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 village election-related quarrel between the appellant (accused no. 1) and others escalated into a violent clash between two armed groups, during which the appellant, who had just been stabbed with a knife in the back, drew a licensed firearm and shot and killed one of his rivals; a second person was also killed and several others injured on both sides. Cross-complaints and cross trials followed, and the trial court convicted twenty accused (including the appellant and his co-appellant) of murder and related offences; the Gujarat High Court partly modified these convictions on appeal, confirming the appellant's murder conviction and altering his co-appellant's conviction to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The Supreme Court accepted the appellant's defence that, having just suffered a knife wound to a vital area of his back during a mutual "free fight," his act of shooting back, though it exceeded what was strictly necessary for self-defence, fell within Exception 2 to Section 300 IPC (exceeding the right of private defence without premeditation), rather than amounting to murder. While normally no right of private defence is available to participants in a mutual free-fight, the Court treated this as the kind of special circumstance (a genuine, serious injury actually suffered by the appellant in the same incident) that justifies an exception to that general rule. It accordingly downgraded the appellant's conviction from murder (Section 302 IPC) to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 Part I IPC), reducing his sentence to the period already undergone of about ten years, while leaving his co-appellant's conviction (also under Section 304 Part I) undisturbed.
Even in a mutual brawl where the law usually denies either side a right of self-defence, a person who is seriously and genuinely wounded during the fight and reacts with lethal force may still have their culpability reduced from murder to culpable homicide: the line depends on whether the response, though excessive, grew out of a real threat actually suffered, not calculated aggression.
