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.
Prashant B Narnaware joined Vijaya Bank in 1999 and was later selected, through an open recruitment drive, to the post of Senior Manager in 2007. His appointment letter required him to serve the bank for a minimum of three years or pay Rs. 2 lakh in liquidated damages if he resigned earlier, backed by an indemnity bond. He resigned in 2009, before completing three years, to join another bank, and paid the Rs. 2 lakh "under protest." He then challenged the clause in the Gujarat High Court as an unlawful restraint of trade and against public policy; the High Court, relying on an earlier Karnataka High Court ruling, struck the clause down and ordered a refund. Vijaya Bank appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that a minimum-service clause operating during the subsistence of employment (as opposed to restricting a person's activities after employment ends) does not amount to a "restraint of trade" under Section 27 of the Contract Act, following established precedent (Niranjan Shankar Golikari, Superintendence Company v. Krishan Murgai). On the "public policy" question, the Court reasoned that public sector banks, operating in a competitive, liberalized market, have a legitimate interest in retaining trained staff and avoiding the cost and disruption of repeated recruitment drives; a Rs. 2 lakh liquidated-damages clause for a senior, well-paid managerial employee was not so disproportionate as to be unconscionable or to amount to unjust enrichment. The Court distinguished the earlier BEML case, which had also barred future employability (not just imposed a minimum term). The appeal by the bank was allowed and the High Court's order set aside; a connected appeal by another employee on the same clause was dismissed for the same reasons.
An employer can lawfully require an employee to serve a reasonable minimum term (with liquidated damages for early exit) without violating the law against "restraint of trade," so long as the restriction operates only during employment and the damages are not grossly disproportionate: such clauses are not automatically void just because they were part of a standard-form contract.
