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.
6171 more judgements for members
You're seeing the newest cases. Log in — it's free — to keep scrolling, search by name or judge, and filter by court or legal area.
Log in to see moreLegal Case Shots is built to help you quickly identify and understand relevant precedent. For citation in pleadings or filings, always verify against the full judgment PDF and current citation format (e.g., 2026 INSC ___).
The holding is what the court legally decided. The lesson learnt translates that into a practical takeaway: what a lawyer should factor into case strategy or client advice as a result of this precedent.
Both. Each case shows a distilled summary (case type, key holding, and lesson learnt) and links to the full judgment as a PDF for when you need the complete text for research or citation.
Yes. Use Advanced Filters to narrow results by decision date and by practice area, including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Service & Administrative Law, Family Law, Civil Property & Inheritance, and Labour & Industrial Law.
Yes. You can filter judgments by the judge or bench that decided the case, which is useful for tracking how a particular judge has reasoned on similar issues across multiple rulings.
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.
A landowner leased his plot to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for 29 years to build a petrol pump, and separately was appointed as IOC's dealer to run that outlet under a distinct dealership agreement (with its own term and its own arbitration clause naming IOC's Director-Marketing as arbitrator). After irregularities were found at the outlet, IOC terminated the dealership. The dealer then invoked arbitration under the dealership agreement, and the arbitrator - though appointed only under that agreement - went on to also increase the monthly lease rent (from Rs.1,750 to Rs.10,000) and shorten the lease term, effectively rewriting the separate lease agreement, which had its own distinct arbitration clause naming only IOC's Managing Director as arbitrator.
The Supreme Court held that the lease agreement and dealership agreement were legally distinct and independent contracts, each with its own separate arbitration clause, and that an arbitrator appointed under the dealership agreement had no jurisdiction to decide or rewrite any dispute arising under the separate lease agreement. Since the lease and dealership disputes could not be mixed, the award's portions altering the lease rent and lease period were made without jurisdiction and were also "patently illegal" under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act because they rewrote a valid contract the parties had entered into with open eyes, rather than merely interpreting it. The Court reaffirmed that courts have very limited power to interfere with arbitral awards, but an arbitrator exceeding the scope of the reference or the powers actually given by the parties is a valid ground to set aside that part of the award. It restored the dealership-termination finding (which was never under challenge here) but struck down the lease-rent and lease-term modifications made by the arbitrator.
When two related but separate contracts each have their own arbitration clause naming different arbitrators, a dispute arising under one contract cannot be decided by the arbitrator appointed only for the other - an arbitrator's authority is strictly confined to what the specific contract and its arbitration clause actually permit.
