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.
Oriental Bank of Commerce assigned a defaulting borrower's debt to Asset Reconstruction Co. (India) Ltd. under a registered Assignment Agreement, which had already been charged stamp duty as a "conveyance." Years later, an audit objection claimed that a Power of Attorney (PoA) format contained as a schedule within that same assignment deed was separately chargeable to stamp duty as an authority to sell immovable property, and the Chief Controlling Revenue Authority of Gujarat demanded an additional Rs. 23,53,800 in stamp duty. The Gujarat High Court's Full Bench upheld this demand, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that only one document, the Assignment Agreement, was presented for registration, and the PoA was merely a format annexed as a schedule, not an independent instrument. It found that the power to sell a secured asset actually flows from the Securitisation Act, 2002 itself (which deems an Asset Reconstruction Company the "lender" with all the original lender's rights), not from any separate PoA. Since the deed of assignment had already been charged and duty paid under the correct provision (Article 20(a), as reduced by government notifications), the Revenue could not split the single instrument and tax it again under a different article merely because a concessional rate had applied. The High Court's order was set aside and the extra demand quashed, with no order as to costs.
A single composite document cannot be taxed twice under different stamp-duty heads just because one clause within it also describes a power that could, standalone, attract a different rate. Once a document is correctly charged under its applicable provision, tax authorities cannot re-characterise part of it to demand more revenue.
