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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Godrej and Boyce owned land in Mumbai that Greater Mumbai's Development Plan had reserved for a "Recreation Ground." Under Section 126(1)(b) of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, when such reserved land is surrendered to the municipal corporation, the owner can be compensated with Transferable Development Rights (TDR) equal to the surrendered area, plus "Additional TDR" if the owner also develops or constructs the amenity itself on the surrendered land at its own cost. Godrej surrendered the land in 1994-95, completed certain site works (cutting, levelling, filling, storm-water drains) through its architects, handed over possession in December 1995, and received a Development Rights Certificate (DRC) for ordinary TDR in January 1996, but no request for Additional TDR was made at that stage. Only in April 1998, after a builder (Mayfair Housing, represented by the company's later-appointed attorney) had separately sought and obtained permission in late 1996 to "develop and maintain" the ground, did Godrej apply for Additional TDR; this was rejected in 1998 citing a restrictive 1996 municipal circular, and again in 2010 after that circular was struck down in unrelated litigation. The Bombay High Court dismissed Godrej's writ petition, holding both that the 12-year delay amounted to abandonment of the claim and that, on the facts, Godrej had never actually developed the "amenity" (as opposed to merely doing preparatory site work to get the land accepted for ordinary TDR).
The Supreme Court disagreed with the High Court on the delay/abandonment point, holding that since the company's own earlier TDR-circular dispute over a different property was pending before the Supreme Court until 2009, Godrej's right to claim Additional TDR was reasonably "in suspended animation" during that period, so the wait could not be treated as abandonment. However, on the core factual question, the Court closely traced the correspondence and found that all the site work done before December 1995 (cutting, levelling, storm-water drains) was undertaken solely to persuade the Corporation to accept the land surrender and grant ordinary TDR, not as "development of the amenity" for Additional TDR purposes, since Godrej's own application form at that time had explicitly answered "does not arise" to the question of whether it proposed to build the amenity under the relevant clause. It was only after Mayfair Housing entered the picture in November 1996, sought permission to develop and maintain the ground, and was given two powers of attorney by Godrej in December 1996, that a claim for Additional TDR first surfaced, but the Corporation had expressly told Mayfair Housing it would not be entitled to any TDR for that later development work. The Court held this sequence made clear that no genuine "development of amenity" (as legally required for Additional TDR) had been carried out by the original owner, upholding the High Court's factual finding on this point and dismissing the appeal, with no order as to costs.
In compensation schemes with multiple, distinct conditions (like ordinary TDR for surrendering land versus Additional TDR for separately developing an amenity on it), the specific representations a party makes in the contemporaneous paperwork, such as explicitly disclaiming an intention to build the amenity, can be decisive years later in showing what was really being claimed and when, regardless of how the land eventually looks.
