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.
The appellant, a candidate in the 2019 Punjab/Haryana Superior Judicial Service Examination, was not selected after the written test. He challenged the selection process before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, alleging that the minimum-qualifying-marks condition was not authorized by the governing rules, that marks obtained were wrongly withheld from him, and, most significantly, that the Criminal Law question paper (Paper V) was found to be missing one question when distributed, with a supplementary question sheet handed out only an hour into the exam. The High Court dismissed his writ petition at the preliminary stage itself, without even calling for a response from the authorities.
The Supreme Court agreed that the missing-question defect in Paper V was a serious and undisputed lapse, not a mere technicality, and that it could not simply be ignored. Rather than cancelling the entire exam (which would unfairly penalize hundreds of candidates and further delay a recruitment already running years behind), the Court directed that the four undisputed questions of Paper V (160 of the original 200 marks) be revalued on their own, excluding the belatedly-supplied question, and that a fresh result of the written exam be declared on that basis. Candidates who now qualify are to be called for a fresh, uniformly-conducted interview by one common board, rejecting the plea that previously-interviewed candidates be spared re-interview. The High Court's dismissal was set aside and the appeal allowed with these directions, to be completed within two months.
A demonstrable, undisputed defect in the conduct of a competitive examination, such as a missing question, cannot simply be brushed aside by declaring "no prejudice," but courts will look for a proportionate fix (like excluding the flawed portion) rather than voiding an entire selection process when that better serves fairness to all candidates.
