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 moreDinesh Textiles, a trader, got cotton fabrics manufactured through more than 70 job workers without paying excise duty, claiming the job workers were the actual manufacturers liable for duty, not the trader. An excise exemption scheme exempted clearances up to a certain aggregate value, and only one of the 70-plus job workers had individually crossed the Rs. 25 lakh exemption limit while the rest remained below it. The tax department demanded duty on the trader's entire clearances once that one job worker crossed the limit, a demand upheld by the Appellate Authority and the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, prompting the trader's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that excise Rule 12B creates a legal fiction treating the trader who gets goods made on job work as "the assessee," and that the relevant exemption notification repeatedly emphasizes the "aggregate value" of clearances, not clearances calculated job-worker-by-job-worker. Relying on the government's own clarificatory circular's illustrations, the Court held that once any one job worker's clearances crossed the Rs. 25 lakh threshold, the entire aggregate of clearances made through all job workers for that trader became dutiable, not merely the clearances of the job worker who crossed the limit. The Court rejected the trader's reading because it would let a dealer deliberately split production across many job workers to keep each individually under the exemption limit, defeating the exemption scheme's purpose, and so it affirmed the Tribunal's view and dismissed the appeals.
Under tax exemption schemes that hinge on an "aggregate value" of clearances, businesses cannot escape liability by spreading production across many intermediaries to keep each one individually under the threshold: the law looks at the combined total.
