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.
Investors (collectively "Kotak India Venture") had invested in Indus Biotech Private Limited through optionally convertible redeemable preference shares (OCRPS) under share subscription agreements. A dispute arose over the formula for converting these preference shares into equity shares before the company's planned public offering: the investors claimed about 30% of paid-up capital while the company offered about 10%. The investors treated the redemption amount as an unpaid debt and filed a Section 7 insolvency petition before the NCLT to trigger a corporate insolvency resolution process, while the company applied under Section 8 of the Arbitration Act to have the dispute referred to arbitration instead. The NCLT allowed the arbitration request and dismissed the insolvency petition, and separately the company also approached the Supreme Court directly under Section 11 of the Arbitration Act to get an Arbitral Tribunal constituted.
The Supreme Court held that once a financial creditor's Section 7 insolvency application is found by the NCLT to disclose no actual debt and default, the insolvency petition must be dismissed on that finding alone, and the NCLT need not additionally decide a Section 8 application for reference to arbitration in that same order: the NCLT's own finding of "no default" was itself sufficient to dismiss the insolvency case, which the Court treated as having reached the correct result even though its reasoning path (allowing the Section 8 application) was not strictly necessary. Since the conversion formula dispute was genuinely unresolved and no determined amount was shown to be due and unpaid, it was premature to treat anything as a "default" for insolvency purposes. Because the NCLT proceedings had ended, arbitration was the only remaining remedy, so the Court constituted a three-member Arbitral Tribunal (headed by a former Chief Justice of India as the mutually-worked-out arrangement) to resolve the share-conversion dispute, while leaving all merits of that dispute to the Tribunal. The connected civil appeal challenging the NCLT's order was dismissed, and the arbitration petition was allowed.
A company's genuine, unresolved dispute over how much it actually owes (such as a share-conversion formula) is not automatically a "debt in default" that can trigger insolvency proceedings, only once a clear, undisputed and quantified sum remains unpaid does default under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code arise, and until then a contractual arbitration clause remains the proper route to resolve the underlying dispute.
