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.
6171 more judgements for members
You're seeing the newest cases. Log in — it's free — to keep scrolling, search by name or judge, and filter by court or legal area.
Log in to see moreLegal Case Shots is built to help you quickly identify and understand relevant precedent. For citation in pleadings or filings, always verify against the full judgment PDF and current citation format (e.g., 2026 INSC ___).
The holding is what the court legally decided. The lesson learnt translates that into a practical takeaway: what a lawyer should factor into case strategy or client advice as a result of this precedent.
Both. Each case shows a distilled summary (case type, key holding, and lesson learnt) and links to the full judgment as a PDF for when you need the complete text for research or citation.
Yes. Use Advanced Filters to narrow results by decision date and by practice area, including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Service & Administrative Law, Family Law, Civil Property & Inheritance, and Labour & Industrial Law.
Yes. You can filter judgments by the judge or bench that decided the case, which is useful for tracking how a particular judge has reasoned on similar issues across multiple rulings.
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.
NHAI and the contractor, Transstroy, entered into a highway construction contract in Tamil Nadu. After alleging repeated breaches by the contractor, NHAI issued a cure-period notice and eventually terminated the contract, expressly reserving its right to claim damages. The contractor then invoked arbitration, and NHAI, in its statement of defence, again reserved its right to file a counter-claim separately and later sought an extension of time to formally file it. The Arbitral Tribunal refused to allow NHAI's counter-claim, holding it was beyond the scope of the arbitration since NHAI had not followed the contract's amicable-settlement/conciliation procedure (Clauses 26.1 and 26.2) before raising it, and the Delhi High Court upheld this refusal in a challenge under the Arbitration Act.
The Supreme Court held that the Arbitral Tribunal and the High Court had wrongly conflated a "claim" (raised by one party) with a "Dispute" (which, by definition, has two sides). Once a dispute (here, the termination of the contract) is validly notified and taken to arbitration after the conciliation clauses fail, the entire subject matter, including any counter-claim or set-off connected to that dispute, falls within the scope of the arbitration under Section 23(2A) of the Arbitration Act. Since NHAI had consistently and from the outset reserved its right to raise a counter-claim (including in its termination notice and statement of defence) and there was no real delay attributable to it, refusing to let it file the counter-claim would defeat the very purpose of Section 23(2A) and could lead to a multiplicity of parallel proceedings over the same underlying transaction. The Court set aside both the Tribunal's and the High Court's orders, allowed NHAI to file its counter-claim for adjudication alongside the contractor's claims, and excluded the period lost due to the litigation (18.07.2017 to 11.07.2022) from the statutory time limit for the Tribunal to pass its award.
In arbitration arising from a single underlying dispute (such as a contract termination), a party's counter-claim connected to that dispute generally falls within the tribunal's jurisdiction and should not be shut out on narrow technical grounds, doing so risks forcing parties into duplicate, piecemeal litigation over what is really one dispute.
