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. 143-144 of 2013 with connected Civil Appeals of 2013
The appellant, a garments exporting company, claimed a deduction under Section 80HHC of the Income Tax Act, 1961 for Assessment Years 2000-01 and 2001-02, treating premium received from the sale of export quota permits as ordinary business profit, relying on a CBDT circular that equated such premium with items like duty drawback under Section 28(iiia)-(iiic). The Assessing Officer accepted this in the original assessment, but the Commissioner of Income Tax later invoked his revisional power under Section 263, holding the assessment erroneous and prejudicial to Revenue because 90% of the quota premium should have been excluded from business profits. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ruled for the assessee, but the Delhi High Court reversed and upheld the Commissioner's revision.
The Supreme Court held that export quota premium is not income "derived" from exports since its immediate source is a domestic sale of the permit to a third party, and it does not fall within Sections 28(iiia) to (iiic); at best it is a general business receipt under Section 28(iv), subject to the 90% exclusion under Explanation (baa) to Section 80HHC. The Court reaffirmed settled law that the Commissioner's revisional jurisdiction under Section 263 requires the assessment order to be both "erroneous" and "prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue," and found that the High Court had correctly applied this test and had not ignored the Tribunal's reasoning. Agreeing with the High Court's view that a CBDT circular favorable to the assessee cannot override the correct statutory interpretation once the matter reaches a court, the Supreme Court dismissed the assessee's appeals (and the connected identical appeals) with no order as to costs.
A tax-friendly administrative circular from the CBDT binds tax officers but cannot substitute for, or override, the correct legal interpretation of a taxing statute once a dispute is examined by courts, and an assessment order can be revised under Section 263 if it is both legally erroneous and causes real revenue loss, even where the assessing officer had merely followed such a circular.
