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.
Central Warehousing Corporation (a statutory body) leased storage space to Sidhartha Tiles, a ceramic-tiles and sanitary-ware trading company, under an agreement that contained an arbitration clause and was due to expire after three years. Before expiry, the Corporation revised storage charges upward multiple times, and a dispute arose over unpaid dues and renewal of the lease; after the lease lapsed and the tenant vacated the premises weeks later than the expiry date, the Corporation invoked the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, and separately raised a monetary demand. The tenant company invoked the arbitration clause under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, and the High Court appointed an arbitrator, which the Corporation challenged before the Supreme Court, arguing the Public Premises Act should override the arbitration process.
The Supreme Court held that on the facts, the question of whether the Public Premises Act overrides the Arbitration Act did not actually arise, because a valid arbitration clause existed and, per its recent ruling in SBI General Insurance vs. Krish Spinning, a court's role at the arbitrator-appointment stage under Section 11(6-A) is limited to a prima facie check that an arbitration agreement exists in writing, not a detailed inquiry into the merits or into competing statutory claims, which are matters for the arbitral tribunal itself to decide under Section 16. Finding no error in the High Court's appointment of the arbitrator, the Court dismissed the appeal, imposed Rs. 50,000 in costs on the Corporation for pursuing what it called unnecessary litigation, and directed the previously-stayed arbitration to resume and proceed expeditiously.
When a contract contains a valid arbitration clause, courts asked to appoint an arbitrator will generally do only a light, prima facie check that the clause exists. They will not get drawn into deciding which law "overrides" another or resolving the substance of the dispute, leaving those questions to the arbitrator; parties who try to use court proceedings to avoid arbitration on such grounds risk being saddled with costs.
