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.
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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.
After years of agitation by the Maratha community in Maharashtra demanding reservation in government jobs and education, the State enacted the Maharashtra SEBC Act, 2018, granting the Maratha community 12% reservation in education and 13% in public employment, on top of the existing 50% reservation for other backward classes, SCs and STs. This pushed total reservation in the state well above 50%. The Bombay High Court had upheld the law but reduced the quantum. Several petitioners challenged this before the Supreme Court, which also had to decide whether its 1992 decision in Indra Sawhney (which capped reservations at 50% except in "exceptional circumstances") needed to be revisited, and how the newly inserted Article 342A (introduced by the 102nd Constitutional Amendment) affected states' power to identify socially and educationally backward classes.
All five judges unanimously held that Indra Sawhney's 50% ceiling on reservations remained good law and did not need to be referred to a larger bench, and that Maharashtra had failed to demonstrate the "extraordinary" or "exceptional circumstances" needed to justify breaching that ceiling, so the Maratha reservation law was struck down as unconstitutional, with the Court also finding the underlying Backward Class Commission report did not actually establish that Marathas were socially and educationally backward or inadequately represented in public services. On a second, more divisive question, whether the 102nd Amendment stripped states of their power to identify backward classes for state purposes, the majority (Justices Bhat, Rao and Gupta) held that after this amendment, only the President (guided by the National Commission for Backward Classes) can notify the list of socially and educationally backward classes for all purposes of the Constitution, while Justices Bhushan and Nazeer dissented on this specific point, holding that states retained that power for state lists. The Court used its special powers under Article 142 to direct that existing state backward-class lists would continue to operate until the central list was published, to avoid a vacuum, and it protected students and employees who had already secured admissions or appointments before the Court's earlier interim order of September 2020.
Reservations in India are constitutionally capped at 50% except in truly exceptional circumstances backed by solid data: a state cannot grant extra reservation to a politically influential community merely because of public pressure or incomplete data; and major constitutional amendments can significantly reallocate power between the Centre and the states in ways that take time, litigation and further legislative correction to fully work out.
