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.
Between 1999 and 2001, ONGC hired around 800 people on 4-year term contracts through the Employment Exchange, following interviews but without a public newspaper advertisement. After their terms ended, the employees' union demanded regular (permanent) appointment for 577 of these term-based workers. An Industrial Tribunal partly allowed the claim in 2011, and the Gujarat High Court later directed that eligible workers be treated as regular employees from 24 January 2005 (when their four-year terms expired), with only "notional" (not actual, backdated) pay benefits before 1 April 2013. The workers' union argued they deserved actual back-pay benefits from a much earlier date: their original appointment or probation completion.
The Supreme Court held that the workers' entitlement to be treated as regular employees should run not from the end of their 4-year terms (2005) but from 21 December 2004, the date the Central Government formally referred the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal, since that was when the employees collectively and promptly asserted their claim, and the ensuing years of litigation delay should not count against them. The Court distinguished contrary precedents cited by ONGC, noting those cases either involved materially different facts (no genuine recruitment process followed) or long, unexplained delay by employees in raising their claim, which didn't apply here since this group acted immediately after their terms ended. The appeal was allowed to the extent of advancing the date for actual (not merely notional) benefits to 21 December 2004.
When term-based or contractual workers are irregularly (but not illegally) appointed through a genuine selection process, and they promptly raise a claim for regularisation once their initial term is up, courts may backdate their regular service and actual pay benefits to the date the claim was first formally raised: delay caused by the legal process itself should not be held against diligent claimants.
