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.
MSEDCL, Maharashtra's electricity distribution utility, had long-term Power Purchase Agreements with generating companies Adani Power Maharashtra (APML) and, in a connected appeal, GMR Warora Energy, entered into through competitive bidding under the Electricity Act. These agreements included a "Change in Law" clause allowing generators to be compensated if government policy changes affected their costs: here, the Central Government's 2013 revision of coal-supply policy (replacing the 2007 policy) forced generators to source a larger share of coal from costlier alternative sources. The regulators (CERC) and the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) ruled in the generators' favour on how to calculate this compensation, using technical fuel-efficiency parameters (Station Heat Rate and Gross Calorific Value) based on actual performance or regulatory norms rather than the values originally quoted in the companies' bids, and MSEDCL appealed to the Supreme Court arguing the bid-quoted figures should control.
The Supreme Court sided with the generating companies and the regulators, holding that Station Heat Rate and Gross Calorific Value used for calculating "Change in Law" compensation should be based on actual performance or the applicable Tariff Regulations (whichever is lower), not on the technical figures originally declared in the competitive bid, because a bid figure reflects a bidder's risk estimate at the time of bidding, not the actual fuel cost impact of a later government policy change. It relied on its own earlier ruling in Energy Watchdog, which held that regulatory guidelines under Section 63 of the Electricity Act are binding on regulators even in competitively-bid tariffs, and criticized different arms of government (the DISCOMS and the Union) for taking contradictory positions on the same policy. In the connected GMR appeal, the Court also upheld the direction that MSEDCL pay a late-payment surcharge, since it had failed to pay generators' dues on time as required by the agreement. Decision Breakdown (continued: outcome): Both appeals were dismissed, upholding the compensation methodology and late-payment surcharge in favour of the generating companies, with no order as to costs.
When a government policy change increases a power generator's costs, compensation under a "Change in Law" clause is meant to restore the real economic impact of that change. It is calculated using actual or regulator-prescribed technical benchmarks, not artificially frozen at the figures originally quoted in a competitive bid.
