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 respondent was born to a woman during her subsisting marriage to one Mr. Raju Kurian, whose name was recorded as the father in the birth register. After the woman divorced Mr. Kurian, she sought to have the appellant's name substituted as the child's father, alleging an extramarital relationship, and the respondent filed a civil suit seeking a declaration of paternity as well as a maintenance petition under Section 125 CrPC against the appellant. Over roughly two decades, the matter went through multiple rounds of litigation, and a civil appellate court had already conclusively held in 2011 (a decision never further appealed) that the presumption of legitimacy in favour of Mr. Kurian's fatherhood stood unrebutted. Despite this, the Family Court later revived the maintenance petition against the appellant, and the Kerala High Court upheld that revival, prompting this appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that legitimacy under Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act continues to determine paternity unless the presumption is affirmatively rebutted by proving "non-access" between spouses, and that the civil courts (Munsiff Court and Sub-Judge) had jurisdiction to decide the legitimacy question raised in the original suit. Because the 2011 judgment on legitimacy had never been challenged and had attained finality between the same parties, the Court held that the principle of res judicata barred the Family Court from reopening the same issue years later under the guise of a maintenance proceeding. The Court found the Family Court's revival of the maintenance petition, and the High Court's endorsement of it, to be a direct contravention of res judicata and an impermissible attempt to relitigate a settled matter. The appeal was allowed, the maintenance proceedings were quashed, and the respondent was held to be the legitimate son of Mr. Raju Kurian.
Once a court has finally decided a question of legitimacy or paternity between two parties and that decision is not appealed, the same issue cannot be reopened later in a different proceeding (such as a maintenance case): the principle of res judicata prevents parties from relitigating settled questions indefinitely.
