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 1066
Courts will not infer a concluded oral contract for the sale of immovable property just because the other side's witnesses seemed evasive: the party seeking specific performance must independently and affirmatively prove every essential term was genuinely agreed.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1065
Even in serious, high-value corruption cases, prolonged pre-trial detention cannot be used as a substitute for punishment when the trial is unlikely to conclude soon and the evidence is already secured: bail remains the touchstone principle under Article 21's personal liberty protection.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1067
Preventive detention cannot be used as a backdoor way to keep someone in custody once the ordinary criminal process, including bail, has already run its course on the same facts; the detaining authority must show a genuine, independent risk of future harm, not just recycle the criminal case file.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1068
In land acquisition disputes, courts will readily restore a uniform, fair market rate across similarly-situated parcels, but ancillary compensation heads (like moveable equipment such as tubewells) still require the claimant to prove their case with admissible evidence, not private reports whose authors were never examined in court.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8447
If you are injured while genuinely trying to board or exit a train, you are very likely covered under railway "untoward incident" compensation law, even if you technically hadn't fully boarded yet: courts read this protection broadly in favour of passengers, and contemporaneous official records (station logs, police diary entries) carry more weight than a statement taken from you much later.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8404
Courts will not entertain vague, unsubstantiated allegations of judicial bias, and a request to combine cases becomes moot once the other related proceedings have already concluded: genuine grievances about trial delay or procedure must be backed by specific, demonstrable facts, not just repeated litigation.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8403
Anticipatory bail can be granted even in matrimonial cases involving serious sexual-offence allegations where there is unexplained delay in reporting, no evidence substantiating the need for custodial interrogation, and the investigating agency's own conduct (e.g., undocumented "verbal" notices) fails to justify arrest, though this is assessed only for bail purposes, not as a finding on guilt.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8407
In family property disputes, signing a Relinquishment Deed acknowledging receipt of consideration, and then waiting years without challenging it or pursuing your claimed share, will make it very difficult to later prove you were never actually paid; courts expect contemporaneous action (a legal notice, a suit) and corroborating evidence, not delayed assertions alone.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8401
A tenant who claims to have paid a large sum toward an informal "mortgage" or side arrangement must be able to prove it with solid evidence (receipts, corroborating witnesses): bare assertions, especially when contradicted by one's own family members under cross-examination, will not defeat a landlord's claim for rent and possession.
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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.
Multiple FIRs were lodged at PS Kotwali, District Fatehpur (U.P.), alleging that persons connected with a university (SHUATS, Prayagraj) and a local church/mission hospital were carrying out mass religious conversions of Hindus to Christianity at the Evangelical Church of India, Hariharganj, on 14.04.2022, using inducements (cash, jobs, medical treatment, marriage proposals) and, in some FIRs, threats. Petitioner No. 1, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, and others named in these FIRs approached the High Court and then the Supreme Court under Article 32 seeking quashing of the FIRs, arguing that the complainants were not the persons allegedly converted (making them incompetent to lodge a complaint under the then-unamended Section 4 of the U.P. Conversion Act), that some FIRs were essentially duplicates of an already-registered FIR, and that the investigation and material gathered did not inspire confidence.
The Supreme Court held that FIR No. 224/2022 was legally defective because it was lodged by a person (a Vishwa Hindu Parishad office-bearer acting as an informant/whistleblower) who was not a person competent to complain under the statutory scheme then in force, and quashed it along with all consequential proceedings. Two other FIRs (Nos. 55/2023 and 60/2023) were quashed as impermissible successive FIRs on the same facts, following the principle in the T.T. Antony case. FIR No. 54/2023 was quashed because the Court found the institution of the complaint and the quality of investigative material insufficient to inspire confidence in its bona fides. As for FIR No. 538/2023, the Court agreed the conversion-related charge could not survive but de-tagged and sent back for further hearing the separate allegations of firearm use and extortion, since the complete chargesheet/case diary was not before it. The batch of appeals and writ petitions was accordingly allowed in these terms, with one matter kept pending for further consideration.
A criminal complaint about religious conversion cannot be validly lodged by someone who was not personally subjected to the alleged conversion (a mere informant/third party), and courts will not permit multiple, near-identical FIRs to be registered over the same incident: protections that guard citizens against misuse of the criminal process, even in sensitive matters involving religious conversion allegations.
