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.
In 2011-12, the erstwhile AP-Transco (the composite Andhra Pradesh's transmission utility) issued notifications to recruit 339 Sub-Engineers. Litigation over marks-weightage for in-service candidates delayed the selection process for years. In the meantime, in June 2014, Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated and Telangana State Transmission Corporation (TS-Transco) was carved out as a separate entity for the new State. After the High Court clarified it was not mandating continuation of the old selection process, TS-Transco cancelled the pre-2014 recruitment notifications in December 2017 and issued a fresh notification for 174 Sub-Engineer posts reorganized into new zones, with an age-relaxation for candidates who had participated earlier. The candidates who had qualified under the original 2011-12 process challenged the cancellation; the Telangana High Court sided with them, quashed the cancellation, and directed TS-Transco to appoint them from the old select list, prompting this appeal.
The Supreme Court held the High Court's finding, that TS-Transco's cancellation was arbitrary, was based on a misreading of the internal file notings, which in fact showed legitimate, bona fide reasons: prolonged litigation delay, the State's bifurcation creating an entirely new administrative entity, and a genuine reassessment of manpower needs (the new zonal structure, altered vacancy numbers, and changed local-reservation ratios meant the new recruitment could not be treated as a mere continuation of the old one). The Court reaffirmed the settled principle that selected candidates on a select list have no vested right to appointment (Shankarshan Dash v. Union of India), and that an employer's decision not to fill vacancies from an old list need only be bona fide, not judicially second-guessed for "sufficiency." It also held Section 79 of the AP Reorganisation Act protected only candidates already appointed before bifurcation, not those merely on a select list. Since TS-Transco had already addressed candidates' legitimate expectations by granting age relaxation (which all the respondents used to reapply), the cancellation and fresh recruitment were upheld, and the High Court's judgment was set aside.
Being on a government job select list creates no automatic right to appointment; an employer can validly cancel a stalled selection process and start afresh when genuine, bona-fide circumstances change (like a State's reorganization altering administrative structure and needs), especially where affected candidates are given a fair chance to reapply, such as through age relaxation.
