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.
United Bank of India (later amalgamated into PNB) had lent Rs. 5 crore to a charitable trust for constructing a college building, with the trustees standing as guarantors. After the loan became a non-performing asset in 2017, the bank pursued recovery before the Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT), and the matter moved through the DRT, the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal (DRAT), and finally the Orissa High Court, with each forum reaching a different figure for what the trust still owed. The Orissa High Court, relying on a PNB certificate stating dues of Rs. 31,99,000 as of October 2020, accepted the trust's claim that after further payments only about Rs. 29.5 lakh remained payable, and ordered the loan account closed on that basis, over PNB's objection.
The Supreme Court found the High Court's calculation "clearly unsustainable" because it ignored how banks account for NPAs: once a loan account is classified as non-performing, further interest is tracked separately in a "suspense account" rather than in the main loan ledger, so a certificate reflecting only the ledger balance (like the 2020 certificate the High Court relied on) understates the true dues by omitting accrued interest. The Court noted the trust itself had given inconsistent, self-serving figures at different stages of litigation, and that under the Recovery of Debts and Bankruptcy Act, 1993 and settled precedent (including the Constitution Bench ruling in Central Bank of India v. Ravindra), interest is unquestionably part of the recoverable "debt." The Court restored the DRAT's more carefully reasoned 2023 calculation: dues of Rs. 54,90,413 with 9% per annum interest from 5.02.2018 until realisation, setting aside both High Court orders, and allowed PNB to pursue recovery on that basis, giving credit for any further payments made.
When a bank loan turns into a non-performing asset, a borrower cannot rely on a partial account-statement figure (which may exclude interest tracked in a separate suspense account) to claim their dues are lower than they actually are: the full debt, including such interest, remains legally recoverable, and courts must look at the bank's actual accounting system rather than a single certificate in isolation.
