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 1066
Courts will not infer a concluded oral contract for the sale of immovable property just because the other side's witnesses seemed evasive: the party seeking specific performance must independently and affirmatively prove every essential term was genuinely agreed.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1065
Even in serious, high-value corruption cases, prolonged pre-trial detention cannot be used as a substitute for punishment when the trial is unlikely to conclude soon and the evidence is already secured: bail remains the touchstone principle under Article 21's personal liberty protection.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1067
Preventive detention cannot be used as a backdoor way to keep someone in custody once the ordinary criminal process, including bail, has already run its course on the same facts; the detaining authority must show a genuine, independent risk of future harm, not just recycle the criminal case file.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1068
In land acquisition disputes, courts will readily restore a uniform, fair market rate across similarly-situated parcels, but ancillary compensation heads (like moveable equipment such as tubewells) still require the claimant to prove their case with admissible evidence, not private reports whose authors were never examined in court.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8447
If you are injured while genuinely trying to board or exit a train, you are very likely covered under railway "untoward incident" compensation law, even if you technically hadn't fully boarded yet: courts read this protection broadly in favour of passengers, and contemporaneous official records (station logs, police diary entries) carry more weight than a statement taken from you much later.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8404
Courts will not entertain vague, unsubstantiated allegations of judicial bias, and a request to combine cases becomes moot once the other related proceedings have already concluded: genuine grievances about trial delay or procedure must be backed by specific, demonstrable facts, not just repeated litigation.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8403
Anticipatory bail can be granted even in matrimonial cases involving serious sexual-offence allegations where there is unexplained delay in reporting, no evidence substantiating the need for custodial interrogation, and the investigating agency's own conduct (e.g., undocumented "verbal" notices) fails to justify arrest, though this is assessed only for bail purposes, not as a finding on guilt.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8407
In family property disputes, signing a Relinquishment Deed acknowledging receipt of consideration, and then waiting years without challenging it or pursuing your claimed share, will make it very difficult to later prove you were never actually paid; courts expect contemporaneous action (a legal notice, a suit) and corroborating evidence, not delayed assertions alone.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8401
A tenant who claims to have paid a large sum toward an informal "mortgage" or side arrangement must be able to prove it with solid evidence (receipts, corroborating witnesses): bare assertions, especially when contradicted by one's own family members under cross-examination, will not defeat a landlord's claim for rent and possession.
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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.
IL&FS had given a Rs. 30 crore term loan to Adhunik Meghalaya Steels in 2015, secured by a pledge of shares. The borrower's account was declared a Non-Performing Asset on 1 March 2018. IL&FS filed an insolvency application (Section 7 of the IBC) against the company only in January 2024, arguing that entries in the company's own audited Balance Sheet for 2019-20 amounted to a fresh "acknowledgment of debt" that restarted the limitation clock. Both the NCLT and NCLAT rejected the application as time-barred, partly because the Balance Sheet did not name IL&FS specifically.
The Supreme Court held that a company's Balance Sheet entries can count as a valid acknowledgment of debt even without naming the specific creditor, so long as the entry, read together with earlier years' balance sheets and the cash-flow statement, clearly shows a continuing, unpaid liability. Tracing the borrowing figures across the 2015-16 through 2019-20 balance sheets, the Court found the same secured loan reflected throughout, which was enough to renew the limitation period from the date the 2019-20 Balance Sheet was signed (12 August 2020). Applying the Supreme Court's own COVID-19 limitation-extension order, the period from 15 March 2020 to 28 February 2022 was excluded entirely, meaning limitation ran until 28 February 2025, well after the January 2024 filing. The NCLAT and NCLT orders were set aside and the case sent back to be decided on merits.
A company cannot escape old debts just because its balance sheet does not spell out a specific creditor's name. Courts will look at the full financial picture across years to see if a debt is being implicitly acknowledged, and India's COVID-era limitation extension can meaningfully revive claims that would otherwise appear time-barred.
