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 1094
An older qualification must still satisfy the eligibility rules governing the appointment sought. Here, the certificate's early date did not secure reinstatement, and rejection of eligibility should not be confused with a conclusive finding that the certificate was forged.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1095
A party benefiting from a conditional stay must meet its deposit requirement or face enforcement. The additional ₹15 crore deposit secures the pending dispute; it does not settle the land's final compensation or amount to an immediate payment to the landowners.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1093
An alleged attempt to kill does not become a lesser offence simply because the victim avoided a fatal injury. Restoring this charge means the accusation must be tried; it does not establish that the accused is guilty.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1090
For the assessment in this case, assistance reducing ordinary manufacturing costs was taxable even though the government wanted to encourage industry. The purpose and actual operation of the particular subsidy mattered more than its general development label.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1091
Proof that someone caused a serious injury does not by itself prove the additional ingredients of robbery. A court can substitute a lesser offence supported by the evidence; the sentencing reduction here depended on Appa's particular circumstances.
Special Leave Petition (Civil) · 2026 INSC 1092
Someone challenging an election must ensure that the personal-presentation requirement is met and can be proved. Merely entering the court building does not establish compliance, and a filing defect can end the challenge before the election allegations are examined.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1088
An employee who retires on 30 June may be entitled to the increment that falls due on 1 July after completing a year of service. Authorities that delay paying the amounts due must pay interest after the deadline set by the court.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1089
Recruitment must follow the qualifications stated in the advertisement and the governing Recruitment Rules. A court will not override a merit-based eligibility decision made under those rules merely because the candidate concerned was higher in the written test.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8797
A person who occupied property only because of employment has no independent right to remain once the employment and decree end. Even when a petition fails, courts can make practical arrangements to let a person recover personal belongings.
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Log in to see moreThe appellants were convicted by a Fast Track Court in Salem, Tamil Nadu, and that conviction was upheld by the Madras High Court, for the murder of a taxi driver, John Bosco, and his friend Madhan in 2008, allegedly to rob a vehicle. The prosecution's case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence: the "last seen together" theory, recoveries of a mobile phone and a camera said to belong to the deceased, and confessional statements made by the accused to the police leading to those recoveries.
The Supreme Court found that the lower courts had wrongly relied on portions of the accused's custodial statements that amounted to confessions (inadmissible under Section 26 of the Evidence Act) rather than only the narrow part admissible under Section 27 as leading to discovery of a new fact. It further found that the prosecution had failed to actually prove that the recovered mobile phone and camera belonged to the deceased, and that other recovered items (a different phone and a motorbike) had no proven connection to the crime at all. With these links removed, the chain of circumstantial evidence was incomplete and did not exclude every hypothesis other than the guilt of the accused. The Court therefore set aside the conviction and acquitted the appellants, ordering their release if not wanted in any other case.
A conviction based purely on circumstantial evidence can stand only if every link in the chain is independently and reliably proved and the chain as a whole points unerringly to guilt with no other reasonable explanation; gaps in proving recovered items actually belong to the victim, or over-reliance on inadmissible parts of a custodial confession, can be fatal to the prosecution's case.
