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.
The dispute concerned how to calculate the tax deduction available under Section 80HH of the Income Tax Act, 1961 for industrial undertakings in backward areas: specifically, whether the 20% deduction should be computed on gross "profits and gains" or on the lower net "income" figure after deducting depreciation and investment allowance. An earlier two-judge Supreme Court decision, Motilal Pesticides vs. CIT, had favoured the Revenue Department's narrower (net-income) interpretation, and the Allahabad High Court had followed it to rule against the assessee. A later Division Bench doubted the correctness of Motilal Pesticides and referred the question to a larger bench, resulting in this judgment.
The three-judge bench examined the statutory language of Section 80HH and contrasted it with other deduction provisions (like Section 80M) that use the different phrase "any income." It found that Motilal Pesticides had wrongly treated the language of Section 80HH as identical to that of Section 80M, when the two provisions are conceptually and textually distinct. Because Section 80HH specifically grants the deduction on "profits and gains" (not "income"), and because Section 80AB, which would have required netting against income, did not come into force until a later assessment year, the Court held that assessees were entitled to the 20% deduction on gross profits and gains. It expressly overruled Motilal Pesticides and allowed all the connected appeals.
When two provisions of a tax statute use different wording, courts will give that difference real legal effect rather than assuming they operate identically: a precedent that blurs the distinction between "income" and "profits and gains" in the Income Tax Act can itself be overruled by a larger bench.
