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 1056
In railway accident compensation claims, a victim's family does not have to produce the physical train ticket to prove bona fide travel. A sworn statement explaining its loss is enough to shift the burden onto the Railways, and any delay by the Railways in conducting its own mandatory investigation cannot be used against the claimants.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1055
In a bareboat charter with a clause designating the charterer a mere "gratuitous bailee" after termination, a validly served termination notice ends the charterer's status immediately. Physical handover of the vessel is just the mechanical follow-through, not a condition for the termination to take legal effect; this matters directly for maritime creditors deciding whom, and which vessel, to target for arrest.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1054
A court cannot pick and choose parts of a witness's testimony to convict on one charge while rejecting the same testimony to acquit on a closely related charge arising from the same facts. If the witness's account is unreliable for one charge, that unreliability cannot simply be set aside for a more serious, connected charge.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1050
Even in the gravest crimes, a death sentence cannot be sustained unless the prosecution affirmatively rules out the possibility of the offender's reform and shows that no lesser punishment (including life imprisonment without remission) would meet the ends of justice, and courts must give the accused a genuine, separate hearing on sentence with full background material, not decide punishment on the same day as conviction.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1057
When commercial parties in an arbitration-bound contract are willing to agree on a sole arbitrator, courts will readily facilitate that agreement and let the arbitral tribunal itself take over interim relief, rather than continuing to litigate stay applications through multiple court levels.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1047
In government/paramilitary service disputes over wrongful dismissal, what matters under Article 311 is the officer who actually issued the final, unconditional appointment order (not a preliminary conditional call-letter or offer), and courts will read the specific service rules to see which ranks are legally empowered to both appoint and discipline an employee. A call for training is not the same as an appointment.
Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1048
A trial court cannot order that a convict "remain in prison for the rest of their natural life" without any possibility of remission, only the Supreme Court or a High Court can impose such a sentence, and even then only in appropriately grave cases, after weighing both the brutality of the crime and factors like time already served and conduct in custody.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1049
A criminal complaint under a special protective law like POCSO is not automatically true merely because it was registered; courts must carefully scrutinise such allegations, especially when they surface during an acrimonious custody battle, since false accusations of this kind cause lasting damage both to the falsely accused parent and to the child caught in the middle.
Civil Appeal (Interim Order) · 2026 INSC 1043
There is no final ruling yet. The present custody arrangement is temporary, and the case is still pending.
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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.
Civil Appeal arising out of SLP(C) No. 12895 of 2026
The UP Subordinate Service Selection Commission held a written test in 2016 for 3,133 posts of Village Development Officer. A candidate disputed the Commission's answer to a General Knowledge question asking which of four book–person pairings was "incorrect" (e.g., Baburnama–Babur), arguing that option C should be correct because "Humayunnama" was actually authored by Gulbadan Begum, not Humayun, rather than option B (the Commission's chosen answer). His writ petition was dismissed by a Single Judge for delay and on settled law that courts should be reluctant to second-guess answer keys, and an intra-court appeal was also dismissed. However, a subsequent review petition was allowed by the High Court's Division Bench, based on an expert opinion suggesting both B and C could be correct depending on interpretation, and the Commission was directed to award the extra mark and recommend the candidate for appointment.
The Supreme Court reaffirmed the settled legal principle (from Ran Vijay Singh v. State of U.P. and U.P. Public Service Commission v. Rahul Singh) that courts can interfere with an examination answer key only where the error is so glaring and apparent that it requires no inferential reasoning to detect, with the benefit of any doubt going to the examining body, not the candidate. Examining the disputed question itself, the Court found it did not specify whether pairing was to be done by "authorship" or by "subject" (whom the book was about); using a commonsense, subject-wise approach, option B was a reasonable answer since Shahjahannama does not describe Mohd. Tahir, whereas all other options genuinely relate the book to its named person. The expert report relied on by the High Court did not declare option B wrong. It merely noted that option C would follow if one used an authorship-based logic instead, meaning the report was equivocal, not a determination of any glaring error. Since the question and the Commission's chosen answer were not patently or glaringly incorrect, the High Court had overstepped its jurisdiction, especially in review proceedings, by substituting its own interpretation for the Commission's reasonable one. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, set aside the High Court's order, and dismissed the candidate's original writ petition.
Courts will only strike down or alter an examination authority's answer key when the error is glaringly obvious without any need for inference or interpretation. A plausible alternative reading of an ambiguous question, however reasonable, is not enough to override the examining body's chosen answer, and candidates bear the burden of proving a clear, undeniable mistake.
