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 respondent, a bank employee, was dismissed in 1991 after a departmental enquiry found him guilty of drunkenness and manhandling senior bank officers on the bank's premises, based on the testimony of three officer-eyewitnesses. The Industrial Tribunal, while accepting that the enquiry itself had been fair and proper, nevertheless re-examined the entire evidence afresh, preferred the testimony of two defence witnesses (a watchman and an ex-employee) over the three officer-eyewitnesses, and ordered the employee's reinstatement with full back wages. The Allahabad High Court upheld the Tribunal's award, prompting the bank to appeal.
The Supreme Court held that once a domestic enquiry is found to be fair and conducted in compliance with natural justice, a Labour Tribunal's power to interfere under Section 11-A of the Industrial Disputes Act is narrow: limited to checking for perversity or a complete absence of supporting evidence, not re-weighing evidence as an appellate court would. The Tribunal had wrongly applied a "proof beyond reasonable doubt" criminal-law standard instead of the correct "preponderance of probabilities" standard applicable to domestic enquiries, and its finding that the incident never happened was unsupported given the direct testimony of three officers present at the scene. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment and the Tribunal's award, upholding the dismissal, but, given that the employee had already reached retirement age and had already received substantial back-wage payments during the litigation, directed that no recovery be made of amounts already paid to him.
Labour tribunals reviewing an employer's disciplinary enquiry cannot simply substitute their own view of the facts for the enquiry officer's findings; they may step in only where the enquiry itself was unfair or its conclusions were not supported by any evidence at all.
