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.
A new law came into force on 21 May 2019 requiring the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences to reserve at least 30% of seats for students domiciled in West Bengal. The university's admission process for its five-year law course (via the CLAT entrance exam) had already begun in January 2019, before this amendment was passed, and by the time the law took effect, candidates had already made their university choices and some seats were already filled. The appellant, ranked 731st in the merit list, argued he should get the benefit of the new West Bengal domicile reservation for the 2019-2020 academic year. The university decided instead to apply the 30% reservation only from the following academic year (2020-2021), and both the Calcutta High Court's single judge and division bench upheld this decision.
The Supreme Court held that since the admission process for 2019-2020 had already commenced before the amending Act came into force, and the Act itself did not specify from which academic year the reservation must apply, the university's decision to implement the 30% domicile reservation starting the next academic year was fair, reasonable, and not arbitrary. The Court distinguished the precedents cited by the appellant, noting he was not a "meritorious candidate" wrongly denied admission in the sense required by those earlier rulings, and that applying the new reservation mid-process would have unfairly disrupted the admissions of other students who had already made choices based on the old rules. The appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs.
A new law or policy generally cannot be forced onto a process (like an admissions cycle) that has already started under the old rules, unless the law itself clearly says so: institutions are given reasonable latitude to apply new reservation requirements starting from the next fresh cycle rather than retroactively disrupting one already underway.
