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 moreThe State of Haryana acquired about 229 acres of land at Hansi for a residential-cum-commercial development in 2005. The Reference Court enhanced compensation to about Rs.48,40,000 per acre, and the High Court enhanced it further to roughly Rs.2,01,97,320 per acre, basing its calculation almost entirely on a 10-year-old Supreme Court decision (Smt. Ashrafi vs. State of Haryana) concerning a small, nearby commercial plot acquired back in 1995, while largely ignoring a set of contemporaneous sale deeds that the State had placed on record. Both the landowners and the State appealed to the Supreme Court, each unhappy with different aspects of the compensation fixed.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court erred by relying almost solely on the decade-old Ashrafi acquisition, which involved a much smaller, differently-purposed plot, as a yardstick for annual escalation, especially since precedent cautions that relying on sale instances/acquisitions more than about four to five years old is generally unsafe. It further held that the High Court failed to properly consider the sale deeds produced by the State, which were directly relevant and could not simply be disregarded without reasons. Because the compensation exercise was not properly grounded in the actual evidence on record, the Court set aside the High Court's judgment and remitted the matter back to the High Court to redetermine compensation afresh on the existing evidence, disposing of all the appeals before it (including both the landowners' and the State's cross-appeals) and directing the High Court to decide the matter as early as possible.
In land acquisition compensation disputes, courts cannot lean on an old, dissimilar comparable sale/acquisition (especially one from a decade or more earlier) while brushing aside more recent and directly relevant sale-deed evidence actually placed on record by the parties: compensation must be grounded in the real evidence specific to each case.
