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.
Land in village Chowkri Mubarakbad, Delhi, was acquired under the old Land Acquisition Act, 1894: the notification was issued in 1959 and the award passed in 1964. The Government said it took physical possession on 1 May 1964 and deposited the compensation first with the Reference Court and then, in 1967, in the Treasury. Decades later, people claiming to be successors of a recorded owner filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court arguing that because compensation was never actually paid to the owners and possession was never taken, the acquisition had "lapsed" under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act. The High Court agreed, relying on the Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in Pune Municipal Corporation vs Harakchand Misirimal Solanki.
The Supreme Court allowed the Municipal Corporation's appeal and set aside the High Court's order. It held that the High Court had no good reason to disbelieve the Government's specific case that possession was taken in 1964; the writ petitioners had never even claimed to have built the boundary wall the High Court relied on. More fundamentally, the Pune Municipal Corporation ruling had been overruled by the five-judge Constitution Bench in Indore Development Authority vs Manoharlal (2020), which held that a deemed lapse occurs only when BOTH possession has not been taken AND compensation has not been paid: the "or" in Section 24(2) must be read as "and". Since possession had been taken here, there could be no lapse; and depositing compensation in the Treasury instead of court does not by itself invalidate an acquisition. The Court left it open to the writ petitioners to pursue any genuine grievance about unpaid compensation in accordance with law.
An old land acquisition does not automatically "lapse" merely because compensation was never received. If the State took possession, the acquisition stands, and the remedy is to claim the compensation, not to try to reclaim the land. Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act cannot be used to reopen acquisitions concluded decades ago.
