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.
In its 2015 judgment in RBI v. Jayantilal N. Mistry, the Supreme Court had held that the RBI could not refuse to disclose information such as bank inspection reports under the RTI Act by claiming a "fiduciary relationship" with banks, since the RBI's duty was to the public, depositors and the economy. Several banks (led by HDFC Bank and later joined by others including the State Bank of India) were not parties to that original case, but filed applications years later seeking to "recall" the 2015 judgment, arguing they were directly affected but never heard, and that the judgment ignored the right to privacy and was otherwise legally flawed.
The Supreme Court held that there is no provision in the Supreme Court Rules for "recall" applications as such, only formal review petitions, and that labelling an application as one for "recall" instead of "review" does not change its real character; courts look at the substance, not the label. Since the banks were seeking to reopen the correctness of a concluded 2015 judgment (a matter for review) rather than showing they were never given a chance to be heard before an order was passed against them specifically, their applications amounted to disguised review petitions and were not maintainable. The Court dismissed all the miscellaneous applications, while clarifying this did not shut out the banks from pursuing any other lawful remedies, and noted that separate writ petitions challenging specific RBI disclosure notices would be heard on their own merits.
You cannot use an application labelled "recall" to sidestep the stricter requirements of a formal review petition and reopen a final Supreme Court judgment: if you were aware of a case affecting you and chose not to get impleaded in time, courts generally will not let you in years later merely by renaming your challenge.
