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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Journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru in 2017. Her sister, Kavitha Lankesh, lodged the FIR, and investigation revealed an alleged organised-crime syndicate behind the murder, leading police to seek and obtain prior approval to invoke the Karnataka Control of Organised Crimes Act (KCOCA) against the accused, including one Mohan Nayak.N. After the final chargesheet was filed and the trial court had taken cognizance, Mohan Nayak.N challenged the police approval and chargesheet in a writ petition, and the Karnataka High Court partly allowed his petition, quashing both the approval and the KCOCA charges against him. The complainant (Kavitha Lankesh) and the State of Karnataka appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court allowed the appeals and set aside the High Court's judgment, holding that the High Court had asked itself the wrong legal question, whether KCOCA applied to the specific accused, when the only issue at that stage was whether the Commissioner of Police's prior approval for registering an organised-crime offence was validly granted on the material available. The Court clarified that such prior approval under Section 24(1)(a) of KCOCA concerns the offence (commission of organised crime by a syndicate), not the individual offender's specific role, and that the requirement of two prior chargesheets applies only to the primary offence under Section 3(1), not to abettors or facilitators under Section 3(2)-(4). Since the writ petition was filed only after sanction and cognizance had already been granted, and since the High Court had exceeded its jurisdiction by examining chargesheet merits not before it, the Court restored the KCOCA proceedings and dismissed the writ petition, while leaving Mohan Nayak.N free to pursue other lawful remedies.
Courts reviewing a police officer's "prior approval" to invoke an organised-crime law should examine only whether there was credible material of an organised-crime offence at that stage, not pre-judge an individual accused's guilt or substitute their own assessment for a competent court that has already taken cognizance based on a full chargesheet.
