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.
Land Acquisition Appeal · 2026:DHC:8039
Deadlines for filing appeals matter, and courts are unlikely to excuse very long, poorly-explained delays. A litigant who accepts a particular valuation or benchmark at the trial stage, without presenting evidence to the contrary, will generally not be allowed to seek a better outcome later on appeal.
Civil Miscellaneous (Main) Petition · 2026:DHC:8010
Even a short delay in responding to a summary suit can nearly cost a person their right to defend themselves in court. Even so, courts will usually give a genuine, honestly-explained short delay the benefit of the doubt rather than shutting the door entirely, especially when doing so avoids a decree being passed without a hearing on the actual merits.
Criminal Appeal · 2026:DHC:7989-DB
A conviction cannot rest on the "last seen together" circumstance alone, however suspicious it looks. The prosecution must build a complete, gap-free chain of evidence that leaves no reasonable possibility of innocence, and any genuine doubt must benefit the accused, not the prosecution.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:8044
An employer, including a government body, cannot dismiss even a daily-wage or temporary worker as punishment for alleged wrongdoing without first giving them a fair, formal inquiry with a real chance to defend themselves; skipping that step can make the termination illegal regardless of how the employer labels it.
Regular Second Appeal · 2026:DHC:8003
When a special law like the Electricity Act sets up its own dedicated authority to resolve a particular type of dispute (here, compensation for unauthorised power lines), ordinary civil courts generally cannot step in even if the other side's conduct was clearly improper. The aggrieved person must go to that specific authority (District Magistrate/Police Commissioner) instead, and must also be ready to prove the actual amount of loss suffered, not just assert a claim.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8047
A long gap between a person's death and a Will being taken to court for probate is not automatically suspicious if there's a reasonable family explanation for it; and a party who repeatedly fails to use the opportunities a court gives them to produce evidence cannot expect a second chance for the same evidence at the appeal stage.
Criminal Miscellaneous Case · 2026:DHC:8035
Where a genuine compromise is reached in a case involving non-serious, personal-dispute offences, courts can quash the FIR to spare both sides a lengthy trial, but only after the judge is personally satisfied that the settlement is voluntary and genuine, not merely on paper.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:7977-DB
Being investigated twice over GST credit from the same supplier is not automatically illegal. The "same subject matter" protection only kicks in when both proceedings target the exact same contravention, so a genuine fraud probe can run independently of an earlier routine tax assessment.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8014
In Indian property law, being physically absent from a jointly-inherited property does not by itself strip a family co-owner of their rightful share. The other occupants must prove they treated the absent owner as clearly and knowingly excluded, not just that they lived there without them.
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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.
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BYJU'S (Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd.) was placed into insolvency (CIRP) after an operational creditor's claim was admitted by the NCLT, Bengaluru. While that was pending, BYJU'S founders arranged a settlement with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), a creditor owed money under a sponsorship deal, and paid an amount that was kept in an escrow account. The NCLAT (appellate tribunal) approved this settlement and closed the insolvency proceedings, using its "inherent powers," even though the Committee of Creditors (CoC) representing other creditors, including GLAS Trust (representing US lenders), had not yet been formed or consulted. GLAS Trust challenged this before the Supreme Court, arguing it was shut out of a process that affected its own claims.
The Supreme Court set aside the NCLAT's order approving the BCCI settlement and closing the insolvency process. It held that once a company's insolvency case is admitted, the process becomes a collective one involving all creditors, not just the one creditor who happened to settle, so an appellate tribunal cannot use its "inherent powers" to bypass the statutory procedure (Regulation 30A) for withdrawing or settling an insolvency case, which normally requires the Committee of Creditors' approval by a 90% voting majority. The Court noted this was not a ruling on the merits of any party's conduct, and directed that the escrowed settlement amount (about Rs 158 crore) be handed over to the CoC, with the parties free to pursue a fresh, procedurally proper settlement.
Once formal insolvency proceedings begin against a company, no single creditor, however prominent, can settle privately and unilaterally end the process; all similarly placed creditors must have a say through the Committee of Creditors, and tribunals cannot short-circuit this using general "inherent powers."
