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.
The appellant, an MBBS graduate, suffers from dysgraphia (Writer's Cramp), a neurological condition that makes handwriting difficult. He was given a scribe for the 2017 Civil Services Examination but was refused one for the 2018 exam by the UPSC because the applicable rules allowed scribes only for blind candidates or those with locomotor disability/cerebral palsy with at least 40% impairment ("benchmark disability"): a threshold he did not meet. His challenges before the Central Administrative Tribunal and the Delhi High Court failed. During the Supreme Court proceedings, an AIIMS medical board confirmed he suffers from a genuine chronic neurological condition causing Writer's Cramp, rated at 6% impairment, meaning he was a "person with disability" but not a "person with benchmark disability" under the statute.
The Supreme Court held that the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 draws a crucial distinction between "person with benchmark disability" (Section 2(r), generally requiring 40%+ impairment) and the much broader "person with disability" (Section 2(s)), which covers any long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment that, in interaction with barriers, hinders full and effective participation in society. The Court held that eligibility for reasonable accommodations like a scribe cannot be restricted only to candidates crossing the 40% benchmark threshold, doing so would wrongly conflate the two distinct statutory concepts and defeat the Act's broader object of "reasonable accommodation," which is an individualised duty requiring a case-by-case assessment rather than a rigid quantitative cut-off. Since the appellant's disability was medically confirmed and genuinely impaired his ability to write examinations, denying him a scribe would negate the rights guaranteed under the Act. The Court declared he was entitled to a scribe for the Civil Services Examination and any other government-run competitive exam, allowed the appeal, and set aside the Delhi High Court's order. It also directed the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to frame, within three months and in consultation with disabled persons and their organisations, proper guidelines for providing scribes to persons with disabilities based on individual need rather than a fixed benchmark percentage.
A person does not need to cross a rigid "benchmark disability" percentage threshold to be entitled to reasonable accommodations like a scribe in examinations: the law protects the broader category of "persons with disability," and the real test is whether their condition genuinely hinders full and effective participation, assessed individually rather than through inflexible quantitative rules.
