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 moreThis was a long-running seniority battle in the Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers between officers promoted from the feeder Group-B cadre and officers who were direct recruits selected through a UPSC examination. A 2014 Railway Board order placed 87 promotee officers en bloc senior to all direct recruits of the 2008 examination batch by giving them a five-year service weightage, which the direct recruits (led by R.K. Kushwaha) challenged before the Central Administrative Tribunal and courts, giving rise to multiple connected appeals, contempt petitions, and a transferred writ petition before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the Central Administrative Tribunal's order had only directed that "year of allotment" (not "DITS") be used as the criterion for fixing inter-se seniority, and that there had been no actual challenge to the underlying weightage rule (Rule 334 of the Indian Railways Establishment Manual) in the original proceedings, so that rule's validity could not be reopened in contempt proceedings or in defending this appeal. On that narrow basis, it upheld the Tribunal's order dismissing the contempt petition against the direct recruit and dismissed the connected transferred writ petition as having become infructuous after the High Court had already finally disposed of the underlying writ petition. The Court expressly declined to rule on the broader policy question of whether giving promotees a weightage was fair, since it had not properly been put in issue below.
Courts will generally decide a dispute only on the specific grounds that were actually raised and argued in the proceedings below; a party cannot use a later appeal or contempt petition to smuggle in a fresh challenge to a rule it never contested at the first opportunity.
