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.
Nara Chandrababu Naidu, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (2014-2019), was added as an accused in a 2021 FIR alleging siphoning of government funds running into crores of rupees in connection with the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation project, through offences under the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. He was arrested in September 2023 and remanded to judicial custody by the Special Court. He challenged both the FIR and the remand order before the Andhra Pradesh High Court under Section 482 CrPC, arguing that no prior government approval under Section 17A of the PC Act had been obtained before he was investigated. The High Court dismissed his petition, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.
The two judges on the bench disagreed on the central legal question. Justice Bose held that Section 17A's requirement of prior approval applies whenever the alleged acts are even prima facie relatable to the accused's official duties, and since no such approval had been obtained here, the appellant could not be proceeded against under the PC Act (though the State remains free to seek approval later); however, he declined to quash the remand order itself since it could independently be sustained on the IPC charges, and allowed the appeal only partly on that basis. Justice Trivedi took the opposite view, holding that absence of Section 17A approval does not vitiate an ongoing investigation or justify quashing an FIR, especially where the accused also faces IPC charges arising from the same allegations, and that the acts alleged (fraud and misappropriation) were not shown to be part of a bona fide official decision in any case. She dismissed the appeal in full, finding no error in the remand order. Because of this direct conflict in interpreting Section 17A, the two judges jointly ordered the matter placed before the Chief Justice of India for constitution of a larger bench to authoritatively settle the question.
Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act (which requires prior government approval before investigating a public servant for corruption-related acts done in official capacity) is not a settled area of law, even Supreme Court judges can disagree on how broadly it protects public servants from investigation, and such unresolved conflicts get escalated to larger benches rather than decided by a split vote.
