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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Subhash Sharma was detained at Delhi's IGI Airport on the strength of a Look Out Circular issued at the request of the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in a PMLA case. The Bureau of Immigration handed him over to ED custody at 11:00 am on 5 March 2022, but ED did not formally record his arrest until 1:15 am on 6 March 2022, and produced him before a Magistrate only around 3:00 pm that day: more than 24 hours after he was first taken into ED custody. The High Court found this arrest illegal for violating the constitutional requirement to produce an arrested person before a magistrate within 24 hours, and granted him bail on that basis. The ED appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court dismissed the ED's appeal and upheld the bail. It held that once the Bureau of Immigration detained Sharma on ED's behalf and ED took physical custody of him, the 24-hour clock under Article 22(2) of the Constitution (and Section 57 CrPC, which applies to PMLA proceedings via Section 65) started running from that point, not from whenever ED chose to formally paper the arrest. Since Sharma was not produced before a Magistrate within 24 hours of that custody, his arrest was rendered completely illegal and his fundamental rights under Articles 21 and 22 were violated. The Court held that once an arrest is found illegal or vitiated in this way, bail cannot be denied merely because the accused fails the stricter "twin conditions" test for bail under Section 45 of the PMLA: the constitutional violation itself entitles the accused to be released.
The 24-hour deadline to produce an arrested person before a magistrate starts from the moment the arresting agency actually takes physical custody of that person, not from when it later chooses to formally record the arrest, and if this deadline is missed, the accused is entitled to bail regardless of how strict the bail conditions under a special law (like PMLA) otherwise are.
