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 appellant-contractor had a 1988 works contract with the Rajasthan government containing a clause barring the contractor from claiming "any interest upon any payment, any arrears or upon any balance" due to it. When a dispute went to arbitration, the arbitrator awarded the contractor Rs. 1.78 crore plus 15% interest for the pendente lite (during-proceedings) period. A District Judge set aside only the interest portion, holding the contract clause barred it, and the High Court upheld that view.
The Supreme Court held that under the older 1940 Arbitration Act, a stricter test applies than under the current 1996 Act: a contractual clause bars an arbitrator from awarding pendente lite interest only if it is clearly and expressly worded to exclude interest arising from disputes, differences, delay, or "any other respect whatsoever": a clause that merely says no interest is payable on amounts due under the contract is not enough. Applying this test (drawn from precedents including Reliance Cellulose and the "First Ambica" case), the Court found the contract clause here too narrow to bar pendente lite interest. It restored the arbitrator's power to award interest but reduced the rate from 15% to 9% given the amounts already paid and the long passage of time since the 1995 award.
A contract clause barring "interest on payments due" is not automatically a bar on an arbitrator awarding interest during the dispute itself: the exact wording matters, and only a clearly worded, comprehensive bar will strip an arbitrator of that power.
