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 moreThousands of candidates taking the 2018 Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), a single online entrance exam for 19 national law universities, experienced software crashes, frozen screens, login failures, and other technical glitches that cost many of them valuable exam time. Several candidates petitioned the Supreme Court (and various High Courts) seeking cancellation of the entire test and a fresh exam.
The Court had already directed constitution of a Grievance Redressal Committee (headed by a retired judge) to audit login/logout data for all affected candidates. Based on that committee's report covering 4,690 affected candidates out of 54,464 total test-takers, the Court rejected the demand to cancel and re-conduct the entire exam as unfair to the large majority of unaffected candidates, and instead accepted a statistical "normalization formula" to award compensatory marks to candidates who lost time, based on each candidate's own answering efficiency. The Court also directed the Ministry of Human Resources Development to set up a committee to investigate the examination body's failures and prevent recurrence, and disposed of all the writ petitions with detailed implementation directions.
When a technical failure disrupts a mass examination, courts will generally prefer a proportionate, data-driven remedy (like a scoring adjustment for affected candidates) over invalidating the entire process for everyone, since wholesale cancellation can cause greater unfairness to unaffected candidates.
