Landmark Judgments

464 Supreme Court judgments from 1950 to 2026, chosen from the cases our judiciary, CLAT and AIBE questions cite most. Each digest gives the facts, the questions before the Court, what it held and passages in the Court's own words, with a link to the official judgment.

Judgments: 464
Constitution Benches: 139
Subjects: 27

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Subject

Decided in

BenchAct interpretedMy listOverruled or explained by a later case here

19 of 464 judgments

New India Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Louis Dreyfus Commodities India Pvt. Ltd.2026Law of Contract2 judges
Section 64VB of the Insurance Act barred the insurer from covering a fire loss suffered after the turnover-based sum insured was exhausted; an officer's email could not…
Anand Narayan Shukla v. Jagat Dhari2026Law of Contract2 judges
Section 28 of the Specific Relief Act gives the court a discretion to rescind or extend time; a decree silent on the consequence of late deposit is not rescinded…
Kailash Nath Associates v. Delhi Development Authority2015Law of Contract2 judges
DDA could not forfeit the earnest money because the bidder committed no breach and DDA suffered no loss; Section 74 of the Contract Act covers forfeiture of earnest…
Tarsem Singh v. Sukhminder Singh1998Law of Contract2 judges
An agreement to sell land made under a mutual mistake about the area (kanals or bighas) was void under Section 20 of the Contract Act; its forfeiture clause failed and…
Punjab National Bank v. Surendra Prasad Sinha1992Law of Contract2 judges
Section 3 of the Limitation Act bars only the remedy, not the debt; a bank holding a guarantor's fixed deposit as security could appropriate it towards a time-barred…
A.B.C. Laminart Pvt. Ltd. v. A.P. Agencies, Salem1989Law of Contract2 judges
Parties may agree to confine disputes to one of several courts that have jurisdiction, but a clause merely making disputes 'subject to Kaira jurisdiction' did not…
Superintendence Company of India (P) Ltd. v. Krishan Murgai1980Law of Contract3 judges
A covenant barring the employee from competing for two years 'after you leave the company' did not apply where the employer terminated his services, so no injunction…
M.C. Chacko v. State Bank of Travancore1969Law of Contract
A family deed directing that a guarantee debt be met by one son out of his allotted property created no charge for the creditor bank, and the bank, not a party to the…
Bank of Bihar Ltd. v. Damodar Prasad1968Law of Contract3 judges
A surety's liability is immediate and coextensive with the principal debtor's, so a court cannot, without a special equity, direct a creditor to exhaust remedies against…
Naihati Jute Mills Ltd. v. Hyaliram Jagannath1967Law of Contract3 judges
The Court held that a buyer who had absolutely undertaken to obtain an import licence could not plead frustration under Section 56 when the licence was refused, and…
Niranjan Shankar Golikari v. Century Spinning and Manufacturing Co. Ltd.1967Law of Contract2 judges
A negative covenant barring an employee from similar work elsewhere during the term of employment is not a restraint of trade under Section 27, Contract Act, unless the…
Subhas Chandra Das Mushib v. Ganga Prosad Das Mushib1966Law of Contract3 judges
The Court held that undue influence under Section 16 of the Contract Act must be specifically pleaded and proved in stages, and that no presumption of undue influence…
Bhagwandas Goverdhandas Kedia v. Girdharilal Parshottamdas and Co.1965Law of Contract3 judges
By majority, the Court held that a contract made by telephone is complete where the acceptance is heard by the offeror, so the Ahmedabad court, where acceptance was…
Fateh Chand v. Balkishan Das1963Law of Contract5-judge bench
Section 74 of the Contract Act applies to every stipulation by way of penalty, including forfeiture of money already paid; the seller could keep only the Rs. 1,000…
State of West Bengal v. B.K. Mondal and Sons1961Law of Contract5-judge bench
A contractor who did work for the State at officers' request, without a contract complying with Section 175(3) of the Government of India Act, 1935, could recover…
Gherulal Parakh v. Mahadeodas Maiya1959Law of Contract3 judges
A partnership formed to carry on wagering transactions is not unlawful under Section 23 of the Contract Act, because a wager, though void under Section 30, is not…
Seth Ganga Dhar v. Shankar Lal1958Law of Contract
A term postponing redemption of a mortgage for eighty-five years was held not to be a clog on the equity of redemption, as the bargain was fair; the redemption suit…
Satyabrata Ghose v. Mugneeram Bangur and Co.1953Law of Contract3 judges
The Court held that frustration in India is governed by Section 56 of the Contract Act, reading 'impossible' in a practical sense, and that wartime requisition of the…
Trojan and Co. Ltd. v. Rm. N.N. Nagappa Chettiar1953Law of Contract2 judges
Where shares are bought under a fraud, damages are the difference between the price paid and the real value of the shares on the date of purchase; a court cannot grant…

How these pages are written

Every digest is written from the judgment itself, taken from the Supreme Court's own website (sci.gov.in), and links to that file.
Quoted passages are copied from the official text and were checked against it word for word; each gives the page of the PDF.
Where the bench split, the holdings given are the majority's. Where a later judgment in this library overrules or explains a case, that case's page says so, quoting the later Court's words.
A digest is a study aid. Read the judgment before citing it.

Test yourself

170 practice questions on landmark judgments, with explanations.

All 464 judgments, A to Z