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.
109 candidates who took the Rajasthan Civil Judge Cadre 2024 main examination alleged that they were arbitrarily and unfairly awarded very low marks (often 0-15 out of 50) in the subjective English Essay language paper, causing them to fall below the interview cut-off despite performing well in other papers. They sought re-evaluation of the answer sheets by an independent expert committee and quashing of the results.
The Supreme Court had the Rajasthan High Court produce the actual answer sheets and a tabulated statement comparing candidates' marks across papers, and the Court itself personally examined a sample of the answer sheets. It found that the marking scheme already had built-in safeguards (each of the three essay questions was assessed by a different, consistent set of examiners), that there was no meaningful disparity in strictness of evaluation between qualifying and non-qualifying candidates, and, relying on precedent, held that some degree of marking variation among a large number of evaluators is normal and not automatically evidence of arbitrariness. Finding no statistical or actual evidence of deliberate low marking, the Court declined to interfere and dismissed the petitions, while leaving individual candidates free to approach the High Court for any distinct personal grievance.
Courts will not overturn examination results merely because a large number of candidates received low marks in a subjective paper; a challenger must show a genuine, demonstrable disparity in how evaluators applied the marking standard, not just an unfavourable outcome.
