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.
Smriti, an Indian citizen, married Perry, a Kenya-and-UK-based businessman of Indian origin, in 2007. Their son Aditya was born in Delhi in 2009 and later grew up partly in Kenya and, following marital discord, in India with his mother. Perry filed a guardianship petition in the Delhi Family Court seeking custody. The Family Court ruled in Perry's favour in 2018, and the Delhi High Court dismissed Smriti's appeal against that order, also finding Perry better placed to care for the child. Smriti appealed to the Supreme Court, while the child had by then spent roughly 11 years growing up primarily in India.
By a 2:1 majority, the Supreme Court dismissed Smriti's appeal, upholding the decisions of the Family Court and High Court that custody should ultimately pass to the father, Perry, in Kenya. To protect the child's welfare during this transition, the majority imposed an elaborate set of safeguards: Perry was required to obtain a "mirror order" from a Kenyan court replicating the Indian directions, deposit Rs. 1 crore as security, allow the mother virtual access and an annual visit, and the case was to be relisted for compliance monitoring before custody actually transferred. Justice Hemant Gupta dissented, holding that the child's welfare lay in continuing to live with his mother in India (where he had spent most of his life and was settled in school), and would have instead given Perry only visitation rights rather than full custody.
In international custody disputes, Indian courts can use conditional, safeguard-based orders (such as "mirror orders" in the other country and financial security deposits) to balance a child's welfare against enforcing custody rights across borders, but as this split verdict shows, judges can reasonably differ on what actually serves a child's best interests when weighing continuity of upbringing against a parent's legal custody rights.
