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.
ABG Shipyard, a shipbuilding company, had imported goods that were lying in Customs Bonded Warehouses when insolvency proceedings began against it in 2017 and it later went into liquidation in 2019. The liquidator asked the Customs Department to release the warehoused goods without payment of customs duty, arguing the IBC's moratorium and asset-distribution scheme override the Customs Act. Instead, the Customs Department issued demand notices and claimed a right under the Customs Act to sell the goods to recover unpaid duties. The NCLT sided with the liquidator, but the NCLAT reversed this, holding the company had abandoned the goods and lost title to Customs, which could sell them independently of the IBC process.
The Supreme Court held that once a moratorium is imposed under Sections 14 or 33(5) of the IBC, the Customs Authority retains only a limited power, to assess and determine the amount of customs duty and other levies owed, but loses the power to initiate recovery through sale or confiscation of the goods; that power must give way to the IBC's insolvency process. After assessing its dues, Customs must lodge its claim with the liquidator in the manner and time frames prescribed under the IBC, like any other creditor, rather than acting unilaterally. The Court also held that the liquidator is entitled to take custody of the warehoused goods so they can be dealt with under the IBC's structured framework, and that the NCLAT was wrong to hold that the company had lost title to the goods before the moratorium began. The appeal was allowed and the NCLAT's order was set aside.
When a company goes into insolvency or liquidation, government departments, including Customs, cannot bypass the IBC's collective process to seize or sell company assets on their own; they must quantify their dues and stand in line as creditors through the liquidator, under the priority scheme set by the IBC.
