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 Belgaum Urban Development Authority (BUDA) had allotted residential plots to several persons in 1990 and executed lease-cum-sale agreements with them in 1991. Years later, BUDA demanded additional/enhanced price from the allottees, citing an increase in the compensation the Authority itself had to pay for acquiring the land used to carve out these plots. The allottees challenged this demand; the trial court sided with BUDA in some ways, but in second appeal the High Court largely ruled that BUDA could not recover the additional amount from most of the allottees. BUDA then appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that an authority can only demand an "additional price" from an allottee if the original allotment letter or the sale agreement itself specifically permits this. It reviewed several of its own past rulings, noting that in those earlier cases (like Shimla Development Authority and Tamil Nadu Housing Board) the agreements had an express clause allowing recovery of enhanced land-acquisition compensation from allottees. Here, however, the allotment letter's only price-revision clause covered "size variation," not enhanced land compensation, and the lease-cum-sale agreement did not fix the price at all. It only referred to a "negotiated" price. Since no clause authorized recovery on the ground actually claimed, the Court dismissed BUDA's appeals, while clarifying that other allottees who had already paid the extra amount could not now reopen the issue, and any future litigation by non-paying allottees would be assessed on grounds of delay.
A government authority (or any seller under an installment/lease arrangement) cannot demand extra money from a buyer after the fact unless the original contract clearly spells out the specific circumstance in which the price can be revised: a generic "tentative price" clause covering one contingency (like plot-size change) cannot be stretched to justify a demand arising from a different contingency (like higher land-acquisition compensation).
