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.
IL&FS had a letter of undertaking from La-Fin Financial Services (a group company of MCX) to buy back certain shares, which La-Fin refused to honour in August 2012, leading IL&FS to sue for specific performance/damages in the Bombay High Court. In 2016, IL&FS separately filed a winding-up petition against La-Fin, which, after the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code came into force, got automatically converted into an insolvency application before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which admitted it in 2018; the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) upheld that admission, holding the claim was not time-barred because it was filed within three years of the Code itself coming into force. La-Fin's shareholders, Jignesh Shah and Pushpa Shah, challenged this before the Supreme Court, arguing the claim was barred by limitation long before the Code even existed.
The Supreme Court held that the general law of limitation (the three-year period under Article 137 of the Limitation Act) applies to insolvency applications under Section 7 of the Code, and that this period runs from the actual date of default, here, August 2012, when La-Fin refused to honour its undertaking, not from the date the Code came into force. Since the winding-up petition (later treated as the Section 7 application) was filed only in October 2016, more than three years after the date of default stated in IL&FS's own filings, the claim was already time-barred and could not be revived simply because the Code had come into existence in the meantime. The Court therefore allowed the connected civil appeal, set aside the NCLAT and NCLT orders, and held the proceedings could not continue as they were filed beyond the limitation period.
A creditor cannot use the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to revive a monetary claim that was already time-barred under ordinary limitation law before the Code came into force: the three-year limitation clock starts running from the actual date of default, not from whenever a new law creating a fresh remedy happens to be enacted.
