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.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the UGC issued revised guidelines on 6 July 2020 directing all universities to compulsorily hold final-year/terminal-semester examinations by 30 September 2020, even though earlier guidance had allowed flexibility. This was challenged in a batch of writ petitions (led by this one, along with several other student groups, associations, and a state government petition) arguing that forcing exams during the pandemic was unsafe, discriminatory against final-year students compared to other years who could be promoted on internal assessment, and beyond the UGC's statutory authority, especially where some State Disaster Management Authorities had separately decided it was unsafe to hold physical exams and wanted to promote students based on past performance instead.
The Supreme Court upheld the validity of the UGC's guidelines, holding they were within UGC's statutory powers under Section 12 of the UGC Act to coordinate and maintain standards of higher education, and were not discriminatory since final-year degrees carry particular weight for future opportunities. However, the Court carved out an important exception: where a State or State Disaster Management Authority, acting under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, had genuinely decided that holding physical exams by 30 September was not feasible due to COVID-19 conditions, that decision would override the UGC's deadline for that State, though states could not simply promote final-year students without any examination at all, since that falls outside the Disaster Management Act's scope and must still give way to UGC's requirement that exams eventually be held. States wanting more time could apply to the UGC for an extension. All the writ petitions were disposed of on these terms, and a connected Special Leave Petition was dismissed.
Education regulators like the UGC have the statutory authority to set uniform academic requirements like mandatory final-year exams even during a public health emergency, but state governments retain the power (under disaster management law) to override the timeline, though not the requirement itself, if physically holding exams would endanger public health in their state.
