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.
In an earlier tenancy eviction case, the company (as tenant) argued the Small Causes Court had no jurisdiction because its paid-up share capital exceeded Rs. 1 crore, claiming it had since reduced this via a "buy-back" of shares. The Trial Court disbelieved this, and the Supreme Court dismissed the company's Special Leave Petition on this point in 2018. A respondent then filed this separate application asking the Supreme Court to initiate criminal perjury proceedings against the company, alleging it had submitted a secretly altered version of its auditor's balance sheet to the Supreme Court that was different from the one actually exhibited in the Trial Court.
Comparing the original Trial Court record against the documents filed in the Supreme Court, the Court found a genuine, unexplained handwritten alteration: the phrase "Weighted average number of Equity Shares" had been changed to "number of Equity Shares as on 1/4/07" only in the copy filed before the Supreme Court, nowhere in the original trial record. The Court explained that this changed the apparent meaning of a key financial figure in a way that happened to patch over an inconsistency the Trial Court had flagged. Finding this to be prima facie fabrication of evidence intended to mislead the Court, the Supreme Court directed its Secretary General to depute a senior court officer to file a formal criminal complaint for perjury (under Sections 193 and 199 IPC) against the company and its director before a Magistrate in Delhi, and allowed the application.
Courts cross-check documents filed before them against the original record from lower courts, and altering even a single word or phrase in a previously-exhibited document before resubmitting it to a higher court can expose a litigant and its officers to criminal perjury prosecution, regardless of the outcome of the underlying case.
