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.
Two sets of small-business suppliers, Silpi Industries, which supplied thread rubber to the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, and Khyaati Engineering, which contracted with a hydro power company, sought to invoke the special payment and arbitration protections available to small enterprises under the MSMED Act, 2006, including its Section 18 arbitration mechanism and interest on delayed payments. In both cases, the suppliers had registered themselves as "micro" or "small" enterprises under Section 8 of the Act only after they had already entered into the relevant contracts and supplied the goods.
The Supreme Court held that to claim the benefits of the MSMED Act, a supplier must already be registered as a micro or small enterprise on the date it enters into the contract: registration obtained afterward, even if before the dispute arose, cannot be applied retrospectively to cover an earlier transaction. Since both sets of appellants had registered only after concluding their contracts and supplies, they could not invoke the Act's special arbitration and interest provisions for those transactions, and their appeals were dismissed, upholding the High Courts' orders that had allowed the matters to proceed to ordinary arbitration instead.
A small business must register under the MSMED Act before entering into a contract (not merely before a dispute arises) in order to claim that Act's fast-track payment and arbitration protections for that particular transaction.
