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.
Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL), a Gujarat government power utility, had a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a solar power company (the "Corporate Debtor") to buy all the electricity it generated. After floods damaged the plant and financial stress followed, the company itself applied for insolvency resolution (CIRP) under Section 10 of the IBC in 2018, and a Resolution Professional (RP) was appointed. Citing a clause in the PPA that treated the mere initiation of insolvency proceedings as an "event of default" (an "ipso facto" clause), GUVNL sought to terminate the PPA, which was the company's only source of revenue, while the CIRP was still underway. The RP and a secured lender approached the NCLT, which stayed the termination; the NCLAT upheld that stay and barred termination even in liquidation. GUVNL appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the NCLT/NCLAT had no jurisdiction over what was really a contractual/regulatory dispute properly belonging before the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission, and that nothing in the IBC barred it from exercising its contractual termination right.
The Supreme Court held that the NCLT/NCLAT did have jurisdiction under the residuary clause in Section 60(5)(c) of the IBC to decide this dispute, because GUVNL's sole ground for terminating the PPA was the initiation of CIRP itself: a ground with a direct nexus to the insolvency process, not merely an ordinary contractual dispute collateral to the insolvency, so the matter was not confined to the electricity regulator's jurisdiction. On the merits, the Court held that the NCLT/NCLAT was right to restrain the termination in this specific case: since the PPA was the Corporate Debtor's only source of revenue, allowing termination solely because insolvency proceedings had begun would effectively cause the "corporate death" of the company, defeating the IBC's central purpose of preserving a debtor as a going concern during resolution. However, the Court expressly declined to lay down any general rule on the validity of "ipso facto" termination clauses in Indian insolvency law, noting this is a significant policy question (addressed by legislative reform in other countries) best left for Parliament to resolve, and left open whether such clauses are void in other circumstances. The appeal was dismissed.
During a company's formal insolvency resolution process, a counterparty generally cannot terminate a critical contract purely because insolvency proceedings have begun, if doing so would strip the company of its only business and defeat the purpose of trying to rescue it, though Indian law has not yet settled, as a general rule, whether such "insolvency trigger" termination clauses are valid or void.
