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.
ACIL had won a favourable arbitral award against AAI over a construction contract dispute dating back to 2009, but a Single Judge set the award aside, not on the substance of the dispute, but because AAI had unilaterally appointed the Sole Arbitrator, which is barred under Section 12(5) of the Arbitration Act unless the parties expressly waive it in writing. Notably, AAI itself had appointed the arbitrator, participated in the four-year arbitration without objection, and only raised the appointment issue after losing.
The Division Bench held that Supreme Court precedent (Bhadra International and Bharat Broadband) makes clear that mere participation in arbitration proceedings, even by the very party that made the appointment, can never substitute for the "express agreement in writing" required to waive the bar on unilateral arbitrator appointments. It rejected ACIL's argument that this rule should only protect a party that did not make the appointment, noting Supreme Court precedent has already rejected that exact distinction. Since no such written waiver existed and the appointment was found to violate the statutory ineligibility rule, the appeal was dismissed and the setting-aside of the award upheld.
Even the party that unilaterally appointed an arbitrator can later challenge that very appointment if it turns out to be legally defective: merely participating in the arbitration without objecting does not, by itself, cure the defect; only an explicit written agreement to waive it can.
