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.
Tata Sons, Siva Industries and its promoter C. Sivasankaran (a resident of Seychelles) were parties to an "inter se" agreement connected with NTT Docomo's shareholding in Tata Teleservices; when Docomo exercised its sale option and won an arbitration award against Tata Sons, Tata Sons called on Siva Industries to proportionately buy back the shares, which it did not do. Tata Sons invoked arbitration and, since one party was foreign, the Supreme Court appointed Justice S.N. Variava (retired) as sole arbitrator in January 2018. The parties had consented to a six-month extension beyond the original 12 months, taking the deadline for the award to 14 August 2019, but in July 2019 the NCLT admitted Siva Industries into insolvency and imposed a moratorium that stalled the arbitration. Tata Sons then applied to the Supreme Court for an extension of the arbitrator's mandate; after the insolvency proceedings ended in June 2022, it also argued that under the amended Section 29A no extension was needed at all.
The Court compared Section 29A before and after the 2019 amendment (effective 30 August 2019) and held that the amended Section 29A(1) expressly applies the mandatory 12-month deadline only to "matters other than international commercial arbitration"; for international commercial arbitrations the proviso merely says the award "may be made as expeditiously as possible" and an "endeavour may be made" to finish within 12 months of completion of pleadings, which is directory, not mandatory. The Court traced this to the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee report, which found that rigid court-monitored timelines had made international arbitral institutions wary of India-seated arbitrations, and concluded the legislature deliberately took such arbitrations out of the timeline regime, including the court-extension mechanism in sub-sections (3) and (4). On the question of retrospectivity, it noted that the 2019 Amendment Act, unlike the 2015 Act, contains no provision restricting it to future proceedings, and that the amended provision is remedial and creates no new rights or liabilities, so it applies to all arbitrations pending on 30 August 2019. It approved the Delhi High Court's line of decisions in Shapoorji Pallonji and ONGC Petro Additions to the same effect. The applications were allowed: the sole arbitrator himself is competent to decide on any further extension of time and should endeavour to conclude the arbitration expeditiously.
After the 2019 amendment, the strict 12-month deadline (with court-approved extensions) for arbitral awards applies only to domestic arbitrations; in an international commercial arbitration seated in India the tribunal manages its own timeline and need not approach a court for extensions. A remedial procedural amendment that creates no new rights or liabilities generally applies to pending proceedings too.
