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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The first respondent, a Town Inspector, was implicated in a corruption trap case by the Special Police Establishment (SPE), Madhya Pradesh's anti-corruption wing under the Lokayukt, and sanction for his prosecution was granted in 2020. He sought information under the RTI Act about how that sanction decision was made, but the request was denied on the ground that a 2011 government notification exempted the SPE, as an "intelligence and security organisation", from the RTI Act's application under Section 24(4). The State Information Commission upheld the denial, but the Madhya Pradesh High Court ruled in the respondent's favour, holding that since the criminal investigation was already complete, the information could not be withheld, and directed disclosure. The SPE appealed to the Supreme Court against that direction.
The Supreme Court examined the SPE's statutory jurisdiction under the Madhya Pradesh Lokayukt Act, 1981, finding it limited to investigating specific corruption-related offences (under the Prevention of Corruption Act and certain Penal Code provisions) and not extending to matters of "intelligence" or "security." The Court held that an organisation can only be exempted under Section 24(4) of the RTI Act if it is genuinely an intelligence or security body, and the SPE's narrow statutory mandate did not meet that description merely because a government notification labelled it so. It therefore struck down the 2011 notification to the extent it purported to exclude the SPE from the RTI Act's coverage, calling it excessive and beyond the scope of Section 24(4). The Court upheld the High Court's judgment directing disclosure of the requested information and dismissed the SPE's appeal, while clarifying it had not examined the notification's effect on a separate agency, the State Bureau of Investigation of Economic Offences.
A government cannot exempt an agency from the Right to Information Act simply by labelling it an "intelligence and security organisation" in a notification: the exemption applies only if the agency's actual statutory functions genuinely involve intelligence or security work. Citizens facing prosecution or affected by an agency's decisions may be entitled to information about the process behind those decisions, especially once the underlying investigation is complete.
