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.
Land in Village Maidan Garhi, Delhi was notified for acquisition way back in 1980, with the Section 6 declaration issued in 1985 and the Collector's award in 1987, followed by decades of litigation by various landowners. Respondent Damini Wadhwa, who claimed an interest in a portion of this land through an Agreement to Sell dated 22.05.2016: i.e., decades after the original acquisition proceedings began: filed a writ petition claiming the acquisition had lapsed under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act (which deems old acquisitions lapsed if possession was not taken or compensation not paid/deposited for five years). The Delhi High Court agreed and declared the acquisition lapsed; the DDA appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that Wadhwa, having acquired her interest in the land only in 2016, long after the 1980 acquisition notification, was merely a "subsequent purchaser," and under settled Supreme Court precedent (Godfrey Phillips, Meera Sahni, M. Venkatesh, and the larger bench in Shiv Kumar) a subsequent purchaser has no legal standing to claim lapse of acquisition proceedings under Section 24(2). The Court also held that, even on the merits, the High Court had erred: applying the Constitution Bench ruling in Indore Development Authority, non-possession or non-payment of compensation caused by pending litigation over the land cannot count as a ground for deemed lapse. The Court therefore quashed the High Court's order and dismissed the original writ petition, allowing DDA's appeal with no costs.
A person who buys or acquires an interest in land only after it has already been notified for government acquisition cannot later claim that the acquisition has lapsed: that right belongs only to those who held an interest in the land at the time of acquisition, and delays caused by ongoing litigation do not count against the acquiring authority.
