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.
The appellant, a doctor running a sonography centre, had his equipment seized after an inspection found deficiencies in the mandatory "Form F" records required under the PCPNDT Act (a law meant to prevent sex-selective abortion). A Magistrate took cognizance and ordered criminal proceedings against him under Sections 4(3), 5, 6 and 29 of the Act. The doctor challenged this before the Bombay High Court (Aurangabad Bench), arguing the Civil Surgeon who authorised the complaint was not the "Appropriate Authority" under the Act and that the record-keeping lapses were merely technical, inadvertent errors. The High Court rejected both arguments, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that a government notification dated 15 May 2015 validly designated the District Civil Surgeon as the Appropriate Authority, so the complaint and cognizance were lawful. On the second point, the Court held that errors or blanks in Form F are not trivial: the proviso to Section 4(3) makes any deficiency or inaccuracy in the mandatory record itself amount to a contravention unless the doctor proves otherwise, and whether the lapses were genuinely technical is a matter to be thrashed out at trial, not at the cognizance stage. The Court reaffirmed the strong public purpose behind the PCPNDT Act in combating female foeticide and sex-selective practices, citing its own earlier ruling in Voluntary Health Assn. of Punjab v. Union of India. The appeal was dismissed and the criminal proceedings against the appellant were allowed to continue.
Medical practitioners operating sonography/genetic clinics must meticulously maintain Form F records for every patient. The law itself treats any gap or inaccuracy as a violation unless the doctor proves it was not, so courts will rarely quash prosecution at the threshold stage on a claim that record-keeping errors were merely technical.
