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.
Bijendra and Rekha married in 2003, but the marriage was troubled almost from the start, and Rekha went back to her parents' home in November 2005. When Bijendra went to bring her back in December 2005, she refused to return, and the couple lived apart from that point onward with no children born of the marriage. Bijendra filed for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion; the trial court found the allegations of cruelty unproven but, despite finding the couple had genuinely been separated since December 2005, still refused to grant a divorce on the desertion ground. The High Court also dismissed his appeal, reasoning that Rekha's assertion that she never refused her marital obligations meant the "intention to desert" (animus deserendi) had not been proven.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court erred in disregarding the trial court's own factual finding, unchallenged by Rekha, that she had refused to return to the matrimonial home without reasonable cause when Bijendra came to fetch her. Applying settled principles that desertion requires both the factual separation and an intention to permanently end cohabitation, the Court found that a spouse's mere verbal assertion of willingness to reconcile cannot outweigh conduct showing the opposite, especially over such a long, unbroken separation with no children and a failed court-mediation attempt. The Court restored the trial court's finding of desertion, left the cruelty finding undisturbed (since that finding favored Rekha and was not challenged effectively), and dissolved the marriage under Section 13(1)(ib) of the Hindu Marriage Act, directing Bijendra to pay Rs. 7,00,000 as permanent alimony.
In divorce cases based on desertion, courts must look at actual conduct and unchallenged factual findings, not just a spouse's professed willingness to reconcile, and a long, genuine separation with no real prospect of reunion is a strong indicator that a marriage should be legally dissolved rather than kept alive in name only.
