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 case arose from the 2008 serial bomb blasts in Bangalore that killed one woman and injured several others. During the trial, electronic devices seized from an accused were sent for forensic examination, and the resulting CFSL report was initially sought to be proved without a certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act; when the accused objected and the trial court rejected the report, the prosecution promptly obtained a Section 65B certificate and applied under Section 311 CrPC to recall the forensic witness and place the certificate on record, but both the trial court and the Karnataka High Court refused, treating this as an unexplained six-year delay.
The Supreme Court held that the lower courts had proceeded on a wrong factual premise. There was no six-year delay, since the certificate was sought to be produced almost immediately after the report was first rejected for want of one, while the trial was still ongoing. Relying on its own precedents (Anvar P.V., Arjun Panditrao Khotkar, and M.R. Hiremath), the Court reiterated that a missing Section 65B certificate is a curable defect that can be produced at any stage before the trial concludes, and that allowing it here would cause no irreversible prejudice to the accused since they would still get a full opportunity to rebut it. It therefore allowed the appeal, set aside the orders below, and permitted the prosecution's Section 311 application so the trial could proceed with the certificate on record.
A missing certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act for electronic evidence is not a fatal, one-time-only requirement, as long as the trial has not concluded, courts should permit the prosecution (or defence) to cure this technical defect so that a case is decided on the truth of the evidence rather than lost on a procedural technicality.
