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 moreThree importers, including the appellant Gastrade International, imported oil from the UAE via Kandla Port, declaring it as "Base Oil SN 50," which can be freely imported. Based on an intelligence tip, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence classified the cargo instead as High Speed Diesel (HSD) (an item that under India's import policy can only be imported by State Trading Enterprises, not private importers) and seized it. Laboratory tests at two different government labs found the samples matched several (but not all) of the technical parameters for HSD under the relevant Indian Standard specification, and an expert's opinion on the point was non-committal. The Customs Commissioner ordered confiscation and penalties, which the CESTAT tribunal reversed (finding it was Base Oil), but the Gujarat High Court then reversed the tribunal and restored the confiscation, prompting the importers' appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the Gujarat High Court had wrongly relied on a "preponderance of probability" standard to classify the goods as HSD. The correct legal test under Rule 4 of the General Rules for Interpretation of the Customs Tariff is whether the goods are "most akin", bearing the closest resemblance, to a specified category, a more demanding standard than mere probability. Since the test reports from three laboratories were inconclusive (matching only some of the required parameters) and the expert witness never definitively opined that the goods were "most akin" to HSD, the classification as HSD could not be sustained on such uncertain scientific evidence. Rather than order further testing, which the Court found impractical given how much time had passed and the likelihood the oil's properties had changed, it gave the importers the benefit of the doubt, set aside the High Court's judgment, and quashed the confiscation and penalties. The Court also issued a forward-looking direction: since the dispute arose from labs lacking facilities to test all the required specification parameters, it directed customs authorities to ensure proper testing facilities for all relevant parameters within six months, so future classification disputes have complete rather than partial scientific evidence.
When the government seeks to confiscate goods or penalize a citizen or business based on a technical classification (here, whether an import counted as a restricted fuel), it must produce clear, complete, and scientifically conclusive evidence meeting the correct legal standard: incomplete lab results and a hedging expert opinion are not enough, and the benefit of the doubt goes to the party facing confiscation.
