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 moreA private supplier, Vigyan Chemical Industries, had sold raw materials worth about Rs. 66,000 in 1985 to a company that later defaulted on loans from the Odisha State Financial Corporation (OSFC), leading OSFC to take over the defaulting company's industrial unit in 1987 under Section 29 of the State Financial Corporation Act, 1951. The supplier sued the defaulting company for its dues, and years later added OSFC as a defendant, claiming OSFC, as the entity that had taken over the defaulting unit, was liable for the debt. Over nearly four decades of litigation, courts below decreed the suit, applied a repealed interest law to compound the claim into a large sum, and ultimately allowed execution proceedings that resulted in OSFC's own bank guarantees and fixed deposits being encashed for roughly Rs. 2.93 crore.
The Supreme Court found that the trial court had never actually decided the threshold question of whether the suit was even maintainable against OSFC, despite OSFC specifically raising that objection, and had wrongly allowed a post-decree application to backdate OSFC's addition as a party to escape the limitation bar, even though a court becomes functus officio (loses power to alter its decision) once a final decree is passed, except for narrow review or correction powers. On the merits, since OSFC had no direct contract with the supplier and had only taken control of the defaulting unit as a secured creditor to recover its own dues under Section 29, its liability could only extend to money actually recovered from that unit's assets, not to OSFC's own funds or property. The Court held the entire suit against OSFC was not maintainable, set aside the decree and all execution proceedings, and, invoking Article 142 for complete justice, ordered the supplier to refund the roughly Rs. 2.93 crore it had already recovered from OSFC (without interest, but with 6% interest if not repaid within three months). The Court also strongly criticized both OSFC and the government pleaders for years of poor litigation conduct that let a state corporation be wrongly burdened with liability.
A statutory body that merely takes possession of a defaulting borrower's assets as a secured creditor is not automatically liable for that borrower's separate debts to third parties: liability in such cases is limited to money actually recovered from the defaulting concern, and courts (and government litigants) must properly raise and decide threshold questions like maintainability and limitation rather than letting decades of execution proceedings run on an unexamined decree.
