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.
This was a batch of appeals concerning companies (including Nestle SA and others) based in Netherlands, France, and Switzerland claiming a lower withholding tax rate on dividends/royalties/fees for technical services in India, by invoking the "Most Favoured Nation" (MFN) clause in India's tax treaties with those countries. Their argument was that once India later gave a more favourable (lower) tax rate to another OECD-member country in a separate treaty, that same benefit should automatically flow through to them under the MFN clause, even though the relevant third country was not yet an OECD member when India signed its treaty with that country. The Delhi High Court had ruled in favour of the taxpayers, prompting appeals by the tax department.
The Supreme Court reversed the High Court and ruled in favour of the tax authorities. It held two key things: first, that a formal notification under Section 90(1) of the Income Tax Act is a mandatory precondition before any court, authority, or tribunal can give legal effect to a DTAA or a change made via an MFN/Protocol clause: the benefit does not apply automatically just because the treaty text says so. Second, interpreting the word "is" in the relevant clauses to have present-tense significance, the Court held that for the MFN benefit to trigger, the third country must already have been an OECD member at the time it entered into its own DTAA with India, not merely become an OECD member at some later date. Since neither condition was met on the facts, the taxpayers' claims failed and the High Court's orders were set aside; the revenue's appeals were allowed with no order as to costs. One connected appeal concerning the India-Spain treaty was separated out to be heard by another bench since it wasn't covered by this reasoning.
A treaty clause promising equal ("most favoured nation") tax treatment is not self-executing in India: taxpayers cannot claim a lower tax rate under an MFN clause unless the government has issued the required formal notification, and the comparison country must already have belonged to the relevant international grouping (like the OECD) at the time it signed its own tax treaty with India.
