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.
WAPCOS Ltd., a public sector undertaking, contracted Salma Dam Joint Venture (SDJV), a consortium of two companies, to build the Salma Dam project in Afghanistan. After the project cost was revised upward several times, the parties signed a formal Amendment of Agreement (AoA) in 2015 under which SDJV agreed that all its pending and future claims "stood buried" and that there would be no arbitration over them. Despite this, one of SDJV's constituent partners later tried to unilaterally invoke arbitration and get an arbitrator appointed, even though its authority to act for the joint venture had meanwhile been revoked by the other partner; the Delhi High Court nonetheless allowed the arbitration petition and appointed a sole arbitrator, prompting WAPCOS and the other partner to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the 2015 Amendment of Agreement had the clear effect of extinguishing the arbitration clause in the original contract: its express terms stated that pending claims stood buried and there would be no arbitration for settling claims, and SDJV had never disputed executing the AoA or claimed it was signed under duress. The Court found the Delhi High Court had rested its contrary view on factual errors (including a wrong date for the AoA) and had wrongly treated the Technical Committee's consideration of post-AoA appeals as reviving the arbitration remedy. Since there was no subsisting arbitration agreement on the date the Section 11(6) petition was filed, that petition was not maintainable at all. The Court set aside the High Court's order, dismissed the arbitration petition, but left open other legal remedies the parties might separately pursue.
When contracting parties execute a written settlement or amendment agreement expressly giving up future claims and ruling out arbitration, that agreement overrides the arbitration clause in the original contract: a party cannot later resurrect arbitration over claims it already agreed to abandon.
