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.
Sonali Power Equipments, a small-scale industrial supplier, had supplied transformers to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board between 1993 and 2004 and, after payment delays, filed claims before the statutory Facilitation Council in 2005-06. The Council awarded them interest on the delayed payments in 2010, but the Electricity Board challenged this in arbitration proceedings, and a Commercial Court set aside the award as time-barred. On appeal, a full bench of the Bombay High Court held that the Facilitation Council could not entertain time-barred claims at all, neither for conciliation nor arbitration, prompting this further appeal.
The Supreme Court drew a distinction the High Court had missed: conciliation under Section 18(2) of the MSMED Act and arbitration under Section 18(3) are different processes with different legal consequences. It held that the Limitation Act does not apply to conciliation, since the expiry of a limitation period only bars the remedy (a court action) but does not extinguish the underlying right to be paid: parties remain free to settle even a "time-barred" debt through conciliation. However, the Limitation Act does apply once a dispute proceeds to formal arbitration under Section 18(3), because arbitration functions as an adjudicatory process akin to a civil suit and the MSMED Act's own scheme (not the general Arbitration and Conciliation Act) governs this outcome. The Court therefore partly allowed the appeal, setting aside the High Court's ruling only insofar as it barred conciliation of old claims, while upholding the High Court on the point that arbitration claims remain subject to limitation.
A small business owed old dues by a large buyer is not shut out of every remedy just because the limitation period for a lawsuit has passed: conciliation before the statutory MSME Facilitation Council remains open even for stale claims, though pursuing formal arbitration (and eventually enforcing an award through the courts) still requires acting within the limitation period.
