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 1056
In railway accident compensation claims, a victim's family does not have to produce the physical train ticket to prove bona fide travel. A sworn statement explaining its loss is enough to shift the burden onto the Railways, and any delay by the Railways in conducting its own mandatory investigation cannot be used against the claimants.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1055
In a bareboat charter with a clause designating the charterer a mere "gratuitous bailee" after termination, a validly served termination notice ends the charterer's status immediately. Physical handover of the vessel is just the mechanical follow-through, not a condition for the termination to take legal effect; this matters directly for maritime creditors deciding whom, and which vessel, to target for arrest.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1054
A court cannot pick and choose parts of a witness's testimony to convict on one charge while rejecting the same testimony to acquit on a closely related charge arising from the same facts. If the witness's account is unreliable for one charge, that unreliability cannot simply be set aside for a more serious, connected charge.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1050
Even in the gravest crimes, a death sentence cannot be sustained unless the prosecution affirmatively rules out the possibility of the offender's reform and shows that no lesser punishment (including life imprisonment without remission) would meet the ends of justice, and courts must give the accused a genuine, separate hearing on sentence with full background material, not decide punishment on the same day as conviction.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1057
When commercial parties in an arbitration-bound contract are willing to agree on a sole arbitrator, courts will readily facilitate that agreement and let the arbitral tribunal itself take over interim relief, rather than continuing to litigate stay applications through multiple court levels.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1047
In government/paramilitary service disputes over wrongful dismissal, what matters under Article 311 is the officer who actually issued the final, unconditional appointment order (not a preliminary conditional call-letter or offer), and courts will read the specific service rules to see which ranks are legally empowered to both appoint and discipline an employee. A call for training is not the same as an appointment.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1048
A trial court cannot order that a convict "remain in prison for the rest of their natural life" without any possibility of remission, only the Supreme Court or a High Court can impose such a sentence, and even then only in appropriately grave cases, after weighing both the brutality of the crime and factors like time already served and conduct in custody.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1049
A criminal complaint under a special protective law like POCSO is not automatically true merely because it was registered; courts must carefully scrutinise such allegations, especially when they surface during an acrimonious custody battle, since false accusations of this kind cause lasting damage both to the falsely accused parent and to the child caught in the middle.
Civil Appeal (Interim Order) · 2026 INSC 1043
There is no final ruling yet. The present custody arrangement is temporary, and the case is still pending.
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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.
Civil Appeal Nos. 10900-10902 of 2025
NOIDA allotted a commercial plot to a developer in 2012 for a large sale consideration, promising access via a 45-metre "Front Road" and a 24-metre "Side Road" as per the sanctioned site plan. The 45-metre road was never built because it ran over encroached, unacquired inhabited land, and the 24-metre road wasn't completed until 2020. The developer sought the benefit of NOIDA's "Zero Period Policy" (which pauses lease-rental instalments when access is unavailable), but NOIDA repeatedly refused despite its own Tehsildar, a revenue authority (UPRERA), and the State Government's revisional orders confirming the access road was genuinely blocked.
The Supreme Court held that policy clauses like the Zero Period Policy must be interpreted purposively, not like a rigid statute, and that its purpose was to ensure a developer has "easy, effective, and legitimate" access to build, not to be defeated merely because some partial or difficult access technically existed. Given five separate official reports and orders all confirming the 45-metre Front Road was never actually provided, NOIDA's persistent refusal to extend Zero Period benefits and to sanction a revised site plan (treating the 24-metre road as the new frontage) was unreasonable and untenable. The Court dismissed NOIDA's appeals and upheld the Allahabad High Court's judgment directing the Zero Period benefit and approval of the revised plan, recording the developer's undertaking to complete the project within four years.
A public development authority cannot enforce strict contractual timelines and demand full payment from an allottee while itself failing to deliver the promised infrastructure (like access roads). Official reports confirming non-performance by the authority carry decisive weight, and relief policies meant to protect developers from such default must be applied purposively rather than technically.
