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.
This batch of 34 appeals from High Courts across several states (Karnataka, Rajasthan, Allahabad, Madhya Pradesh, Bombay, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat) arose from a common question referred by a two-judge bench to a larger bench: when a car dealer replaces a defective part under the manufacturer's warranty using a part from its own stock, and the manufacturer compensates the dealer by issuing a "credit note" (rather than cash) for the value of that part, is that credit-note transaction a "sale" attracting sales tax? The reference doubted the correctness of the Court's earlier ruling in Mohd. Ekram Khan & Sons v. CTT (2004), which had held such credit notes were taxable consideration, and asked whether that view needed reconsideration given that customers do not pay anything extra for warranty-replaced parts and the manufacturer had already paid tax when originally selling the car and its spare-parts inventory.
The Court held that when a dealer replaces a defective part using stock it purchased and paid tax on, and the manufacturer later reimburses the dealer via a credit note, this constitutes valid "consideration" under Section 2(d) of the Indian Contract Act: the manufacturer (promisor) recompenses the dealer (promisee) for conferring a benefit on the customer, and this reciprocal arrangement amounts to a sale exigible to sales tax on the credit note's value, regardless of who actually pays. However, the Court clarified that Mohd. Ekram Khan does not apply where the dealer merely receives a spare part directly from the manufacturer to install as replacement (i.e., no separate purchase and no independent transfer of property by the dealer from its own stock), in that scenario, any payment to the dealer is only a service fee under the dealership arrangement, not a sale. On this clarified understanding, the Court upheld Mohd. Ekram Khan and affirmed the overruling of the contrary High Court decisions in Prem Motors and Geo Motors. Applying this to the batch, dealers' appeals were dismissed and the tax departments' appeals were allowed.
Whether a warranty-related credit note attracts sales tax turns on the precise mechanics of the transaction. If a dealer supplies a replacement part out of its own purchased stock and is later reimbursed by the manufacturer through a credit note, that reimbursement counts as taxable "sale consideration," but if the manufacturer directly supplies the replacement part for the dealer to merely install, no separate taxable sale arises.
