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.
Medipol supplied a batch of Clotrimazole antifungal cream to PGI Chandigarh under a government supply order. A sample drawn by a drug inspector nearly two years after supply, and tested close to the product's expiry date, came back showing only 61.96% of the required active ingredient strength (against a required 95-105%). Based largely on this one report, Medipol was blacklisted for two years, even though an appellate laboratory later retested a sample (received after the product's shelf life had already expired) and found it at 92.01%: much closer to standard. The Punjab & Haryana High Court upheld the blacklisting, reasoning the appellate figure was still about 3% short of standard.
The Supreme Court held that the authorities' own delays, nearly two years between supply and sample collection, and later sending the appellate sample for testing only after the product's shelf life had expired, deprived Medipol of a fair, timely test, a "valuable right" recognised in a long line of precedent under similar drug/food/insecticide laws. The seven-member committee's post-decisional hearing was an "eyewash" because it ignored the far more favourable appellate report and relied solely on the flawed first report. The High Court also erred by independently assessing the lab reports itself instead of simply checking whether the blacklisting decision was legally sound. The blacklisting order and the High Court's judgment were both set aside.
When a product or sample must be tested within a time limit (like a shelf life), unreasonable delay by the authorities in testing, especially delay that itself causes an unfavourable result, can make the test results legally unreliable, and a business cannot be punished (such as by blacklisting) based on a test that was compromised by the government's own foot-dragging.
