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.
Land in Khasra No. 156, Village Lado Sarai, New Delhi was acquired in 1986, with the acquisition award declared on 14.09.1986 and possession taken (per the authorities) on 22.09.1986. The landowner's legal heirs filed a writ petition claiming the acquisition had lapsed under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act because compensation had never been paid. The Delhi High Court, following its own earlier ruling in a connected case (Jagjeet Singh, concerning the same Khasra number) that had relied on the now-overruled Pune Municipal Corporation precedent, declared the acquisition lapsed without examining whether possession had actually been taken. The land authorities appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order, holding that the Jagjeet Singh precedent the High Court relied on was no longer good law because the Constitution Bench in Indore Development Authority vs. Manoharlal (2020) had overruled Pune Municipal Corporation and clarified that a deemed lapse under Section 24(2) requires BOTH non-possession AND non-payment of compensation for five years or more, not either one alone. The Court noted that even though a civil appeal against the Jagjeet Singh High Court ruling had earlier been dismissed, that dismissal predated the Indore Development Authority Constitution Bench settling the law, and the accompanying review petition had been dismissed only on grounds of delay, not on merits, so it could not shield the present case. On the facts, the authorities had already taken possession in 1986, and separately, the compensation itself had not been paid only because of a genuine ownership dispute among co-owner claimants (an admitted fact), not due to any default by the acquiring authority. For both reasons, no lapse could be claimed, and the appeal was allowed.
A claim that a land acquisition has "lapsed" for non-payment of compensation fails once possession has already been taken by the authorities, and also fails where non-payment is genuinely caused by a dispute among the claimants themselves (such as rival co-owners) rather than any inaction by the government: landowners cannot benefit from a lapse caused by their own internal disputes.
