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.
The appellant, a Border Security Force constable, was dismissed from service without pension after a Court of Inquiry found he had contracted a second marriage without permission while his first marriage was still subsisting (he was exonerated of a separate allegation of abducting the woman he later married). He challenged the dismissal in the Delhi High Court, but a Division Bench declined to decide the case on merits, instead invoking the doctrine of "forum non conveniens" to hold that Delhi was not the appropriate forum since the disciplinary action, an earlier related petition, and the marriage itself all connected to other states (West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir/Ladakh, and Uttar Pradesh). His review petition was also dismissed, leading to this appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the Delhi High Court had jurisdiction to entertain the writ petition (since the respondent Union of India's offices are located in Delhi, satisfying Article 226(1)), and that the doctrine of forum non conveniens, borrowed from ordinary civil litigation where a defendant argues a more convenient court exists, was misapplied to a writ petition invoking constitutional remedy jurisdiction based on the respondent's location. The Court reasoned that where a litigant has himself chosen a forum convenient to the respondent, and where the relevant records are readily available with the respondent's office, refusing to exercise jurisdiction on convenience grounds would deny access to justice rather than serve it. It therefore set aside the Delhi High Court's order, allowed the appeal, dismissed as not maintainable the connected appeal against the review-dismissal order (since no appeal lies from dismissal of a review petition), and directed the Delhi High Court to decide the original writ petition on its merits, giving the respondents two months to file a counter-affidavit.
A citizen who files a writ petition against the Central Government in the High Court where that government's offices are located cannot ordinarily be turned away on "convenience" grounds alone: the forum non conveniens doctrine has limited application to constitutional writ remedies and should not be used to deny access to justice.
