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.
Dr. Indira Saranath, an officer of the Indian Railway Medical Service, was denied promotion to Chief Medical Director (Higher Administrative Grade) even though a junior officer was promoted instead. She challenged this before the Central Administrative Tribunal and then the Delhi High Court, both of which ruled against her, holding that she had not secured the required "Very Good+" grading benchmark. She then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the wrong benchmark was applied and that she was never given copies of her own confidential performance reports (ACRs) to contest them.
The Supreme Court found three cumulative problems: she was never supplied her ACR entries despite repeatedly asking for them, her service records were inadvertently destroyed while litigation over the same issue was pending, and she had been awarded a fractional score (19.5 points) that had no basis in the governing 1996 promotion policy, which, properly applied, would have given her 20 points. Relying on the principle that non-communication of adverse ACR entries causes real prejudice to an employee, the Court drew an adverse inference against the Railways for the missing records and the unexplained fractional scoring. It held that the appellant was not fairly assessed and set aside both the Tribunal's and the High Court's judgments. However, since her actual service records could not be produced or examined, the Court declined to award full back salary but granted notional promotion to the HAG grade and directed re-fixation of her pension and other retiral benefits in that grade, with arrears paid within two months.
An employer cannot withhold an employee's own confidential performance appraisals from them and then use those same appraisals to deny a promotion; failing to supply ACR entries on request, or losing service records while related litigation is pending, can result in an adverse inference against the employer even years after retirement.
