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.
Insolvency proceedings (CIRP) were initiated against AKME Projects Limited (the Corporate Debtor) in 2018. Two entities, Spade Financial Services and its subsidiary AAA Landmark, filed claims as "financial creditors" based on inter-corporate deposits and a property development/sale agreement with the Corporate Debtor, which (if accepted) would have given them seats and voting power on the Committee of Creditors alongside genuine lenders like Phoenix ARC and YES Bank. It emerged that Spade and AAA had a long-standing business relationship with Mr. Anil Nanda, the promoter of the Corporate Debtor, through common director Mr. Arun Anand, raising the question of whether their claimed "debts" were genuine arm's-length transactions or collusive arrangements designed to let an insider control the insolvency process.
The Supreme Court held that the transactions between Spade/AAA and the Corporate Debtor were collusive in nature (lacking a genuine "financial debt" with real consideration for the time value of money), so Spade and AAA could not be treated as financial creditors under Section 5(7) of the IBC, reversing the NCLAT's finding on this point. The Court separately affirmed that Spade and AAA were "related parties" of the Corporate Debtor under Section 5(24) because of the entangled relationship between their promoters, and held that even though some of that related-party status had since lapsed, parties who shed their related-party status specifically to sneak onto the CoC must still be treated as related parties for exclusion purposes. As a result, both the NCLAT's finding that they were related parties and its decision to exclude them from the CoC under the first proviso to Section 21(2) were upheld, though on the Court's own, partly different, reasoning.
The insolvency process's Committee of Creditors is meant to represent genuine, independent lenders: a promoter cannot use affiliated or collusive entities to manufacture "debt" claims and infiltrate the CoC, and courts will look past formal technicalities (like a later change in shareholding) to the real, substantive relationship between the parties when policing this safeguard.
