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.
GoQii, a wellness-tech company, had engaged Sokrati (a digital-marketing firm and Dentsu subsidiary) to run its ad campaigns under a Master Services Agreement. After media reports and an Economic Offences Wing complaint alleged malpractice in the advertising industry involving Dentsu, GoQii commissioned an independent audit which found abnormally poor returns and suspicious metrics on the campaigns. When Sokrati demanded over Rs 6.25 crore in unpaid invoices, GoQii refused to pay, invoked the arbitration clause in the contract, and sought a refund plus damages. The Bombay High Court refused to appoint an arbitrator under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, holding that GoQii's dispute was a "manifestly dishonest" afterthought designed to dodge payment and resist Sokrati's separate insolvency proceedings.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court had exceeded its limited jurisdiction under Section 11, which, following the Court's own recent rulings (In Re: Interplay and SBI General Insurance v. Krish Spinning): is confined to checking only the prima facie existence of an arbitration agreement, not conducting a detailed merits review of whether the dispute is genuine or frivolous. Since the existence of the arbitration clause itself was undisputed, the High Court should not have delved into whether GoQii's claims based on the audit report were dishonest: that determination belongs to the arbitral tribunal, which is equally or better placed to weed out frivolous claims after full evidence. The Court set aside the High Court's order, allowed the appeal, and appointed a named former Chief Justice as sole arbitrator, while clarifying that arbitrators may saddle a party found to have abused the process with costs.
When a contract has an arbitration clause, courts asked to appoint an arbitrator can only check whether that clause exists. They cannot pre-judge who is right or whether a dispute is "genuine," because that job belongs to the arbitrator; a party trying to avoid arbitration by arguing the other side's claim is frivolous will usually be told to make that argument to the arbitral tribunal instead.
