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.
Vaiyapuri Gounder had three wives; the third, Arukkaniammal, survived him but died issueless and intestate (without children) in 1985. Under the law, the agricultural land she had inherited from her husband would then pass to his other heirs, the descendants of his first two wives, unless a valid Will diverted it elsewhere. The descendants of the second wife (the respondents) produced a registered 1976 Will in which Arukkaniammal purportedly left the entire property to the four sons of that branch, excluding the first wife's descendants (the appellants) entirely. The trial court held the Will was not validly proved and granted the appellants their share by partition; the Madras High Court reversed this and upheld the Will, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the Will (Ex.B-13) was not proved in accordance with Section 63(c) of the Indian Succession Act read with Sections 68 and 69 of the Evidence Act. It identified a cluster of "suspicious circumstances" that the propounders failed to satisfactorily explain: an inaccurate recital about the testatrix's status, the unexplained total exclusion of two of the three heir branches with no stated reason, family ties between one attesting witness and a beneficiary, the beneficiary branch's own possession and control over the property, the delivery of the Will to the beneficiaries only shortly before the testatrix's death with no independent witness to that delivery, and, most significantly, the respondents' failure to call the one person, Alamathal, who could have personally testified to explain why Arukkaniammal supposedly favoured that branch. While no single circumstance was individually fatal, the Court held their cumulative effect meant the legal burden on the propounders of a Will to dispel suspicion was not discharged. With the Will failing, Arukkaniammal was treated as having died intestate, so the property reverted under Section 15(2)(b) of the Hindu Succession Act to the husband's heirs in three equal one-third shares among the three wives' lines, and the trial court's original partition decree was restored.
A Will that departs from ordinary succession and excludes natural heirs invites close scrutiny, and its propounders bear an active burden to remove any suspicious circumstances surrounding its execution. Courts look at those circumstances cumulatively, not one at a time, and failing to produce the most obvious witness who could explain an unusual bequest can by itself be fatal to the case.
