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.
Land Acquisition Appeal · 2026:DHC:8039
Deadlines for filing appeals matter, and courts are unlikely to excuse very long, poorly-explained delays. A litigant who accepts a particular valuation or benchmark at the trial stage, without presenting evidence to the contrary, will generally not be allowed to seek a better outcome later on appeal.
Civil Miscellaneous (Main) Petition · 2026:DHC:8010
Even a short delay in responding to a summary suit can nearly cost a person their right to defend themselves in court. Even so, courts will usually give a genuine, honestly-explained short delay the benefit of the doubt rather than shutting the door entirely, especially when doing so avoids a decree being passed without a hearing on the actual merits.
Criminal Appeal · 2026:DHC:7989-DB
A conviction cannot rest on the "last seen together" circumstance alone, however suspicious it looks. The prosecution must build a complete, gap-free chain of evidence that leaves no reasonable possibility of innocence, and any genuine doubt must benefit the accused, not the prosecution.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:8044
An employer, including a government body, cannot dismiss even a daily-wage or temporary worker as punishment for alleged wrongdoing without first giving them a fair, formal inquiry with a real chance to defend themselves; skipping that step can make the termination illegal regardless of how the employer labels it.
Regular Second Appeal · 2026:DHC:8003
When a special law like the Electricity Act sets up its own dedicated authority to resolve a particular type of dispute (here, compensation for unauthorised power lines), ordinary civil courts generally cannot step in even if the other side's conduct was clearly improper. The aggrieved person must go to that specific authority (District Magistrate/Police Commissioner) instead, and must also be ready to prove the actual amount of loss suffered, not just assert a claim.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8047
A long gap between a person's death and a Will being taken to court for probate is not automatically suspicious if there's a reasonable family explanation for it; and a party who repeatedly fails to use the opportunities a court gives them to produce evidence cannot expect a second chance for the same evidence at the appeal stage.
Criminal Miscellaneous Case · 2026:DHC:8035
Where a genuine compromise is reached in a case involving non-serious, personal-dispute offences, courts can quash the FIR to spare both sides a lengthy trial, but only after the judge is personally satisfied that the settlement is voluntary and genuine, not merely on paper.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:7977-DB
Being investigated twice over GST credit from the same supplier is not automatically illegal. The "same subject matter" protection only kicks in when both proceedings target the exact same contravention, so a genuine fraud probe can run independently of an earlier routine tax assessment.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8014
In Indian property law, being physically absent from a jointly-inherited property does not by itself strip a family co-owner of their rightful share. The other occupants must prove they treated the absent owner as clearly and knowingly excluded, not just that they lived there without them.
Legal Case Shots is built to help you quickly identify and understand relevant precedent. For citation in pleadings or filings, always verify against the full judgment PDF and current citation format (e.g., 2026 INSC ___).
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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.
CONMT.PET.(C) No.-000629 - 2023
JSW Steel (successor to the insolvent Monnet Ispat and Energy Ltd. after a Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process) had its resolution plan approved by the NCLT in 2018. The Supreme Court's earlier judgment in Ghanshyam Mishra & Sons v. Edelweiss ARC (2021) held that once a resolution plan is approved, all claims not included in it, including government tax dues, stand permanently extinguished. Despite this, Chhattisgarh commercial tax officials issued fresh demand notices on JSW Steel in 2021-22 for sales tax, entry tax and Central tax dating to a period before the plan's approval, even after being shown the Ghanshyam Mishra ruling. JSW Steel filed this contempt petition alleging wilful disobedience of the Supreme Court's judgment.
The Court held that the tax officials' continued recovery proceedings, pursued even after the Ghanshyam Mishra judgment was specifically brought to their notice, were contemptuous in nature. It distinguished the facts from State Tax Officer v. Rainbow Papers Ltd. (where a claim had actually been raised before the Committee of Creditors and ignored): here, the State of Chhattisgarh had not raised any claim during the resolution process at all, so JSW Steel's case fell squarely within Ghanshyam Mishra. However, since this was among the first cases testing the Ghanshyam Mishra ruling and the officials had tendered an unconditional apology, the Court chose not to proceed against them personally. It quashed and set aside the demand notices and all consequent proceedings, and closed the contempt petition on acceptance of the apology.
A Supreme Court ruling that extinguishes dues under an approved insolvency resolution plan binds all creditors, including government tax departments, even those who never participated in the resolution process, continuing to pursue such dues after being shown the ruling risks contempt, though courts may show leniency for early, good-faith missteps following a landmark judgment.
