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.
Under Madhya Pradesh's "Jan Bhagidari Scheme," local committees managed government colleges and could appoint guest faculty on a contractual, year-to-year basis for self-financing courses. The appellants were selected as guest lecturers for the 2014-15 academic year through a proper selection process, but were discontinued after the year ended when the college issued fresh advertisements for the next year. A single judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court allowed their challenge, directing they continue until regular selections were made and be paid per a UGC circular; the Division Bench reversed this and dismissed their claim entirely.
The Supreme Court held that although termed "guest lecturers," the appellants were effectively ad hoc employees appointed through due selection procedure, and settled law (Rattan Lal v. State of Haryana) holds that an ad hoc employee can only be replaced by a regularly and formally selected candidate, not by another ad hoc appointee. The Court restored the single judge's core protection, that the appellants could continue until replaced by regularly selected candidates, but modified it to make continuation conditional on sufficient student enrolment in their courses, and rejected the UGC-circular pay scale in favor of the Rs. 1,000/hour honorarium the college scheme itself provided for and that was already being paid. The appeals were thus partly allowed.
An employee appointed on an ad hoc or contractual basis through a genuine selection process cannot simply be dropped and replaced by another ad hoc appointee at the end of a term. They are entitled to continue until a properly and regularly selected candidate takes over, though their pay terms remain governed by the scheme under which they were actually appointed, not by unrelated regulatory circulars.
