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.
Candidates who had appeared for the preliminary examination for recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) in Bihar challenged a 2016 rule (Rule 5A of the Bihar Civil Service (Judicial Branch) (Recruitment) Rules, 1955) that allowed only the top 10% of candidates who appeared in the preliminary exam to advance to the final written examination. The petitioners argued this violated the Supreme Court's own earlier ruling in Malik Mazhar Sultan, which had directed that candidates be called for the final exam in a ratio of 1:10 relative to the number of available vacancies: a very different (and much larger) pool than "10% of all candidates who appeared."
The Court agreed that Rule 5A(3) violated the ratio fixed in Malik Mazhar Sultan and was independently arbitrary, since it drastically and unreasonably shrank the field of candidates competing for the final exam: for example, reserved-category candidates ended up being called in a ratio of roughly 1:1 to vacancies instead of the mandated 1:10. The Court also flagged that the Rule failed to prescribe any minimum qualifying marks for the preliminary exam, though it declined to retroactively fix such marks for the examination already held, instead directing the State, High Court, and Public Service Commission to fix proper minimum marks for future exams. Balancing fairness with the practical reality that the final exam was already scheduled, the Court accepted the Commission's revised list calling roughly ten times the number of vacancies (based on recalculated, reasonable cut-off marks) and directed that the final written exam be held within six weeks. The Court accordingly struck down Rule 5A(3) and allowed the writ petitions, while leaving the horizontal reservation issue for women as already resolved and leaving other rule-amendment questions to the High Court's ongoing administrative process.
A government recruitment rule that restricts how many exam-takers can advance to the next stage must be consistent with binding precedent and cannot arbitrarily shrink the competitive field far below what fairness and prior court directions require: courts will strike down such rules even close to an already-scheduled exam, while balancing the practical disruption that correction causes.
