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 1066
Courts will not infer a concluded oral contract for the sale of immovable property just because the other side's witnesses seemed evasive: the party seeking specific performance must independently and affirmatively prove every essential term was genuinely agreed.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1065
Even in serious, high-value corruption cases, prolonged pre-trial detention cannot be used as a substitute for punishment when the trial is unlikely to conclude soon and the evidence is already secured: bail remains the touchstone principle under Article 21's personal liberty protection.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1067
Preventive detention cannot be used as a backdoor way to keep someone in custody once the ordinary criminal process, including bail, has already run its course on the same facts; the detaining authority must show a genuine, independent risk of future harm, not just recycle the criminal case file.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1068
In land acquisition disputes, courts will readily restore a uniform, fair market rate across similarly-situated parcels, but ancillary compensation heads (like moveable equipment such as tubewells) still require the claimant to prove their case with admissible evidence, not private reports whose authors were never examined in court.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8447
If you are injured while genuinely trying to board or exit a train, you are very likely covered under railway "untoward incident" compensation law, even if you technically hadn't fully boarded yet: courts read this protection broadly in favour of passengers, and contemporaneous official records (station logs, police diary entries) carry more weight than a statement taken from you much later.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8404
Courts will not entertain vague, unsubstantiated allegations of judicial bias, and a request to combine cases becomes moot once the other related proceedings have already concluded: genuine grievances about trial delay or procedure must be backed by specific, demonstrable facts, not just repeated litigation.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8403
Anticipatory bail can be granted even in matrimonial cases involving serious sexual-offence allegations where there is unexplained delay in reporting, no evidence substantiating the need for custodial interrogation, and the investigating agency's own conduct (e.g., undocumented "verbal" notices) fails to justify arrest, though this is assessed only for bail purposes, not as a finding on guilt.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8407
In family property disputes, signing a Relinquishment Deed acknowledging receipt of consideration, and then waiting years without challenging it or pursuing your claimed share, will make it very difficult to later prove you were never actually paid; courts expect contemporaneous action (a legal notice, a suit) and corroborating evidence, not delayed assertions alone.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8401
A tenant who claims to have paid a large sum toward an informal "mortgage" or side arrangement must be able to prove it with solid evidence (receipts, corroborating witnesses): bare assertions, especially when contradicted by one's own family members under cross-examination, will not defeat a landlord's claim for rent and possession.
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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.
IL&FS Tamil Nadu Power Company obtained an Environmental Clearance in 2010 to build a large imported-coal thermal power plant (planned at 3600 MW) in Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu. Local fishermen and their representatives challenged the EC. In May 2012 the NGT upheld the EC but suspended it until the Environment Ministry reviewed it in light of a cumulative impact study; the company did a "rapid" cumulative impact study instead, and in August 2012 the Ministry issued a corrigendum adding extra conditions, including installing a flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) system. The fishermen appealed again, and in November 2014 the NGT quashed that corrigendum. The company appealed to the Supreme Court, which stayed the NGT order in 2015; two 600 MW units have been operating since 2015-16, supplying power to around 40 lakh households.
The Supreme Court declined to shut the plant, holding that closing units that have run for years in a power-deficit State and serve 40 lakh households would harm the larger public interest. However, it made continued operation strictly conditional: the company must comply with every condition of the original EC and of the 2012 corrigendum, and must fully comply within the timelines it itself proposed for the conditions that were only partly met (the latest compliance report showed substantial compliance and no fundamental breaches, and the company had spent about Rs. 775 crore on the FGD system). The Court deliberately left open the larger legal question of whether a full cumulative impact assessment is compulsory for projects like this, to be decided in a future case. On the procedural question, it held that an aggrieved person can appeal to the NGT against a corrigendum to an EC, but where the original EC is not under challenge (or has already been upheld), that appeal is confined to the additional conditions only. The Court directed that this order is not to be cited as a precedent.
Once a large project is up and running, courts weigh the public cost of shutting it down heavily, but they will make continued operation conditional on strict, time-bound environmental compliance. Communities affected by a project retain the right to challenge later modifications to an environmental clearance, but only on the new conditions if the original clearance has already been settled.
