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 appellants were home buyers who had booked flats in a project of Bulland Buildtech Pvt. Ltd. When the project was delayed, they approached the UP Real Estate Regulatory Authority (UPRERA), which ordered a refund of their deposits with interest. Later, insolvency proceedings began against the builder under the IBC, and the resolution plan classified home buyers who had already obtained RERA orders/decrees as a separate, less-favoured category, giving those who had NOT gone to RERA 50% better terms. The appellants challenged this differential treatment, but the Resolution Professional's approach was upheld by the adjudicating authority (NCLT) and then the NCLAT, leading to this appeal.
The Supreme Court held that the 2018 amendment to Section 5(8)(f) of the IBC (via its Explanation) deems any amount raised from an allottee in a real estate project to be a financial debt, meaning all such home buyers, regardless of whether they also obtained a RERA order/decree, remain "financial creditors" under the Code. The Court agreed with an NCLT Mumbai ruling that obtaining a decree merely crystallizes the claim; it does not strip the allottee of their underlying status as a financial creditor. It rejected the argument that home buyers who used RERA remedies had "opted out" of the financial creditor class, noting only home buyers can invoke RERA remedies in the first place, so penalizing them for doing so is inequitable. It also held that IBC's overriding clause (Section 238) gives it primacy over RERA, and that creating a "hyper-classification" between the two groups of home buyers was artificial and violated Article 14 (equality before law). The impugned NCLAT order was set aside and the appellants were declared entitled to be treated the same as other home buyers/financial creditors under the pending resolution plan.
A home buyer does not lose their status as a "financial creditor" in a builder's insolvency merely because they earlier obtained a refund order from RERA: resolution plans cannot penalize buyers for having pursued their RERA remedy by giving them worse terms than buyers who did not.
