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.
Under the earlier Maharashtra Electricity Duty Act, 1958, charitable educational institutions registered under the Bombay/Maharashtra Public Trusts Act were expressly exempted from paying electricity duty. In 2016, the State replaced this law with the Maharashtra Electricity Duty Act, 2016, and the new Section 3(2) no longer contained a clause specifically exempting such charitable trust-run schools/colleges: the surviving education exemption applied only to institutions "run by local bodies." Electricity companies began billing the respondent trust's schools for duty from September 2016 onward. The Bombay High Court held that the institutions remained exempt and quashed the demand; the State appealed.
The Supreme Court held that an exemption provision in a taxing statute must be interpreted strictly and literally, based purely on its actual wording. Courts cannot read in an exemption that the legislature chose not to carry forward. Comparing the two statutes' wording, it found that the 2016 Act's education exemption, unlike its 1958 predecessor, only covers institutions run by local bodies, and deliberately dropped the earlier clause covering charitable-trust-run schools and colleges. The Court rejected arguments based on absurdity, discrimination, and the "doctrine of last antecedent," holding that accepting the trust's broader reading would produce its own absurdity, even profit-making private hospitals and clinics would then claim exemption. Since the wording was clear and unambiguous, there was no scope for a purposive interpretation in the exemption's favour, and the benefit of any doubt in an exemption clause (unlike a charging provision) does not automatically go to the assessee. The Court allowed the State's appeal, holding the charitable education institutions liable for electricity duty from 8 August 2016 onward.
When a tax exemption that existed in an old law is not carried forward, in the same words, into its replacement law, courts will not "read it back in": an exemption clause must be construed strictly and literally by its actual text, not by what seems fair or was the practice under the earlier law.
