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.
A shop in Bombay was let out in 1971, with rent receipts issued in the name of the first appellant (who was then a five-year-old child, allegedly for astrological reasons), while his father (the second appellant) actually ran a bookshop there as "Chetna Book Store." Over the years, the business was intermittently replaced by a garment shop and then a fast-food outlet, before the father returned to the book business. The landlady (later her legal heirs) sued for eviction on three grounds: illegal subletting, nuisance from the food business, and non-user of the premises for six continuous months before the 2006 suit (as required under Section 16(1)(n) of the Act). The Trial Court dismissed the suit, but the Appellate Bench of the Small Causes Court reversed it and decreed eviction on all three grounds, a decision the Bombay High Court upheld in revision.
The Supreme Court disagreed with the lower courts on two of the three grounds. On nuisance, it found the evidence (mainly the testimony of the landlady's son, who did not even reside in the building) too thin to justify eviction on this serious ground. On subletting, it found the case pleaded in the suit (subletting to a stranger named Raja) was different from what the Appellate Court actually found (subletting between father and son), and held eviction could not be sustained on a ground that was never properly pleaded or proved. However, on non-user, the Court examined the shop-registration certificates under the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act and found no valid registration existed for the premises during 2006, the crucial period, meaning the appellants could not have lawfully run any business there, corroborating the finding that the shop had genuinely been non-functional for the required six-month period. Since two courts below had concurrently found non-user established, and the Supreme Court's own review of the registration record supported it, the Court declined to interfere and dismissed the appeal, meaning the eviction stands (but only on the non-user ground).
A tenant can be evicted under rent laws for genuinely leaving rented commercial premises unused without reasonable cause for the statutory period, and courts will treat an absence of a valid shop-registration during that period as strong corroborating evidence of non-use, even where other eviction grounds raised by the landlord (like nuisance or subletting) fail for want of properly pleaded or convincing proof.
