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3 August 2026
Matrimonial & Family
YCD v YCE: When Singapore Family Courts Will Order a DNA Paternity Test
A Singapore Family Court confirmed it has power, under the High Court's medical examination powers and its own inherent jurisdiction, to order a person to submit to DNA paternity testing. That power should be used sparingly, and only once the applicant shows on a balance of probabilities that the parties had intercourse during the period the child could have been conceived. Credibility problems in the mother's own account meant she fell short of that threshold here, so the application was dismissed while her related maintenance claim was stayed pending appeal.
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3 August 2026
Civil Procedure & Limitation
SS&C v. Bank of New York Mellon: Canada's Modern Test for Spoliation
The Supreme Court of Canada set out, for the first time in over a century, a four-part test for finding spoliation and confirmed that proof of it triggers a mandatory adverse inference, though the exact remedy stays discretionary. The bank's trial-stage damages formula, built around a gap in the evidence the bank itself created, was found untethered from the facts and set aside. The case returns to the Ontario Superior Court for the damages to be recalculated using inferences that actually fill the evidentiary gap left by the spoliation.
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Dr. Lokesh B.H. v State of Karnataka: Cruelty Does Not Check Whether a Couple Married First
The Supreme Court holds that Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises cruelty by a husband or his relatives, extends to men in live-in relationships that carry the essential character of marriage and were entered with an intent to marry, holding that the same cruelty deserves the same criminal protection regardless of whether a wedding ceremony ever took place.
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3 August 2026
Property & Succession
Chang Yiuw Choon v Chong Yiuw Tham: A Family Promise the Siblings Could Not Enforce
Eight siblings claimed their late mother's oral arrangement with their brother entitled them to a share of a house he alone has owned since 1983. Singapore's High Court struck out the claim: even taking every pleaded fact as true, the siblings never pleaded facts capable of establishing a trust in their favour, and their own case, framed to dodge a foreign ownership law, ruled out the property interest their constructive trust claim required. The judgment also gives a rare full treatment of when a purely personal contractual right still counts as property capable of being held on trust.
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31 July 2026
Criminal & FIR
R v Sheikh and Others: A Different Method of Harm Does Not Break the Chain of Foresight
The Supreme Court restores convictions under a law designed to protect vulnerable people from unprovable domestic harm, holding that a later act of harm does not fall outside a defendant's foreseeable knowledge merely because it was carried out by a different method from an earlier, related act of abuse the defendant already knew about.
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Nisha v Municipal Council Sangrur: When Being Procedurally Right Would Have Left a Widow With Nothing
The Supreme Court awards compensation to the widow of a man killed by a stray bull nineteen years earlier, holding that sending her back to a civil court after this much delay would leave her with no remedy at all, and uses the case to survey cattle protection law across every Indian state before urging governments to build a proper compensation mechanism that, on this record, still barely exists.
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Mahendra Singh v State of Chhattisgarh: A Murder Trial Undone by a Missing Order From 1999
The Supreme Court acquits a man convicted of murder eighteen years after his arrest, and twenty seven years after the killing, because the trial court never passed the specific order required before a witness's testimony, given while he was still absconding, could later be used against him without cross-examination.
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31 July 2026
Commentary
Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley: Fraud and the Limits of International Comity
The Supreme Court of New Zealand holds that proven fraud changes how courts must weigh international comity, and reinstates injunctions blocking enforcement of a fraudulently obtained Kentucky judgment worth more than 120 million US dollars.
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31 July 2026
Commentary
CNN17 v Minister for Immigration: Three Days Late Wasn't the Problem — Not Having Grounds Was
The Federal Court of Australia refuses to extend time for a self-represented asylum seeker to appeal — not chiefly because he filed three days late, but because 'the Tribunal was biased' and 'ignored my case,' without more, were never going to be grounds of appeal...
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31 July 2026
Consumer Protection & Product Liability
Wettbewerbszentrale v FOCUS Gesundheit: A Doctor Rating Seal Cannot Hide That Doctors Rated Themselves
Germany's Federal Court of Justice holds that health related quality seals sold to doctors for advertising use are subject to the strictest standard applied to health advertising, and sends a case back for fresh findings on whether a magazine's doctor rating seals properly disclosed that the underlying assessments relied heavily on the rated doctors' own self reported claims about their treatment performance.
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Reliance General Insurance v Om Parkash: A Licensing Officer's Word Cannot Override His Own Record
The Supreme Court restores an insurer's defence to a motor accident claim, holding that a High Court was wrong to accept a licensing officer's oral assurance that a driver's licence remained valid through a gap in official records, when the officer's own documentary evidence, along with a penalty paid specifically for that gap, contradicted him directly.
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Director of Income Tax v Star Cruises: A Round Trip Cruise Is Still Carriage of Passengers
The Supreme Court holds that a foreign cruise operator running round trip voyages out of Mumbai, offering onboard entertainment alongside transport, still qualifies as carrying passengers for the purposes of a special, simplified tax regime for foreign shipping businesses, rejecting the tax department's narrower reading after three lower forums had already agreed with the taxpayer.
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29 July 2026
Matrimonial & Family
In re N (Children): Sending a Care Case Abroad Takes More Than Finding the Better Court
The Supreme Court holds that a court asked to send a child protection case abroad under Brussels IIA must weigh the real consequences of transfer itself, separate from the question of which court is better placed to hear the case. Two young sisters keep their long-term foster home while the underlying dispute returns to the Family Division.
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Ramasrey v State of Uttar Pradesh: Reviewing Presidential Clemency Is Not the Same as Appealing It
The Supreme Court dismisses four petitions from convicts serving sentences of imprisonment for the remainder of natural life, holding that a settled five judge ruling cannot be reopened before a two judge bench, and that asking the Court to further reduce a sentence the President has already commuted through clemency is an appeal against that power, not judicial review of it.
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Otis Elevator v Rashmi Handa: The Supreme Court Treats a Lift as a Common Carrier
The Supreme Court holds that a passenger lift should be treated as a common carrier, and upholds a finding that the lift's manufacturer bore the largest share of liability for a fatal accident even though a government engineer's staff physically released the brake that caused it, because the manufacturer had known about the underlying defect for months and never fixed it.
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Nakhat Singh v Union of India: Why an Airman Cannot Get Selected First and Seek Permission Later
The Supreme Court holds that an Air Force order requiring an airman to seek permission before applying for a civil post is not a formality he can bypass and excuse afterward simply because he went on to be selected. Where a rule specifies what happens if it is not followed, that consequence confirms the rule was always meant to be obeyed, not treated as optional once a more attractive outcome appears.
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29 July 2026
Constitutional Law
Gade v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship: The Deadline Ran From a Date the Applicant Could Not Yet See
A former student's graduate visa was refused because his application arrived a matter of days after a strict six-month deadline. The deadline ran not from the day he could see his results, but from an earlier date fixed by his university and disclosed to him...
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29 July 2026
Constitutional Law
CUD21 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship: The Tribunal Said 'Must.' The Direction Said 'Generally.' The Court Read Past the Difference.
A Tribunal found a man met the legal test for protection, then refused him a visa anyway on character grounds, and wrote that community protection 'must' be given greater weight where the governing Direction says only 'generally.' The Federal Court read that word against the...
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29 July 2026
Insolvency & Restructuring
Bailey v Angove's: When the Middleman Goes Bust, Being Owed Money Is Not the Same as Owning It
The Supreme Court holds that an agent's authority to collect a debt ends the moment the principal revokes it, even where the agent needs to keep collecting to recover its own commission. It also rejects a line of cases that let a principal claim a trust over money merely because the agent's insolvency made retaining it feel unconscionable. Both rulings favour the general body of an insolvent company's creditors over a single claimant trying to jump the queue.
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28 July 2026
Arbitration & Enforcement
Zhejiang Lishui Mengxiang v Pan: The Six-Week Window for Enforcing a Foreign Arbitration Award
The Federal Court enforces a Beijing arbitration award worth over 93 million yuan against individuals who never appeared — entering judgment immediately, but freezing it for six weeks to give them a real chance to object.
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28 July 2026
Intellectual Property
Tesla v InterDigital: Why a Patent Pool Still Has to Play Fair
The UK Supreme Court holds, unanimously, that a patent owner's promise to charge a fair price survives joining a licensing pool — letting Tesla drag the pool's operator into court to test whether its price for 5G patents is actually fair.
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Tejas Shah v Mantri Technology Constellations: A Moratorium Shields the Company, Not the People Behind It
The Supreme Court reaffirms that an IBC moratorium shields only the insolvent company named in the insolvency proceeding — not its directors, an associated company, or the landowners on its project — reviving a consumer complaint an apex forum had wrongly frozen against all seven...
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NHAI v Kurukshetra Expressway: A ₹911 Crore Award Falls for Rewriting the Contract It Was Meant to Interpret
The Delhi High Court sets aside a ₹911 crore arbitral termination payment, holding that a contractual notification mechanism cannot be read to silently override an express cost cap — one of the rarer instances of an award falling for 'patent illegality' rather than a mere difference of interpretation.
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28 July 2026
International & State Immunity
Bahrain v Shehabi: Why a Hack From Abroad Still Counts as 'Acting' in Britain
The UK Supreme Court holds, 3-2, that a state hacking a computer in Britain from abroad is still 'acting' in Britain — stripping Bahrain of immunity and reshaping how the law treats remote, automated conduct.
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State of Andhra Pradesh v. Suda Suresh Veera Venkata Naga Raju: To Probe a Custodial Death, the Supreme Court Eases the Custody Safeguards Meant to Prevent One
A police inspector under investigation for a custodial death was interrogated subject to conditions built to prevent further custodial abuse — confinement to a distant prison, uninterrupted videography, a hard deadline. The Supreme Court held these conditions defeated the investigation into the death itself, and...
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The Battle for '20-20': An Unused Trademark Application Defeats Eighteen Years of Biscuit Sales
The Delhi High Court holds that an eighteen-year-old, never-used trademark application defeats a famous biscuit brand's own registration and market presence — because priority under the Trade Marks Act is fixed at the filing date, not the date of actual use, and the entire delay was the Trade Marks Registry's own making.
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