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 consortium led by Perkins Eastman Architects DPC was engaged by HSCC (India) Ltd., a government body, to design All India Institute of Medical Sciences campuses at Guntur and Nagpur under contracts that gave HSCC's Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) the power to appoint a sole arbitrator for any disputes. After disputes arose, HSCC's own officer appointed a sole arbitrator unilaterally under this contractual clause. Perkins Eastman challenged this appointment and approached the Supreme Court under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, seeking appointment of an independent arbitrator instead, arguing that a party with a direct stake in the dispute should not get to unilaterally pick the arbitrator.
The Supreme Court annulled HSCC's unilateral appointment of the arbitrator and itself appointed a former Supreme Court judge (Dr. Justice A.K. Sikri) as the sole arbitrator for both the Guntur and Nagpur disputes. Building on its earlier ruling in TRF Ltd. v. Energo Engineering Projects Ltd. (which held that a person rendered ineligible to act as arbitrator cannot nominate another arbitrator either), the Court extended the same logic to a situation where the authority given to one party's CMD to unilaterally appoint the sole arbitrator inherently carries an element of exclusivity and favours that party's own interest, undermining the essential requirement of impartiality in the appointment process itself, regardless of whether the appointed arbitrator personally has a Seventh-Schedule disqualification. The Court held that where one party alone controls the appointment of the arbitrator, it offends the basic principle that no one should be a judge in their own cause, justifying the Court stepping in to make an independent appointment.
A contract clause letting one side to a dispute single-handedly choose the arbitrator is now vulnerable to being struck down as inherently biased, even if that clause was validly agreed to at the time of contracting: commercial parties (especially those dealing with government bodies or large corporations) should insist on neutral, mutually-agreed arbitrator-appointment mechanisms.
