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.
Indian importers like Mohit Minerals buy goods such as coal from abroad on a "Cost-Insurance-Freight" (CIF) basis, meaning the foreign seller arranges and pays for the shipping. The Indian government issued notifications requiring the Indian importer to additionally pay IGST (integrated GST) on the ocean-freight component of that shipping, under a "reverse charge" mechanism, even though the freight cost was already included in the value on which the importer paid customs duty. Importers challenged this as unconstitutional double taxation and as going beyond what Parliament's GST laws actually authorised. The Gujarat High Court struck down the notifications, and the Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court dismissed the government's appeals, upholding the High Court's conclusion that the notifications taxing Indian importers separately for ocean freight on CIF imports were illegal. It held that once IGST is charged on the "composite supply" of imported goods (which already factors in freight, insurance, etc.), a second, separate tax on the freight/service component of the same transaction violates the CGST Act's composite-supply principle and amounts to impermissible double taxation. Importantly, in reaching this result the Court also made a landmark constitutional ruling on GST Council recommendations: it held that recommendations of the GST Council (the body of Union and State finance ministers that decides GST rates and rules) are not legally binding on either Parliament or the State legislatures. They only carry persuasive value, because India's GST framework under Article 246A gives the Union and States simultaneous, non-hierarchical power to legislate on GST, reflecting "cooperative federalism" rather than a top-down command structure. The government's rule-making (delegated legislation) is, however, bound by the Council's recommendations.
The Union and State governments cannot use the GST Council's advice as an excuse to impose whatever tax structure they like, nor is the Council's word final law by itself: actual legislative power remains with Parliament and the State legislatures; and taxpayers cannot be taxed twice, once through customs duty and again separately through IGST, for the same value already embedded in an import transaction.
