural death or not arranging a post-mortem, by itself, is not enough to convict someone of "causing disappearance of evidence" under Section 201 IPC: the prosecution must separately prove the person knew (or had reason to believe) that an actual offence had been committed and deliberately acted to hide that evidence.
