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 appellant company owned a large industrial township near Pune and had built a 36-km narrow-gauge trolley line to transport goods to the nearest railway station. When the Maharashtra government built the Bhima (Ujjani) irrigation dam in the 1970s, about 7 km of this trolley line was submerged and acquired under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and the government paid a modest sum for the acquired land and infrastructure. The company claimed it was also owed much larger "severance" and "injurious affection" compensation, because losing that 7-km stretch rendered the remaining 28 km of trolley line, its rolling stock (locomotives and wagons), and its business (which now had to switch to costlier road transport) largely useless. The Reference Court partly allowed these claims, but the Bombay High Court, on appeal, reversed most of them, leading to this further appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court examined Section 23(1) of the 1894 Act, which allows compensation for damage from "severance" of the acquired land, and separately for "injurious affection" to the owner's other movable/immovable property or earnings. On the rolling stock claim, the Court agreed with the High Court that the company's own expert witness had admitted the assets carried almost zero book value by 1986, and evidence showed the line remained partly operational until 1983, so no compensation was due for the rolling stock. On the increase in transportation cost (loss of earnings) claim, the Court found no evidence that the company's profit decline was actually caused by the higher transport cost (rather than a broader drop in sales), and no proof the increased cost could not have been passed on to customers, so this claim also failed. However, on the unacquired 28 km of rails and sleepers, the Court held it was undisputed that this stretch became genuinely useless once the connecting 7 km was submerged, and since the High Court had already allowed similar compensation for the rails/sleepers in the submerged 7-km stretch without government appeal, denying it for the remaining 28 km was inconsistent. The Court partly allowed the appeal, restoring the Reference Court's compensation award of Rs. 31,21,860 for the rails and sleepers, while upholding the High Court's rejection of the other two claims.
In land acquisition compensation claims, each head of damage (loss to physical infrastructure versus loss of earnings/profits) must be proved separately with specific evidence connecting the acquisition to that particular loss: a general decline in profits or an unused asset with negligible book value will not by itself support a compensation claim, even where a related but distinct claim (like physical infrastructure being rendered useless) may succeed.
