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.
7878 more judgements for members
You're seeing the newest cases. Log in — it's free — to keep scrolling, search by name or judge, and filter by court or legal area.
Log in to see moreLegal Case Shots is built to help you quickly identify and understand relevant precedent. For citation in pleadings or filings, always verify against the full judgment PDF and current citation format (e.g., 2026 INSC ___).
The holding is what the court legally decided. The lesson learnt translates that into a practical takeaway: what a lawyer should factor into case strategy or client advice as a result of this precedent.
Both. Each case shows a distilled summary (case type, key holding, and lesson learnt) and links to the full judgment as a PDF for when you need the complete text for research or citation.
Yes. Use Advanced Filters to narrow results by decision date and by practice area, including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Service & Administrative Law, Family Law, Civil Property & Inheritance, and Labour & Industrial Law.
Yes. You can filter judgments by the judge or bench that decided the case, which is useful for tracking how a particular judge has reasoned on similar issues across multiple rulings.
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.
Air Commodore NK Sharma served as the Indian Air Force's Judge Advocate General (Air), its top legal officer, in an acting capacity, while the post was upgraded to the higher rank of Air Vice Marshal (AVM). When the post fell vacant again, instead of forming a separate promotion board for this specialised legal post, the government considered him for AVM promotion alongside his non-legal "parent branch" course-mates. He participated in that process but was not selected (ranked 9th of 10). He then complained that the government had failed to create a proper policy or dedicated promotion board for the legal post, and the Armed Forces Tribunal agreed, quashing the non-promotion decision and directing the government to formulate a policy and let him keep functioning as JAG (Air) even past his normal retirement age until that policy process was completed. The Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court set aside the Tribunal's order. It held that courts and tribunals do not have the power to direct the government to frame a policy in a particular manner: policy-making is squarely an executive function, not a judicial one, and this holds true even for tribunals that otherwise have jurisdiction over the underlying service dispute. It also held that a tribunal cannot direct someone to continue in service indefinitely past the fixed retirement age merely to wait for a policy to be created, since retirement age itself is a matter of executive policy. Separately, the Court found the officer's challenge barred on a more basic ground: having voluntarily participated in the 2015 promotion board process without objection, he could not turn around and challenge the fairness of that very process only after losing: a person cannot "approbate and reprobate," i.e., accept a process while it might work in their favour and reject it only once it doesn't.
Courts and tribunals cannot order the government to create a specific policy, and a person who willingly takes part in a selection or promotion process cannot later challenge that same process simply because the outcome went against them: objections to a process must be raised before, not after, the result is known.
