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.
Om Rathod, a person with lower-limb myopathy (a locomotor disability), scored 601/720 in NEET-UG 2024, securing an all-India PwD rank of 84. Despite holding a valid disability certificate, a mandatory Disability Assessment Board at AIIMS Nagpur certified him as 88% disabled and therefore ineligible for an MBBS seat. The Bombay High Court (Nagpur bench) upheld this certification, so he approached the Supreme Court, which in the interim ordered a fresh assessment by a five-member board at AIIMS Delhi.
The Supreme Court held that disability assessment for medical admissions cannot rely on a rigid "benchmark disability" model but must instead apply a functional competence test, assessing what a candidate can actually do, with reasonable accommodations and assistive devices, rather than just measuring the percentage of impairment. It found that the assessment process had failed to follow the government's own 2022 circular requiring a disabled doctor/health professional on every Disability Assessment Board, and that reasonable accommodation is a gateway right without which other constitutional guarantees for persons with disabilities become meaningless. The Court directed that a supernumerary MBBS seat be created for Rathod at AIIMS Nagpur, protected him from victimisation, and ordered the government to overhaul disability assessment guidelines nationally, including mandating disabled experts on assessment boards.
Disability certification for professional/educational admissions must assess a person's actual functional ability to perform the course (with reasonable accommodations), not just apply a mechanical disability-percentage cut-off, and denial of reasonable accommodation itself amounts to unconstitutional discrimination.
