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.
Nazim Shaikh Hasan had been a tenant paying Rs. 1,500 monthly rent for a shop in Pune. While the tenancy was ongoing, the landlord (respondents' predecessor) agreed to sell him the shop for Rs. 1,90,000, and he paid Rs. 40,000 upfront, with the balance due within three months and conditioned on his obtaining a bank loan. The sale never went through. The landlord later sued for possession, citing rent default, a change in use of the premises, and a bona fide need for the property, and won at the Small Causes Court, the First Appellate Court, and the Bombay High Court (in revision). The tenant appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that once the agreement to sell was executed, the landlord-tenant relationship had legally converted into that of a prospective buyer and seller, meaning the rent court (Small Causes Court) no longer had jurisdiction over him at all.
The Supreme Court held that an agreement to sell does not, by itself, automatically terminate an existing tenancy: that requires either an "express surrender" or an "implied surrender" under Section 111 of the Transfer of Property Act, evidenced by clear terms or conduct showing the parties intended to abandon the old landlord-tenant relationship. Distinguishing an earlier precedent the tenant relied on (where the sale agreement expressly said possession had "already been surrendered" to the buyer), the Court found this agreement's own Clause 4 said the opposite: if the loan wasn't sanctioned, the deal would cancel and the tenant must "handover the possession of the shop back as it was in the previous condition": language that assumes he remained a tenant throughout. The Court also rejected reliance on Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act (which can protect a buyer's possession under part performance), both because continuing tenant-possession isn't the kind of possession that provision protects, and independently because the agreement was never registered, which Section 17(1A) of the Registration Act requires for Section 53A protection since 2001. Since the tenant never even filed a suit for specific performance of the sale, and an unregistered agreement to sell confers no ownership interest, the Small Causes Court properly had jurisdiction, and the concurrent findings of all three lower courts (bona fide need, rent default) were upheld. The petition was dismissed.
Signing an agreement to sell with your landlord and paying part of the price does not automatically end your tenancy or convert you into a buyer with ownership-like protections. Unless the agreement itself clearly says possession has shifted to you as buyer, you remain legally a tenant (still subject to eviction for valid grounds), and an unregistered sale agreement gives you no additional legal shield.
