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 moreNine men were accused of forming an unlawful assembly and, armed with swords, an axe, rods and clubs, attacking a group at a medical shop in Chhattisgarh in March 2001, killing two people (Manrakhan Singh and Narayan Singh) and injuring several others. The Trial Court convicted eight of them under Sections 302/149 and other IPC provisions, sentencing them to life imprisonment, and the Chhattisgarh High Court upheld the conviction. The convicts appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that a related counter-case was wrongly tried separately and that the prosecution's eyewitnesses gave inconsistent, unreliable testimony.
The Supreme Court closely examined the depositions of the five injured eyewitnesses and found a critical, recurring flaw: although each witness claimed to know some of the accused and ascribed specific violent acts to them in their examination-in-chief, none of them was ever asked, in open court, to actually point out and identify the accused sitting in the dock as the very persons they had seen committing the crime. The Court held that simply naming an accused in a deposition is not enough, in-court identification linking the named accused to the person present in the dock is essential, especially where no Test Identification Parade was held. Combined with significant omissions and contradictions between the witnesses' police statements and their court testimony, the Court found the prosecution's case not proved beyond reasonable doubt. It quashed the convictions and acquitted all the appellants, who had already served 9-14 years before being released on bail.
In criminal trials, a witness naming an accused as the person who committed an act is legally insufficient on its own: the witness must also identify that person in court as the individual sitting in the dock; without this in-court identification (or a proper Test Identification Parade), a conviction cannot safely rest on the eyewitness's account.
