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.
The complainant in a 2011 murder FIR (in which the accused, Amarjeet Singh, had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment) challenged a Delhi High Court order that let the accused introduce fresh medical evidence about his mental state, at the appeal stage, before the trial court. The accused had already contested his mental fitness once before, and the Supreme Court had earlier (in 2015) affirmed a trial court finding that he was fit to stand trial. The High Court's 2022 order treated the question of his mental state "at the time of the incident" as a separate, still-open issue and sent the file back to the trial court for more evidence.
The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order, holding it could not be sustained for several reasons: it failed to account for the Supreme Court's own 2015 order and the evidence already on record; and, more fundamentally, an appellate court cannot decide an application for additional evidence in a criminal appeal as a routine matter or before it has heard the appeal on merits. If further evidence was genuinely needed, the High Court itself (or its registry, under specific reasons) should have taken it, not remanded wholesale to the trial court without examining the record. The Court restored Criminal Appeal No. 453/2019 to the High Court for fresh consideration on merits, without commenting on the merits itself, and continued the existing interim arrangement until the parties' next appearance.
An appellate court cannot let a party reopen settled questions of fact through open-ended "additional evidence" applications; such requests must be examined against the existing record and decided only after (or alongside) a proper hearing on the appeal's merits, not used as a shortcut to relitigate issues already concluded by a higher court.
