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 Jharkhand High Court advertised 22 vacancies in 2022 for the District Judge cadre, and based on the prescribed cut-off marks, a select list of 66 candidates (following the standard 1:3 ratio to vacancies) was prepared. However, in a Full Court meeting held in March 2023, the High Court's administrative side decided, after the selection process and marks had already been finalized, to recommend only 13 candidates for actual appointment, applying a fresh requirement that candidates secure at least 50% aggregate marks, a condition not part of the original advertisement or the governing 2001 Recruitment Rules. Affected candidates who had qualified under the original criteria but were left out by this new 50% cut-off challenged the High Court's decision before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court allowed the writ petitions and quashed the part of the High Court's Full Court Resolution that imposed the 50% aggregate cut-off after the selection process was already complete. It held that a recruiting authority cannot change the qualifying criteria for a selection process once marks have been declared and a merit/select list has been prepared under the existing rules, doing so is contrary to settled service-law principles and the specific Rules governing Jharkhand's judicial recruitment. The Court rejected the High Court administration's argument that a rule permitting reassessment of individual candidates' suitability in special situations could be used to justify a blanket, after-the-fact change to the entire selection criteria. It therefore directed the High Court to recommend for appointment all candidates who qualified under the original merit list, to fill the notified vacancies, without applying the belated 50% cut-off.
The rules of a selection or examination process must be fixed and known in advance; a recruiting body cannot retroactively change the qualifying criteria after candidates have already competed and been ranked under the original rules, as that unfairly deprives successful candidates of the benefit of the process they participated in.
