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.
Alapan Bandyopadhyay, the then Chief Secretary of West Bengal, was issued a disciplinary charge memo for allegedly failing to attend a review meeting chaired by the Prime Minister to assess damage caused by Cyclone Yaas. He challenged the disciplinary proceedings before the Kolkata Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). While that challenge was pending, the Union of India got the case transferred from the Kolkata Bench to the CAT's Principal Bench in New Delhi under Section 25 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. Bandyopadhyay then challenged this transfer order before the Calcutta High Court, which set aside the transfer, prompting the Union of India's appeal to the Supreme Court on the narrow question of which High Court had jurisdiction to review a transfer order passed by the Tribunal's Principal Bench in New Delhi.
The Supreme Court held that under the Constitution Bench ruling in L. Chandra Kumar's case, all decisions of tribunals set up under Articles 323A/323B, including an order transferring a case between benches under Section 25 of the Act, can only be reviewed by the Division Bench of the High Court within whose territorial jurisdiction the tribunal bench that passed the order is located. Since the transfer order was passed by the Chairman sitting at the Principal Bench in New Delhi, only the Delhi High Court had jurisdiction to review it, not the Calcutta High Court. The Court therefore held that the Calcutta High Court had acted entirely without jurisdiction, declared its judgment void from the start ("ab initio void"), and set it aside, while dismissing the writ petition with liberty for Bandyopadhyay to approach the Delhi High Court instead, clarifying that it had made no finding on the merits of the transfer itself.
A challenge to an order of a tribunal, including an internal order transferring a case between its benches, must be filed in the High Court that has territorial jurisdiction over the bench that actually passed the order, not the bench where the case originated or where the affected person resides.
