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.
Between 1986-89, the respondents were engaged as daily-wage Store Watchmen on a purely temporary basis under the TWAD Board; their engagement orders expressly stated they could claim no further right of appointment. When the sectional stores were reorganized in 1990, their services were terminated for want of vacancies. The Labour Court, and subsequently the Madras High Court (Single Judge and Division Bench), held the terminations invalid and ordered reinstatement with 50% back wages, prompting the Board's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the lower courts had wrongly placed the burden on the Board to prove the workmen had NOT worked 240 continuous days in a year: that initial burden lay on the workmen themselves, and neither side had actually discharged it. However, since most of the respondents had already reached superannuation age (or, in one case, died) by the time of the appeal, reinstatement was no longer practically relevant. The Court therefore converted the dispute into a monetary one, directing that the amounts already paid (including Rs. 2 lakhs per worker it had earlier ordered as an interim condition for stay) be treated as full and final settlement of all back-wage and reinstatement claims, with any deposited court amounts refunded to the Board. The Court expressly noted that this order was passed on the peculiar facts of the case and was not to be treated as a precedent.
In long-pending service disputes, courts increasingly favour practical monetary closure over formal reinstatement once workers have aged out of employable service, and in such disputes, the burden of proving continuous "240 days" employment (a key threshold under labour law) rests initially on the workman, not the employer.
