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 1094
An older qualification must still satisfy the eligibility rules governing the appointment sought. Here, the certificate's early date did not secure reinstatement, and rejection of eligibility should not be confused with a conclusive finding that the certificate was forged.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1095
A party benefiting from a conditional stay must meet its deposit requirement or face enforcement. The additional ₹15 crore deposit secures the pending dispute; it does not settle the land's final compensation or amount to an immediate payment to the landowners.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1093
An alleged attempt to kill does not become a lesser offence simply because the victim avoided a fatal injury. Restoring this charge means the accusation must be tried; it does not establish that the accused is guilty.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1090
For the assessment in this case, assistance reducing ordinary manufacturing costs was taxable even though the government wanted to encourage industry. The purpose and actual operation of the particular subsidy mattered more than its general development label.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1091
Proof that someone caused a serious injury does not by itself prove the additional ingredients of robbery. A court can substitute a lesser offence supported by the evidence; the sentencing reduction here depended on Appa's particular circumstances.
Special Leave Petition (Civil) · 2026 INSC 1092
Someone challenging an election must ensure that the personal-presentation requirement is met and can be proved. Merely entering the court building does not establish compliance, and a filing defect can end the challenge before the election allegations are examined.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1088
An employee who retires on 30 June may be entitled to the increment that falls due on 1 July after completing a year of service. Authorities that delay paying the amounts due must pay interest after the deadline set by the court.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1089
Recruitment must follow the qualifications stated in the advertisement and the governing Recruitment Rules. A court will not override a merit-based eligibility decision made under those rules merely because the candidate concerned was higher in the written test.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8797
A person who occupied property only because of employment has no independent right to remain once the employment and decree end. Even when a petition fails, courts can make practical arrangements to let a person recover personal belongings.
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Log in to see moreA non-resident Indian, Joseph Shine, filed a public interest writ petition challenging the constitutional validity of Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code (the offence of "adultery") and Section 198(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (the procedure for prosecuting it). Under the old law, only a man could be prosecuted for having sexual relations with another man's wife without her husband's consent, the wife could not be prosecuted even as an abettor, and the husband alone (treated effectively as the "owner" of his wife's sexuality) could bring the complaint. The petition argued this scheme was deeply discriminatory against both women and men and violated the Constitution's guarantees of equality and dignity.
All five judges agreed that Section 497 IPC was unconstitutional and struck it down, along with Section 198(2) CrPC to the extent it enabled adultery prosecutions, overruling the Court's own earlier decisions (Sowmithri Vishnu, V. Revathi, and others) that had upheld the law. The judges reasoned that the provision treated a married woman as her husband's property rather than an autonomous individual, was based on outdated gender stereotypes, violated Articles 14 (equality), 15 (non-discrimination) and 21 (dignity, privacy and personal liberty), and was "manifestly arbitrary" because it criminalized the man's conduct but not the woman's, and gave the husband alone standing to prosecute. The Court held adultery could remain a ground for divorce (a civil wrong) but should not be treated as a crime, since criminalizing private consensual conduct between adults was an unwarranted intrusion into personal autonomy and the marital domain.
A law that singles out one spouse (or one gender) for criminal punishment over private, consensual conduct, while denying the other spouse any real agency, cannot survive the Constitution's guarantees of equality and dignity: adultery may still affect a marriage and matter for divorce, but the State does not get to send anyone to jail over it.
