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.
Transfer Petition (Criminal) · 2026 INSC 1060
Where a marriage has irretrievably broken down and the parties reach a genuine, voluntary settlement, including on alimony, the Supreme Court can use its Article 142 powers to grant a mutual-consent divorce and close out all related litigation in one stroke, without requiring the usual statutory waiting period.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026 INSC 1061
In long-running, complex litigation involving apportioned government liabilities across states, the Supreme Court can use a mechanism like a retired-judge committee plus periodic compliance affidavits to bring genuine finality, including firm timelines, transparency obligations, and interest for delayed payment, rather than leaving matters open-ended.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1062
In an "as is where is" liquidation auction, a bidder who voluntarily accepts the auction terms cannot later resile from a forfeiture clause by citing regulatory caps or after-the-fact excuses for non-payment: courts will enforce the auction notice's own conditions.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8338-DB
Once someone is released from custody because the police failed to properly communicate the grounds of arrest, the police cannot simply re-arrest them by adding new charges: a specific, court-supervised procedure with senior-officer accountability must be followed, or the re-arrest itself becomes illegal.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8308
In economic-offence cases, bail can still be granted where the method used to quantify the alleged financial evasion is not adequately justified, and where the apprehension of re-offending is speculative rather than evidence-based.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8323
A parole claim must be backed by a genuine, verifiable application to the competent jail authority: courts will scrutinise irregularities like an incomplete address, an unexplained thumb mark, or reliance on a mere friend's affidavit rather than close family.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8337
Courts can grant short, strictly time-bound interim bail purely on humanitarian/compassionate grounds (such as caring for a seriously ill family member), even while a case remains pending trial and an earlier bail plea has failed.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8312
Courts will not repeatedly re-examine a bail plea already rejected on merits unless the applicant can point to a genuine change in circumstances since the earlier order.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8334
Under the no-fault compensation scheme for railway accidents, a valid ticket-holder injured while attempting to board a train, even carelessly, is generally entitled to compensation unless the railway can show a deliberate, conscious exposure to danger, not mere negligence.
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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.
A.G. Perarivalan was convicted as accused No.18 for his role in the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and was originally sentenced to death; his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court in 2014. After he had served 23 years, the Tamil Nadu State Cabinet recommended his premature release/remission in September 2018, but the Governor of Tamil Nadu did not decide on this recommendation for over two and a half years, eventually referring it to the President of India in January 2021 without deciding it himself. Perarivalan, who had already been released on bail in March 2022 after spending over 31 years in custody, brought these appeals questioning whether the Governor could bypass the binding advice of the State Cabinet by forwarding the matter to the President.
The Court held that under Article 161, the advice of the State Cabinet is binding on the Governor, who acts merely as "a shorthand expression for the State Government" and has no independent discretion to refer a Cabinet recommendation on remission to the President: that action had no constitutional backing. The Court found the Governor's inexplicable multi-year delay in deciding a matter concerning a prisoner's liberty was subject to judicial review, especially once the Cabinet had already recommended release. It also rejected the Union's reliance on the Constitution Bench ruling in Union of India v. Sriharan, clarifying that for an offence under Section 302 IPC (murder), it is the State's executive power that applies absent any express law giving that power to the Centre. Given Perarivalan's 32 years of incarceration (including 16 years on death row and 29 years in solitary confinement), his good conduct, chronic health issues, and the multiple educational qualifications earned in jail, the Court used its extraordinary power under Article 142 to declare he had deemed to have served his sentence and ordered him set at liberty forthwith, rather than sending the matter back to the Governor.
A State Governor cannot sit on or redirect elsewhere a Cabinet's binding recommendation on remission of a sentence under Article 161: such inaction or improper referral is not immune from judicial review, particularly where a citizen's personal liberty and prolonged incarceration are at stake, and the Supreme Court can use its Article 142 powers to grant complete justice when ordinary remand would cause further unjust delay.
