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 moreThis judgment decided three connected batches of appeals concerning how the government determines "creamy layer" status (which disqualifies socially-advanced OBC candidates from reservation benefits) for candidates whose parents worked in PSUs or private companies, as opposed to government service. Several successful Civil Services Examination candidates were denied OBC reservation benefits because their parents' salary income (from PSU or private employment) exceeded a prescribed ceiling under a 2004 clarificatory letter, even though similarly-placed government employees' children were not assessed the same way. The Central Administrative Tribunal and the High Courts of Madras, Delhi, and Kerala had ruled in favour of the candidates in these underlying disputes, and the Union of India appealed those rulings to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court upheld the High Courts' rulings, holding that treating the children of PSU/private-sector employees differently from children of government employees, by including their parents' entire salary income for the creamy-layer income test without first establishing an equivalence of posts, amounted to unconstitutional "hostile discrimination" between similarly situated members of the same backward class, violating Articles 14, 15, and 16. Relying on landmark precedents including Indra Sawhney and State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, the Court reasoned that the purpose of excluding the "creamy layer" is only to prevent genuinely socially-advanced OBC members from cornering reservation benefits, not to create artificial distinctions between equally-placed persons based merely on their employer type. All the Union of India's appeals were dismissed, and the government was directed to reconsider the candidates' (and intervenors') claims per the principles laid down and implement the decision within six months, including creating supernumerary posts where needed to accommodate affected candidates.
Government policies for determining "creamy layer" eligibility for reservation benefits must apply a rational, equivalence-based test rather than treating PSU or private-sector employees' children less favourably than government employees' children purely because of the source of parental income: arbitrary classifications within the same backward class violate the constitutional guarantee of equality.
