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.
In 2007, Chemplast agreed to buy a plot of land in Cuddalore and registered the sale agreement, but a Tamil Nadu government order had reserved that land for a thermal power project to be developed by Cuddalore Powergen, so the sub-registrar refused to register the actual sale deed. Chemplast first sued only for an injunction to stop interference with its possession. Only after the Madras High Court later quashed the government's land-reservation order in separate proceedings did Chemplast file a second suit: this time for specific performance (to force execution of the sale deed) and to cancel a later sale deed the seller had executed in favour of Cuddalore Powergen.
Cuddalore Powergen argued the second suit was barred by Order II Rule 2 CPC, which stops a plaintiff from splitting reliefs that arise from a single cause of action into separate lawsuits. The Supreme Court held the two suits were founded on genuinely different causes of action: the first suit was about stopping dispossession while the government ban was still in force, whereas the right to seek specific performance only came into existence once the High Court quashed that ban and cleared the way for registration. Since this cause of action did not exist at the time of the first suit, splitting was not improper. The Court dismissed the appeal and allowed the second suit to proceed to trial on its merits.
The rule that all reliefs from one dispute must be claimed in a single lawsuit does not stop someone from filing a fresh suit for a new right that only comes into existence later, for instance, when a government restriction blocking that right is subsequently struck down by a court.
