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.
Phannuram Sahu died in 1959 leaving coparcenary (ancestral joint family) agricultural and house property. He was survived by a daughter, Kesar Bai (from his first wife), and a son, Vishal, and daughter, Keja Bai (from his second wife). A 1964 family partition gave Phannuram's 1/3rd share entirely to his son Vishal, and Kesar Bai sued for her share, a claim later carried on by her son Derha (the appellant) after her death. The trial court gave Derha 1/3rd share; the first appellate court upheld this; but the Chhattisgarh High Court in second appeal cut it down to 1/6th.
The Supreme Court applied Section 6 (as it stood pre-2005 amendment) and Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, along with the "notional partition" principle from Gurupad Khandappa Magdum v. Hirabai Khandappa Magdum. Phannuram's own 1/3rd coparcenary share had to first be notionally carved out as of his death; within that, his son Vishal was entitled to a half-share purely by birth as a coparcener, while the remaining half devolved equally among Phannuram's three Class I heirs (Kesar Bai, Vishal, Keja Bai), giving each daughter only 1/6th of the original 1/3rd share, and Vishal a combined 4/6th share. This matched exactly what the High Court had already worked out, so the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and left the High Court's division undisturbed.
When a coparcener dies leaving daughters as well as a son, the son does not simply inherit the father's full share: the father's notional share must first be split via a fictional partition, with the son taking his birthright half separately and the remaining half shared equally among all children, which mathematically favours the son but still guarantees daughters a defined share under Hindu succession law.
