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 moreIn 1989, landowners signed consent forms agreeing to hand over their land to the Gujarat government for a fixed price, with most columns of the forms left blank and a large share of the compensation paid upfront. However, the government did not formally issue the required land-acquisition notification until 1996, seven years later, and only then passed "consent awards" in 1997 based on the old, blank 1989 forms, without paying the full balance. The landowners argued the consent forms had been obtained unfairly and sought a court-ordered reference to determine fresh, fair compensation at 1996-97 land values; the reference court agreed and enhanced the compensation, but the High Court set that aside, holding no such reference was legally permissible once a consent award existed.
The Supreme Court restored the reference court's enhanced compensation and set aside the High Court's judgment, holding that the seven-year delay between the 1989 consent forms and the 1996-97 formal acquisition made it fundamentally unfair to bind the landowners to 1989-era pricing. It noted the landowners had themselves sought a reference back in 1995 (even before the formal consent awards were passed), showing they never truly accepted the stale 1989 terms, and that leaving columns blank on the forms meant they could not have anticipated or agreed to events years later. The Court held that compensation must reflect the value prevailing at the time of the actual Section 4 notification (1996), not the outdated 1989 figure the government tried to enforce through recycled paperwork, and ordered any unpaid balance plus costs to be paid within three months.
A landowner's old consent to an acquisition price cannot be stretched across many years of government delay and then enforced at the stale original rate: if the state takes years to formally act on an agreement, fairness requires compensation to track current values, not the value frozen at the time of the original, possibly incomplete, paperwork.
