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.
The appellant, a Scheduled Caste candidate and school teacher, was promoted in 2002 to the sole post of Lecturer in English at a Karnataka school under reservation rules. A senior, non-reserved-category teacher (the fifth respondent) challenged this, arguing that since there was only one such post, it could not legally be filled through reservation. After years of departmental appeals, the Karnataka High Court (both a Single Judge and a Division Bench on appeal) ruled in the senior teacher's favour, relying on earlier Supreme Court precedent holding that a solitary, non-interchangeable post cannot be reserved. The appellant then appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court upheld the well-established constitutional principle, drawn from a Constitution Bench ruling and reaffirmed in several later cases, that reservation under Article 16(4) requires a plurality of interchangeable posts within a cadre; a single, non-interchangeable post in one discipline (here, the sole Lecturer-in-English post at one school) cannot be reserved, since doing so would effectively create 100% reservation for that post, contrary to Article 16(1). The Court rejected the appellant's argument that a 1991 government circular requiring roster maintenance "unit-wise" changed this analysis, holding that a circular cannot override binding constitutional case law. However, recognising that the appellant had worked in the post in good faith since 2002 under a court-protected status quo, the Court crafted a practical remedy: it directed the State of Karnataka to consider creating an additional (or, if needed, a supernumerary) post for the appellant within two months, ordered that no recovery of salary be made from her for her past service, and directed that the senior respondent's pay and retirement benefits be fixed notionally from her due date of appointment (without back-pay for the period she did not actually work), while also directing her prompt consideration for promotion.
Reservation in public employment can only be applied where there is more than one interchangeable post in a cadre, a solitary post in a particular role cannot be reserved, however well-intentioned the appointment, but courts can still soften the real-world impact on an individual who relied in good faith on an earlier appointment, for instance by directing creation of an additional post rather than simply removing them.
