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.
Linde India Limited supplied pure oxygen gas to Tata Steel for its steel-making process and claimed a concessional 2% sales tax rate under the Bihar Finance Act, 1981 (as applicable to Jharkhand), on the basis that oxygen was a "raw material." A six-member expert committee, appointed after an earlier Supreme Court remand, found that oxygen was only a "refining agent" used to reduce carbon content, not a direct raw material, and tax authorities at three levels assessed tax at the higher 3% rate. The Jharkhand High Court overturned these findings and held oxygen qualified as raw material, prompting the State to appeal.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court, exercising writ jurisdiction under Article 226, should not have overturned the concurrent factual findings of three expert/technical authorities on a technical question the High Court lacked expertise to re-decide. On merits, applying the tests from earlier precedents (Ballarpur Industries and Thomas Stephen & Co.), the Court found that oxygen used only to reduce carbon content in steel-making is akin to a "refining agent" or processing aid, not an indispensable raw material of the end product, so the concessional 2% rate did not apply. The assessment orders taxing the sale at 3% were restored and the High Court's judgment was set aside.
Courts exercising writ/judicial review powers should be cautious about overturning technical, fact-based findings reached by expert committees and confirmed by multiple statutory authorities; and for tax purposes, an ingredient used only to refine or improve a manufacturing process, without becoming indispensable to or embodied in the end product, is not automatically a "raw material" entitled to concessional treatment.
