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 moreA father, son, and son-in-law were tried for the murder of a young man following an altercation over digging on a neighbor's field. The trial court acquitted all three, but the Uttarakhand High Court reversed the acquittal on the State's appeal and convicted them under Section 302 IPC with life imprisonment, relying on eyewitness accounts from the victim's father and another villager, plus recovered weapons.
The Supreme Court found the prosecution's identification evidence unreliable. The only witness who actually saw the attack up close, the woman in whose house the killing occurred, testified she did not know the attackers' names and was never asked to identify them; no identification parade was conducted. The father and another "eyewitness" who claimed to have chased the attackers were found to be "chance witnesses" whose presence at the scene was itself doubtful (contradicted by the woman's account of timing, and by a witness who denied the father had visited him as claimed). The recovered weapons were never forensically matched to the victim's blood, and any statement by the accused claiming those were the weapons used was inadmissible under Sections 25-26 of the Evidence Act (only the fact of recovery, not an accompanying confession, can be used). Since the trial court's acquittal was not shown to be perverse, the Supreme Court held the High Court erred in overturning it, set aside the conviction, and acquitted the appellants on benefit of the doubt.
A conviction cannot rest on eyewitnesses whose presence at the crime scene is itself doubtful or on weapons "recovered" without forensic proof connecting them to the crime, and once a trial court acquits based on a proper assessment of evidence, an appellate court cannot simply substitute its own view unless the acquittal was clearly perverse or unreasonable.
