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 1995, the Supreme Court's interim order in the TMA Pai Foundation case created a "subvention" scheme under which the Central Government paid Rs. 5,000 per student per year to certain professional colleges, meant to run for five years per student batch or until course completion. Sri Devraj Urs Medical College sought this subvention for students admitted in and after 2002-03, but the Central Government stopped payments after the Supreme Court's final 11-judge bench decision in TMA Pai Foundation (2002) declared the underlying scheme unconstitutional. The Karnataka High Court had ruled in the college's favour, holding it was entitled to subvention for the full 5-year course even for students admitted after the 2002 ruling.
The Supreme Court held that the subvention scheme itself effectively ended when the 11-judge bench declared it unconstitutional on 31.10.2002, and nothing in that judgment or a later clarificatory order made this effect only prospective in the college's favour. Since the college also failed to provide any data on whether its fee revenue actually fell short of its expenses (a key basis courts have used to justify continued relief), the Court found no ground to extend payments beyond the 2002-03 academic year. The appeal was partly allowed, setting aside the High Court's direction to pay subvention beyond that year.
A benefit created by a court's interim or temporary order does not survive indefinitely once the court's final judgment overturns the scheme that created it, and a party seeking continued financial relief must actually place supporting facts and figures on record, not just argue the point in the abstract.
