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.
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Log in to see moreThe respondent was tried for killing his own father by striking him on the head with a blunt object, after initially lying that his father had fallen from a roof. The trial court convicted him of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (IPC Section 304 Part II) and sentenced him to three years' rigorous imprisonment. On appeal, the Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld the conviction but drastically reduced the sentence to the roughly four months already spent in custody, reasoning that the crime happened on the spur of the moment, the respondent was young, and he had himself taken his father to hospital. The State of Madhya Pradesh appealed this sentence reduction to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court had erred in showing undue leniency, since the mitigating factors it relied on (spur-of-the-moment act, young age) had already been factored into the trial court's comparatively lenient three-year sentence: itself well below the ten-year maximum available under law. The Court also found that the respondent's act of taking his father to hospital while falsely claiming an accidental fall reflected deception rather than genuine remorse, undermining it as a mitigating factor. Reaffirming the principle that sentencing must be proportionate to the gravity of the crime and must balance deterrence with correction, and noting that this was effectively a case of a son killing his own father, the Court held that reducing the punishment to a mere few months served no legitimate sentencing purpose. It allowed the State's appeal, restored the trial court's three-year sentence, and directed the respondent to surrender within four weeks to serve the remaining term.
Appellate courts cannot reduce a sentence to a token period simply out of sympathy for the accused: punishment must remain proportionate to the gravity of the crime, and factors like age or a spontaneous act are not independent grounds for leniency once they have already been accounted for by the trial court.
