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.
6171 more judgements for members
You're seeing the newest cases. Log in — it's free — to keep scrolling, search by name or judge, and filter by court or legal area.
Log in to see moreLegal Case Shots is built to help you quickly identify and understand relevant precedent. For citation in pleadings or filings, always verify against the full judgment PDF and current citation format (e.g., 2026 INSC ___).
The holding is what the court legally decided. The lesson learnt translates that into a practical takeaway: what a lawyer should factor into case strategy or client advice as a result of this precedent.
Both. Each case shows a distilled summary (case type, key holding, and lesson learnt) and links to the full judgment as a PDF for when you need the complete text for research or citation.
Yes. Use Advanced Filters to narrow results by decision date and by practice area, including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Service & Administrative Law, Family Law, Civil Property & Inheritance, and Labour & Industrial Law.
Yes. You can filter judgments by the judge or bench that decided the case, which is useful for tracking how a particular judge has reasoned on similar issues across multiple rulings.
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 respondent (plaintiff) filed a civil suit in 1985 seeking a declaration of title and injunction over land that had already been formally declared reserved forest under the Andhra Pradesh Forest Act, 1967, following proceedings under Sections 15 and 16 of that Act which had become final. The trial court granted a declaration of title but refused an injunction; on appeal, the High Court reversed even the title finding, holding on facts that the plaintiff had failed to prove either title or possession and that the land was indeed forest land. After that first-appeal judgment became final in 2018, the plaintiff filed a review petition, and (based on inconsistent, shifting stands taken by state/forest officials, including a later committee report and collusive affidavits) the High Court, acting essentially like an appellate court on a review petition, reversed its own earlier decision in the plaintiff's favour.
The Supreme Court held that a review petition has a strictly limited scope. It can correct only an error apparent on the face of the record, and cannot be used to re-argue or re-decide a case on merits based on new material or a change of position by a party, as the High Court had wrongly done here. The Court found the State's forest department had taken contradictory positions (later corrected by affidavit before the Supreme Court) which improperly influenced the review order, and that the concurrent factual findings of the trial court and first-appeal High Court, that the land was reserved forest and the plaintiff had not proved title or possession, should never have been disturbed in review. The appeal was allowed, the review order was set aside, the original first-appeal judgment (against the plaintiff) was restored, and the Court imposed costs of Rs. 5,00,000 each on the state appellants and the respondents, payable to NALSA, while leaving the State free to take action against officers responsible for filing incorrect/collusive affidavits.
A review petition is not a second appeal. Courts cannot use review jurisdiction to reopen and re-decide settled factual findings, and public officials who file inconsistent or collusive statements before courts undermine the integrity of the judicial process and may face departmental accountability.
