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.
A jute mill, after being repeatedly closed and reopened, shut down permanently in 2014. A registered trade union representing roughly 3,000 of its workers issued a demand notice under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 seeking to recover outstanding dues owed to the workers, treating itself as an "operational creditor." Both the National Company Law Tribunal and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) rejected the union's petition, holding that a trade union could not be an operational creditor and that each worker would have to file an individual claim, prompting the union's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that a registered trade union, being an entity "established under a statute" (the Trade Unions Act, 1926), qualifies as a "person" under Section 3(23) of the Code and can therefore be an operational creditor on behalf of its member-workmen, since the Trade Unions Act expressly empowers a union to sue and be sued and to spend its funds defending members' employment-related rights. The Court rejected the respondent's reliance on an income-tax precedent about the meaning of "established under a statute," distinguishing it as inapplicable to the Code's own definitional scheme, and held that requiring thousands of workers to file separate individual claims, each bearing its own insolvency-process costs, would be unduly burdensome when a single joint petition is legally permissible. The Court allowed the appeal, set aside the NCLAT's judgment, and remanded the matter to the NCLAT to decide the union's petition on its merits expeditiously.
A registered trade union can file and pursue an insolvency claim as an "operational creditor" on behalf of its member-workers collectively, so individual workers owed wages or dues by an insolvent employer do not each have to bear the cost and burden of filing separate claims.
