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.
Parties to construction/infrastructure arbitration agreements had their "seat" (the designated legal home) of arbitration fixed at New Delhi, but applications challenging the arbitral awards under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act had been filed at the Faridabad court instead, which had initially been held to have jurisdiction based on an older interpretation of the law. Meanwhile, a separate Supreme Court bench decided in BGS SGS Soma JV vs. NHPC Ltd. (10.12.2019) that once a seat of arbitration is fixed, only the courts of that seat have exclusive jurisdiction, overruling the earlier approach. These connected transfer petitions and an appeal asked the Court to resolve which court's jurisdiction should prevail.
Applying its own recent ruling in BGS SGS Soma JV, the Court held that since New Delhi had been designated as the seat of arbitration in each case, only the Delhi courts had jurisdiction to decide challenges to the awards: a court at Faridabad, even if a cause of action arose there, could not exercise jurisdiction once a seat had been fixed elsewhere. The Court set aside the finding that Faridabad had jurisdiction, transferred the pending Section 34 applications to the Delhi High Court, ruled that the transferred parties could not raise a limitation (time-bar) objection on account of the transfer, and granted eight weeks of status quo to allow the cases to be properly re-filed in Delhi.
Once parties to an arbitration agreement fix a "seat" of arbitration, that seat's courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all arbitration-related challenges, filing in a different court where part of the dispute arose will not work once a seat has been designated.
