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 assessee company sold its building "Paville House" for Rs. 33 crores and, in computing its capital gains, deducted Rs. 31.05 crore paid to three shareholders (siblings who were embroiled in a family/company dispute) as a "cost of improvement," treating the payment as removing an "encumbrance" on the property under a family settlement/arbitration award. The Assessing Officer accepted this. The Commissioner of Income Tax later used his revisional power under Section 263 to set this aside, holding the payment was not a genuine cost of improvement and the original assessment was erroneous and cost the exchequer tax revenue. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and the Bombay High Court both sided with the assessee and restored the original assessment.
The Supreme Court disagreed with the Tribunal and High Court. Applying the settled two-part test from Malabar Industrial Co. (an order must be both erroneous and prejudicial to the interest of revenue for the Commissioner to use Section 263), the Court held that the payment to shareholders to settle their personal/company dispute had nothing to do with improving the property itself and did not qualify as "cost of improvement" under Section 55(1)(b). Since the Assessing Officer's acceptance of this claim was legally unsustainable, it was indeed erroneous and caused a genuine loss of tax revenue, justifying the Commissioner's revision. The High Court's judgment was set aside, and the Commissioner's order was restored.
Not every payment a company makes to resolve a shareholder or internal dispute qualifies as a deductible "cost of improvement" for capital gains tax purposes: the expense must be genuinely connected to enhancing the asset itself, and tax authorities can revisit an assessment that wrongly allows such deductions.
