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.
Homebuyers and other creditors challenged the constitutional validity of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act, 2020, which introduced a minimum-threshold requirement, at least 100 allottees/creditors in a class, or 10% of the total, whichever is lower, before such creditors could jointly file an application to start insolvency proceedings against a builder or company. The amendment also required pending applications that did not meet this threshold to be treated as withdrawn unless refiled in compliance within 30 days, and added Section 32A, which shields a company (and its new owners) from prosecution and attachment of its property for offences committed by the previous management once a resolution plan is approved. Petitioners argued these changes were arbitrary, retrospectively took away vested rights, and made it practically impossible for individual homebuyers to seek relief.
The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of all three challenged provisions: the threshold requirement for financial creditors and real-estate allottees, the "deemed withdrawal" of non-compliant pending applications, and the immunity under Section 32A for a clean successor company and its new management. The Court reasoned that the threshold was meant to filter out frivolous individual petitions in cases involving thousands of similarly placed creditors and to protect the insolvency process from being misused as a pressure tactic, and found the 30-day compliance period, while tight, not "manifestly arbitrary." However, exercising its special powers under Article 142, the Court softened the blow for petitioners already before it: it allowed them two months to refile compliant applications without paying fresh court fees and directed that the time already spent on their earlier applications be excluded (condoned) for limitation purposes.
Homebuyers and small creditors generally cannot individually trigger insolvency proceedings against a builder/company anymore: they must come together with a minimum number of similarly placed creditors; and once a company's ownership and management genuinely change under an approved resolution plan, the company (though not the individuals responsible) is shielded from being prosecuted for the previous owners' wrongdoing.
