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.
Jagdish Harijan, a Railways employee with two wives, died in service in 2014. His first wife sought a compassionate appointment for her step-son (the appellant), who was born to the second wife, but the Railways rejected the request on the ground that a Railway Board circular barred compassionate appointment to children born of an employee's second marriage. This rejection was upheld by the departmental appeal, the Central Administrative Tribunal, and finally the Patna High Court, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held the issue was squarely covered by its earlier decision in Union of India v. V.R. Tripathi, which had already struck down the same Railway Board circular as arbitrary and violative of Article 14, since a child born of a second marriage is deemed legitimate under Section 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act and cannot be denied a benefit available to children of a first marriage. The Court additionally held that denying appointment solely because the claimant's mother was a second wife amounts to discrimination on the ground of "descent," expressly prohibited by Article 16(2) of the Constitution. It set aside the High Court's judgment and directed the Railways to consider the appellant's compassionate appointment application on merits within three months, while leaving it open to the authorities to verify that all other eligibility conditions were met.
A child cannot be denied a benefit like compassionate government appointment merely because they were born to their father's second wife. The law treats such children as legitimate, and excluding them amounts to unconstitutional discrimination based on descent, which the Constitution expressly forbids.
