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.
Sanjit Saha and Anil Saha were convicted under Section 376(2)(g) IPC and sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment by the Calcutta High Court. They filed a joint Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court along with an application for exemption from surrendering, which was rejected in 2019 with six weeks given to surrender and file proof. Although both had in fact surrendered to custody on 15 March 2019, their counsel never filed proof of this surrender in the Supreme Court, and when the matter came up again in February 2020 with no proof on record and counsel absent, the Court ordered dismissal of the SLPs if proof was not filed within two weeks: proof never came (partly because their advocate-on-record later passed away), so the SLPs stood peremptorily dismissed in March 2020, even though both men remained lawfully in custody the whole time.
Years later, Sanjit Saha's son engaged new counsel and filed for recall, producing a jail detention certificate proving the 2019 surrender; the Court restored his SLP. But an inquiry into co-petitioner Anil Saha revealed he had also surrendered on the same day, and tragically had died in custody on 26 May 2023 of natural causes, meaning he went to his death without ever getting his constitutional right to be heard on his Special Leave Petition, due purely to a communication failure between jail authorities, counsel, and the Court. Justice Viswanathan held that jail authorities bear a positive obligation under Article 21 to inform courts when a convict has surrendered, since prisoners are often incommunicado and cannot be faulted for their counsel's lapses; while Anil Saha's own petition necessarily abated on his death, the Court reserved liberty for his relatives to pursue remedies under Section 394 CrPC. The judgment laid down systemic guidelines. Courts should call for status reports from trial judges when surrender proof is missing, appoint amicus curiae when counsel is absent, and eventually build a digital portal for real-time surrender/custody updates, to prevent this from recurring.
A convict who has actually surrendered to serve a sentence cannot be denied their right to appeal merely because of a communication failure by their lawyer or the jail system. Courts and jail authorities share a constitutional duty under Article 21 to keep each other informed, since an incarcerated person often has no other way to protect their own legal rights.
