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.
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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.
A three-judge bench was asked to resolve a doubt about an earlier two-judge ruling in Himangni Enterprises v. Kamaljeet Singh Ahluwalia, which had held that landlord-tenant disputes governed by the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 could never be decided by arbitration because this would be against public policy. This case itself arose from a landlord-tenant arbitration dispute, and was heard together with two other tagged Special Leave Petitions raising related arbitration questions, to settle the law on when a dispute is "non-arbitrable" and whether that question is decided by the court (at the stage of appointing an arbitrator) or left to the arbitral tribunal itself.
The Court overruled Himangni Enterprises, holding that landlord-tenant disputes under the Transfer of Property Act are arbitrable because they involve subordinate rights "in personam" (between the two parties) rather than rights "in rem" (affecting the whole world), and an arbitral award on such a dispute can be enforced just like a civil court decree, except where a special rent-control law gives exclusive jurisdiction to a specific court or forum, in which case arbitration remains barred. The Court also laid down a broader fourfold test for when disputes are non-arbitrable (actions in rem, disputes affecting third-party/erga omnes rights, matters needing centralized adjudication, and matters that are "inalienable" sovereign functions of the state such as criminal or matrimonial matters), and held that courts at the reference stage should only conduct a limited "prima facie" review, with any real contest over arbitrability left to the arbitral tribunal: summarized as "when in doubt, do refer." Applying this, the Court disposed of the main appeal and the tagged petitions by leaving the arbitrability questions in those individual matters to the arbitral tribunals already seized of them, while the pending arbitrations and any award-enforcement were allowed to proceed without needing further permission from the Supreme Court.
Ordinary landlord-tenant disputes (unless covered by rent-control legislation giving a specific court exclusive power) can now be resolved through arbitration instead of lengthy civil court litigation, and as a general rule courts will send a dispute to arbitration whenever there is genuine doubt about whether it qualifies as "non-arbitrable."
