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 moreAhead of the 2018 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, Kamal Nath, as President of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee, filed a writ petition (along with a connected petition) seeking two main reliefs: directions for random Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) verification at 10% of polling stations, and a direction that the Election Commission of India (ECI) supply the draft electoral roll to political parties in a searchable, editable "text mode" rather than a scanned image PDF, citing the Election Commission's own Election Manual and alleging large numbers of duplicate or fake voters in the rolls.
The Supreme Court held that "text mode" in the ECI's Election Manual referred only to the content of the roll (textual elector details, as opposed to photographs) and not to a technically "searchable" file format: the ECI was not legally bound to provide a machine-searchable PDF. It accepted the ECI's explanation that providing only image-based PDFs was a deliberate privacy safeguard against voter data-mining and profiling, consistent with the recognised right to privacy. On VVPAT verification, the Court noted this exact relief had already been addressed in an earlier case (Prakash Joshi v. Election Commission of India) and declined to grant fresh directions. Both writ petitions were dismissed.
Wording in an administrative manual, here, "text mode", will be interpreted by courts according to its plain, intended meaning, not stretched to grant a broader right than the words support; and the Election Commission's privacy-based justifications for its data-sharing format were accepted as reasonable in balancing transparency against voter privacy.
