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 moreIn 2008, the petitioner was convicted of abducting, sexually assaulting and murdering a four-year-old child in Nagpur, and was sentenced to death; the conviction and sentence were successively affirmed by the Bombay High Court, the Supreme Court (2014), and again on review (2017), and mercy petitions to the Governor of Maharashtra and the President of India were both rejected. After all these avenues were exhausted, the petitioner filed this fresh writ petition under Article 32, arguing that his sentencing was never assessed under the comprehensive mitigation-evidence framework (covering psychiatric health, social history, jail conduct, etc.) that the Supreme Court later laid down in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2023), and that new medical and psychological material showed learning disability, brain injury and psychiatric illness that were never placed before the sentencing court.
The Court first held the petition maintainable, reasoning that Article 32 remains available even after conviction, appeal, review and clemency have all concluded, where a subsequent binding judicial development (here, the Manoj mitigation-evidence protocol) was never applied and a demonstrable Article 21 prejudice results, while cautioning that this is an exceptional route, not a routine one, and does not permit reopening of concluded convictions generally. On the facts, since the petitioner's sentence was finalised in 2017, years before Manoj (2023) was decided, he never had the opportunity to place full mitigating material (psychiatric reports, jail conduct, social history) before any court. The Writ Petition was accordingly allowed only on the question of sentence: the death sentence affirmed in 2017 was set aside "for the present," and the matter was remitted for a fresh sentencing hearing to be conducted strictly per the Manoj guidelines, before a bench to be constituted by the Chief Justice of India. The Court expressly clarified that the underlying finding of guilt/conviction was left untouched and not reopened in any way.
A validly obtained death sentence is not automatically insulated from Article 32 scrutiny merely because appeals, review, and mercy petitions have all failed. If a later Supreme Court ruling changes the procedural safeguards required before a sentence of death can be imposed, a convict may still get a fresh sentencing hearing under that new protocol, even though the underlying conviction stands final.
