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.
Yogesh Upadhyay and his firm M/s Shakti Buildcon bought a crusher plant from Atlanta Limited for about Rs 1.89 crore under a June 2019 agreement, payable by seven cheques. The first cheque was honoured but the remaining six bounced on "stop payment" instructions. Atlanta presented two of the cheques through its bank at Nagpur and filed two complaints there, and presented the other four through its bank in New Delhi and filed four complaints in the Dwarka courts. The buyers asked the Supreme Court to transfer the two Nagpur cases to Dwarka so that all six cases from the same transaction could be tried together; Atlanta objected that Section 142 of the NI Act, with its "notwithstanding" clause, gives the Nagpur courts exclusive jurisdiction and overrides the transfer power in Section 406 CrPC.
The Court traced the history of cheque-case jurisdiction: K. Bhaskaran (1999) allowed filing wherever any of the five ingredients occurred, Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod (2014) restricted it to where the drawee bank is located, and the 2015 amendment inserting Section 142(2) restored jurisdiction to the court where the payee's bank branch (where the cheque was presented for collection) is situated. Filing the two cases at Nagpur was therefore proper. However, the Court rejected the argument that the non obstante clause in Section 142(1) excludes Section 406 CrPC: that clause existed even before 2015 and only governs how cognizance is taken (complaint by the payee, within one month, before a Magistrate of the required rank), not the Supreme Court's power to transfer. Citing A.E. Premanand (2004), where cheque cases from one transaction were consolidated, it held that the power to transfer under Section 406 CrPC remains intact for Section 138 offences whenever justice requires. Since all six cases arose from one transaction and four were already in Delhi, the two Nagpur cases were transferred to Dwarka to avoid contradictory findings.
A cheque-bounce complaint is filed where the payee's bank branch is located, but that does not prevent the Supreme Court from consolidating multiple cheque cases from a single transaction in one court. Litigants facing several Section 138 cases over one deal can seek to have them tried together to avoid inconsistent outcomes.
