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.
Videocon Industries had availed bill-discounting facilities from Morgan Securities in 2003 and defaulted on repaying about Rs.5 crore. An arbitrator ruled in Morgan's favour in 2013, awarding the principal amount plus pre-award interest, and post-award interest of 18% per annum, but only on the principal sum, not on the combined principal-plus-pre-award-interest figure. Morgan challenged this before the Delhi High Court (both a Single Judge and a Division Bench), arguing that post-award interest should have been calculated on the larger combined amount, but lost at both stages, leading to this appeal to the Supreme Court.
The core legal question was whether Section 31(7)(b) of the Arbitration Act, which lets an arbitral award "otherwise direct" a different interest arrangement, permits an arbitrator to award post-award interest only on the principal, or forces it onto the full combined sum. After analysing conflicting earlier Supreme Court decisions (State of Haryana v. S.L. Arora and the later three-judge decision in Hyder Consulting), the Court held that the phrase "unless the award otherwise directs" only qualifies the rate of interest, not the discretion over which portion of money it applies to; the arbitrator retains full discretion to award post-award interest, including on only part of the sum, provided that discretion is exercised reasonably and in good faith. Since the arbitrator had validly exercised this discretion when granting 18% interest on the principal alone, the Court found no error and dismissed the appeal.
An arbitrator has broad discretion in deciding both the rate of interest awarded after an arbitration award and exactly which portion of the awarded money that interest applies to. Courts will not second-guess this discretion so long as it was exercised reasonably, so parties should raise their arguments about interest calculation clearly before the arbitrator, not just at the appeal stage.
