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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The appellant was the managing director of Totem Infrastructures Limited, a corporate debtor that had defaulted on loans from a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India, with total dues exceeding Rs. 613 crore. Before invoking the IBC, the banks had already obtained recovery certificates against the company from Debt Recovery Tribunals (in 2015 and 2017) under the earlier SARFAESI/DRT recovery mechanism. When SBI later filed a Section 7 IBC application in 2019 based on these recovery certificates, the NCLT admitted it and appointed an insolvency resolution professional; the company's managing director challenged this before the NCLAT and then the Supreme Court, primarily arguing the claim was time-barred and that the bank was improperly allowed to switch between different legal recovery mechanisms (DRT/SARFAESI and IBC) for the same debt.
The Supreme Court held, relying on its earlier three-judge bench ruling in Kotak Mahindra Bank v. A. Balakrishnan ("Kotak Mahindra I"), that a recovery certificate itself creates a fresh cause of action and the holder becomes a "financial creditor," entitled to initiate CIRP within three years of the certificate's issuance, so the two 2017 recovery certificates were validly the basis for the 2019 IBC application. It rejected the appellate tribunal's reasoning that a 2020 settlement-request letter from the company could revive/extend the limitation period, since that letter came after the case was already filed and cannot cure a limitation defect without amended pleadings, and in any event a promise to pay a time-barred debt under Contract Act Section 25(3) creates only a separate cause of action, not a revival of the existing one. It rejected the "doctrine of election" argument, holding banks are not barred from moving to the IBC route merely because they had earlier pursued DRT/SARFAESI recovery, since the IBC serves a different purpose (company revival, not pure debt recovery). However, regarding the third, older recovery certificate from 2015 (issued more than three years before the IBC filing), the Court noted a recovery certificate is a "deemed decree" enforceable for 12 years under the Limitation Act, but since neither the NCLT nor the NCLAT had examined this specific point, it directed the Appellate Tribunal to examine whether the 2015 certificate's claim remains valid on that separate basis, and, using its Article 142 power, directed that if it is found not maintainable under IBC, that portion of the claim be segregated and treated separately by the Committee of Creditors. The overall appeal was dismissed, upholding admission of the insolvency proceedings.
A bank or financial creditor does not lose the right to move for insolvency proceedings just because it earlier pursued recovery through the DRT/SARFAESI route: a recovery certificate itself starts a fresh three-year limitation clock (and can retain decree-like force for up to twelve years), so switching between debt-recovery mechanisms for the same underlying default is not automatically barred.
