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 moreFor decades, thousands of Junior Telecommunication Officers/Junior Engineers in the Department of Telecommunications (later BSNL) disputed whether seniority for promotion to Assistant Engineer should be based on the order of passing a departmental qualifying exam or on the order of original recruitment/entry: a question on which the Supreme Court's own earlier rulings (in 1986 and again in 1997/2000) had taken different positions over time. Based on the 2000 ruling, seniority lists prepared in 1993 for about 8,000 employees were reversed by the Department in favour of a different set of roughly 10,000 employees, which was challenged before the Central Administrative Tribunal and then the Punjab and Haryana High Court, both of which ruled that the Department's reversal of the 1993 lists was unjustified. The Union of India/BSNL appealed that finding to the Supreme Court, along with several other connected appeals raising the same core seniority issue from different High Courts.
The Supreme Court held that once the respondents' seniority rights had crystallised in 1993 based on the Department's own undertaking and the resulting seniority lists, the Department was not justified in later reversing those lists in the year 2000, and it therefore upheld the Tribunal's and High Court's findings and dismissed the Department's appeal on that core question. However, recognising that implementing this ruling fairly across roughly 18,000 affected employees nationwide (split between those favoured by the 1993 lists and those who had since been promoted under the reversed criteria) required a detailed, employee-by-employee review, the Court referred the practical implementation exercise to an independent Expert Committee, directing that the matters be listed again after six months once the Committee's report was received, solely to pass further orders giving effect to that report. A related transfer petition was also allowed on agreed terms.
Once a government department crystallises employees' seniority through its own official lists and undertakings, it cannot later unilaterally reverse those lists to benefit a different group, but when correcting such an error affects very large numbers of employees, courts may decide the governing legal principle finally while delegating the mechanics of implementation to an expert body under continuing supervision.
