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 government-allotted Delhi tenement, originally allotted to the family matriarch Suhagwanti, became the subject of a partition suit filed by her daughter Raj Kumari after Suhagwanti's death, seeking a one-fourth share for each of the four siblings. One brother, Surinder Pal Sharma, resisted the suit by producing a registered Will under which their mother had allegedly left the entire property to him alone, naming Raj Kumari's own husband as an attesting witness. The trial court held the Will unproved, since only one of the two named attesting witnesses was examined and the other, a lawyer, was found to have signed merely as the drafter, and granted the partition. The High Court reversed this, holding the Will was validly proved because it was registered and the "presumption of regularity" under the Evidence Act could substitute for live witness testimony.
The Supreme Court held that Section 71 of the Evidence Act, which allows proof of a Will by "other evidence", only applies once all available attesting witnesses have actually been called and have denied or forgotten the execution; it cannot be invoked where an available attesting witness (here, Raj Kumari's husband) was simply never summoned. The Court also found several surrounding circumstances casting serious doubt on the Will's genuineness: the respondent had never mentioned the Will in his initial reply to the family's demand for partition, the document was oddly phrased as a "Will Deed," and his claims of ownership predating his mother's death were inconsistent. It held the High Court's reliance on registration alone to presume proof was legally impermissible, allowed the appeal, set aside the High Court's judgment, and restored the trial court's partition decree.
A registered Will is not automatically "proved" in law: the person relying on it must call all available attesting witnesses, and even then, any suspicious circumstances surrounding its execution (such as an unexplained, late-emerging claim of sole ownership) must be fully explained before a court will accept it as genuine.
