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.
After an earlier round of litigation (in which the Supreme Court had already directed the Governor to summon the Punjab Vidhan Sabha's Budget Session), the Assembly was convened, adjourned "sine die" (without a fixed date to resume), and then reconvened by the Speaker on later dates to pass four Bills and consider three Money Bills. The Governor refused to act on these Bills, claiming, based on outside legal opinion, that reconvening a session that had been adjourned sine die was illegal and that the sessions themselves were void. The State of Punjab approached the Supreme Court directly, asking it to declare the sessions valid and direct the Governor to process the pending Bills.
The Court distinguished between "adjournment" (a temporary pause, which can be sine die, i.e., without naming a future date) and "prorogation" (formal termination of a session by the Governor), only the latter actually ends a session. Reconvening a sitting that had merely been adjourned sine die, even without a specified date, is squarely within the Speaker's own exclusive domain to regulate the House's procedure, a matter courts do not ordinarily second-guess. The Governor, as a symbolic constitutional head, has no authority to unilaterally declare a duly conducted legislative session illegal or use that as a ground to withhold action on Bills. The Court held the three sessions (19 and 20 June, and 20 October 2023) were constitutionally valid and directed the Governor to now proceed to decide on the pending Bills, without expressing any view on how he should ultimately decide, other than that he must act consistently with Article 200 of the Constitution.
A Governor cannot hold up a State's legislative business by unilaterally questioning the legality of how the Assembly conducted its own sessions: control over adjournment and reconvening of the House rests exclusively with the Speaker, and the Governor's role in giving or withholding assent to Bills does not extend to relitigating the validity of the legislature's internal procedure.
