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.
9257 more judgements for members
You're seeing the newest cases. Log in — it's free — to keep scrolling, search by name or judge, and filter by court or legal area.
Log in to see moreLegal Case Shots is built to help you quickly identify and understand relevant precedent. For citation in pleadings or filings, always verify against the full judgment PDF and current citation format (e.g., 2026 INSC ___).
The holding is what the court legally decided. The lesson learnt translates that into a practical takeaway: what a lawyer should factor into case strategy or client advice as a result of this precedent.
Both. Each case shows a distilled summary (case type, key holding, and lesson learnt) and links to the full judgment as a PDF for when you need the complete text for research or citation.
Yes. Use Advanced Filters to narrow results by decision date and by practice area, including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Service & Administrative Law, Family Law, Civil Property & Inheritance, and Labour & Industrial Law.
Yes. You can filter judgments by the judge or bench that decided the case, which is useful for tracking how a particular judge has reasoned on similar issues across multiple rulings.
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.
The appellant bought a commercial property in Kanpur in 1994 that included premises earlier let out by her sellers to one Dhruv Narayan Tripathi. The first respondent claimed he had been inducted as a sub-tenant of that property by Tripathi (acting as the original owners' power-of-attorney holder) back in 1975 and had been in continuous possession and paying rent ever since. When a government authority sought to allot the premises to someone else on the basis that it had fallen "vacant" under the rent control law, the District Magistrate instead found the first respondent to be a lawful tenant, a finding the Allahabad High Court upheld. The appellant challenged this before the Supreme Court, arguing Tripathi had no authority to create that tenancy and that she had been deprived of any benefit from the property for 27 years.
The Supreme Court held that, since the original owners never objected to Tripathi inducting the first respondent as tenant between 1975 and 1994, and the first respondent was already in possession with the (implied) consent of the owners before the cut-off date of 5 July 1976, he became a protected, "deemed" tenant under Section 14 of the U.P. Rent Control Act. The appellant's cited precedents were found not to apply to these facts. The appeal was therefore dismissed, meaning the appellant cannot evict the tenant through this writ route and must instead pursue eviction, if she wants it, through the specific statutory procedure under Sections 20/21 of the Act. However, to protect the appellant's interest in the meantime, the Court directed the tenant to clear any rent arrears within six weeks and keep paying rent regularly, and directed that any future eviction proceedings she files be given priority given the long delay she has already suffered.
A tenancy created years earlier by someone acting (even informally) on the landlord's behalf can become legally protected if the landlord never objects to it for a long period: a property buyer inherits not just the asset but also any such entrenched tenancy, and must use the correct statutory eviction process rather than expect a writ petition to remove a protected tenant.
