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 1066
Courts will not infer a concluded oral contract for the sale of immovable property just because the other side's witnesses seemed evasive: the party seeking specific performance must independently and affirmatively prove every essential term was genuinely agreed.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1065
Even in serious, high-value corruption cases, prolonged pre-trial detention cannot be used as a substitute for punishment when the trial is unlikely to conclude soon and the evidence is already secured: bail remains the touchstone principle under Article 21's personal liberty protection.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1067
Preventive detention cannot be used as a backdoor way to keep someone in custody once the ordinary criminal process, including bail, has already run its course on the same facts; the detaining authority must show a genuine, independent risk of future harm, not just recycle the criminal case file.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1068
In land acquisition disputes, courts will readily restore a uniform, fair market rate across similarly-situated parcels, but ancillary compensation heads (like moveable equipment such as tubewells) still require the claimant to prove their case with admissible evidence, not private reports whose authors were never examined in court.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8447
If you are injured while genuinely trying to board or exit a train, you are very likely covered under railway "untoward incident" compensation law, even if you technically hadn't fully boarded yet: courts read this protection broadly in favour of passengers, and contemporaneous official records (station logs, police diary entries) carry more weight than a statement taken from you much later.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8404
Courts will not entertain vague, unsubstantiated allegations of judicial bias, and a request to combine cases becomes moot once the other related proceedings have already concluded: genuine grievances about trial delay or procedure must be backed by specific, demonstrable facts, not just repeated litigation.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8403
Anticipatory bail can be granted even in matrimonial cases involving serious sexual-offence allegations where there is unexplained delay in reporting, no evidence substantiating the need for custodial interrogation, and the investigating agency's own conduct (e.g., undocumented "verbal" notices) fails to justify arrest, though this is assessed only for bail purposes, not as a finding on guilt.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8407
In family property disputes, signing a Relinquishment Deed acknowledging receipt of consideration, and then waiting years without challenging it or pursuing your claimed share, will make it very difficult to later prove you were never actually paid; courts expect contemporaneous action (a legal notice, a suit) and corroborating evidence, not delayed assertions alone.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8401
A tenant who claims to have paid a large sum toward an informal "mortgage" or side arrangement must be able to prove it with solid evidence (receipts, corroborating witnesses): bare assertions, especially when contradicted by one's own family members under cross-examination, will not defeat a landlord's claim for rent and possession.
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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.
Haryana's power distribution utilities had signed Power Purchase Agreements in 2008 with Adani Power (Mundra) Limited (AP(M)L) to buy 1424 MW of electricity from its Mundra plant, at a price fixed through competitive bidding. When India's National Coal Distribution Policy changed in 2013, the domestic coal actually allotted to AP(M)L fell short of what had originally been assured, raising its cost of generating power. Following an earlier Supreme Court ruling (Energy Watchdog) that such a change in Indian coal-supply policy, though not a similar change in Indonesian coal-export rules, could qualify as a "Change in Law" entitling the generator to compensation, the electricity regulator (CERC) and the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) both ruled in Adani Power's favour on the amount of relief, prompting Haryana's utilities to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Court, following its recent related ruling in Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co. v. Adani Power Maharashtra, held that most of the common issues (whether relief should be based on actual coal shortfall rather than a fixed formula, how technical parameters should be measured, and the start date for compensation) were already settled in Adani Power's favour. On the two issues specific to this case, the Court rejected Haryana's argument that Adani Power's bid was based on a fixed 70:30 domestic-to-imported coal split and that compensation should be reduced accordingly: the bid documents showed no such firm commitment, and Haryana Utilities had itself earlier admitted, both in filings and during the APTEL hearing, that the entire domestic coal received was used to supply their contracted capacity. The Court also held Haryana Utilities could not now object to the compensation calculation method after having earlier accepted before the regulator that the same method used in an unrelated prior case (GMR Kamalanga) would apply: this amounted to impermissible "approbation and reprobation" (blowing hot and cold). Reiterating that courts should be slow to second-guess expert regulatory bodies like CERC and APTEL unless their decisions are arbitrary, illegal, or ignore mandatory law, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the concurrent findings in Adani Power's favour.
A party that accepts a particular calculation methodology or legal position before a regulator cannot turn around and challenge that very approach once the outcome goes against it; and courts generally defer to specialized regulatory tribunals' factual findings unless those findings are shown to be arbitrary or contrary to law.
