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 1094
An older qualification must still satisfy the eligibility rules governing the appointment sought. Here, the certificate's early date did not secure reinstatement, and rejection of eligibility should not be confused with a conclusive finding that the certificate was forged.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1095
A party benefiting from a conditional stay must meet its deposit requirement or face enforcement. The additional ₹15 crore deposit secures the pending dispute; it does not settle the land's final compensation or amount to an immediate payment to the landowners.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1093
An alleged attempt to kill does not become a lesser offence simply because the victim avoided a fatal injury. Restoring this charge means the accusation must be tried; it does not establish that the accused is guilty.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1090
For the assessment in this case, assistance reducing ordinary manufacturing costs was taxable even though the government wanted to encourage industry. The purpose and actual operation of the particular subsidy mattered more than its general development label.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1091
Proof that someone caused a serious injury does not by itself prove the additional ingredients of robbery. A court can substitute a lesser offence supported by the evidence; the sentencing reduction here depended on Appa's particular circumstances.
Special Leave Petition (Civil) · 2026 INSC 1092
Someone challenging an election must ensure that the personal-presentation requirement is met and can be proved. Merely entering the court building does not establish compliance, and a filing defect can end the challenge before the election allegations are examined.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1088
An employee who retires on 30 June may be entitled to the increment that falls due on 1 July after completing a year of service. Authorities that delay paying the amounts due must pay interest after the deadline set by the court.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1089
Recruitment must follow the qualifications stated in the advertisement and the governing Recruitment Rules. A court will not override a merit-based eligibility decision made under those rules merely because the candidate concerned was higher in the written test.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8797
A person who occupied property only because of employment has no independent right to remain once the employment and decree end. Even when a petition fails, courts can make practical arrangements to let a person recover personal belongings.
14543 more judgements for members
You're seeing the newest cases. Log in — it's free — to keep scrolling, search by name or judge, and filter by court or legal area.
Log in to see moreA married couple lived together only briefly before the wife left the matrimonial home in October 2010 and moved back to her parents. The husband obtained an ex-parte divorce decree in 2012. Three years later, in 2015, the wife filed a criminal complaint alleging dowry harassment, naming not just the husband but also his mother, brothers, sister, and sister-in-law (the appellants here), based on a single alleged incident that supposedly occurred at her own house after the divorce had already been finalised.
The Supreme Court found that the complaint contained only vague, generic allegations against the husband's relatives, with no specific incidents describing their actual involvement during the marriage, and it made no sense that they would visit her home to demand dowry years after the marriage had already ended by divorce. Relying on its own recent precedents (Geeta Mehrotra and Dara Lakshmi Narayana) cautioning against routinely dragging a husband's entire family into matrimonial cases without concrete evidence, the Court quashed the complaint and summoning order against the appellants, holding that continuing the trial against them would be a vexatious abuse of process.
Courts will step in to quash dowry-harassment cases against a husband's extended family when the allegations are vague and generalised rather than specific, especially where the claimed incident occurred after the marriage had already legally ended.
