Shobha Rani v. Madhukar Reddi, (1988)1 SCC 105, The word 'cruelty' has not been defined in the Hindu Marriage Act. It has been used in Section 13(1)(i)(a) of the Act in the context of human conduct or behaviour in relation to or in respect of matrimonial duties or obligations. It is a course of conduct of one which is adversely affecting the other. The cruelty may be mental or physical, intentional or unintentional. If it is physical, it is a question of fact and degree. If it is mental, the enquiry must begin as to the nature of the cruel treatment and then as to the impact of such treatment on the mind of the spouse.

Cruelty N.G. Dastane v. S. Dastane, (1975)2 SCC 326 "The enquiry therefore has to been her the conduct charges as cruelty is of such a character as to cause in the mind of the petitioner a reasonable apprehension that it will be harmful or injurious for him to live with the respondent..."

Cruelty Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines 'cruelty' as 'the quality of being cruel; disposition of inflicting suffering; delight in or indifference to another's pain; mercilessness; hard-heartedness'. The term "mental cruelty" has been defined in the Black's Law Dictionary [8th Edition, 2004] as under : "Mental Cruelty - As a ground for divorce, one spouse's course of conduct (not involving actual violence) that creates such anguish that it endangers the life, physical health, or mental health of the other spouse." The concept of cruelty has been summarized in Halsbury's Laws of England [Vol. 13, 4th Edition Para 1269] as under : "The general rule in all cases of cruelty is that the entire matrimonial relationship must be considered, and that rule is of special value when the cruelty consists not of violent acts but of injurious reproaches, complaints, accusations or taunts. In cases where no violence is averred, it is undesirable to consider judicial pronouncements with a view to creating certain categories of acts or conduct as having or lacking the nature or quality which renders them capable or incapable in all circumstances of amounting to cruelty; for it is the effect of the conduct rather than its nature which is of paramount importance in assessing a complaint of cruelty. Whether one spouse has been guilty of cruelty to the other is essentially a question of fact and previously decided cases have little, if any, value. The court should bear in mind the physical and mental condition of the parties as well as their social status, and should consider the impact of the personality and conduct of one spouse on the mind of the other, weighing all incidents and quarrels between the spouses from that point of view; further, the conduct alleged must be examined in the light of the complainant's capacity for endurance and the extent to which that capacity is known to the other spouse. Malevolent intention is not essential to cruelty but it is an important element where it exits."

CPC- Sec 13 Foreign Judgment Renusagar Power Co. Ltd. v. General Electric Co., AIR 1994 (SC) 860 With regard to enforcement of foreign judgments, the position at common law is that a foreign judgment which is final and conclusive cannot be impeached for any error either of fact or of law and is impeachable on limited grounds, namely, the court of the foreign country did not, in the circumstances of have jurisdiction to give that judgment in the view of English law; the judgment is vitiated by fraud on part of the party in whose favour the judgment is given or fraud on the part of the court which pronounced the judgment; the enforcement or recognition of the judgment would be contrary to public policy; the proceedings in which the judgment was obtained were opposed to natural justice. In the field of private international law, Courts refuse to apply a rule of foreign law or recognise a foreign judgment or a foreign arbitral award if it is found that the same is contrary to the public policy of the country in which it is sought to be invoked or enforced. Redfern and Hunter, "if a workable definition of "international public policy" could be found, it would be an effective way of preventing an award in an international arbitration from being set aside for purely domestic policy considerations".

Tort- duty to care Burton v. West Suffolk County Council, (1960)2 WLR 745, a highway authority carried out certain drainage work on a road to improve its conditions since it was inadequate to prevent flooding when the road was subjected to heavy rain. It was the practice of the roadman to put red flags by day and put off red lights by night whenever there was flooding which could be dangerous to vehicles. In December 1954, after heavy rain and flooding, after the water had subsided, a patch of ice formed on that part of the road which tended to keep damp because of inadequate drainage. The red flags and red lights were put off by the roadman when the water had subsided. The plaintiff was driving his car along the road when it ran on the patch of ice causing it to skid and crash into a tree. The plaintiff was injured and the car was damaged. In an action for damages though the trial Court granted the decree, on appeal, it was held that failure to provide adequate drainage by not doing sufficient work was an act of non-feasance for which the highway authority was not liable, but if the work was done negligently performed and created a new danger, the Corporation was liable. It was held that there was no duty on the defendant to warn the plaintiff of the danger of ice being on the road, and, therefore, the claim of the plaintiff for damages failed.

Tort- duty to care Smith & Ors. v. Littlewoods Organisation Ltd., (1987) AC 241, The defendants purchased a cinema building with the intention of demolishing it and replacing by a super market. The cinema after doing some work remained omitted and unattended. Security of the building was from time to time overcome by children and young persons and vandalish took place in and around it including an attempt to set fire to some old films in an adjoining closet and an attempt to light a fire in the cinema itself. On July 5, 1976, a fire was deliberately started in the cinema by children or teenagers, as a result of which the cinema burned down and an adjacent cafe and billiard saloon and a nearby church belonging to the users were seriously damaged. An action was brought against the defendants for damages claiming that the damages to the property was caused due to defendants' negligence in not driving off the children causing the damage. The House rejecting the claim, speaking through Lord Brandon of Oakbrook had held that there should be "careless breach of duty"

Hill v. Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, (1989)1 AC 191, the plaintiff's 20 year old daughter was attacked at night in a city street of the police area of which the defendant was chief constable and died from her injuries. Her attacker who was convicted of her murder was alleged to have committed series of offences of murder and attempted murder against young women in the area. Action was laid by the appellant-mother claiming damages for the negligence in apprehending the accused and for the faulty investigation. The trial Court quashed the action on the ground of lack of cause of action and in appeal it was confirmed. Lord Keith of Kinkel speaking for the House, had held that "where an individual member of the police force in the course of carrying out their functions of controlling and keeping down the incidence of crime owed a duty of care to individual members of the public who may suffer injury of person or property through the activities of criminals such as to result in liability for damages on the ground of negligence to anyone who suffers such injury by reason of the breach of that duty. Having posed that question, the House held that the general sense of public duty which motivates police forces in unlikely to be appreciably reinforced by the imposition of such liability so far as concerns their function in the investigation and suppression of crime. From time to time they make mistakes in the exercise of that function, but it is not to be doubted that they apply their best endeavors to the performance of it. In some instances the imposition of liability may lead to the exercise of a function being carried on in a detrimentally defensive frame of mind. The possibility of this happening in relation to the investigative operations of the police cannot be excluded. Further it would be reasonable to expect that if potential liability were to be imposed it would be not uncommon for actions to be raised against police forces on the ground that they had failed to catch some criminal as soon as they might have done, with the result that he went on to commit further crimes. While some such actions might involve allegations of a simple and straightforward type of failure - for example that a police officer negligently tripped and fell while pursuing a burglar - others would be likely to enter deeply into the general nature of a police investigation, as indeed the present action would seek to do."

Tort Oversees Tankship (U.K.) Ltd. v. Morts Docks and Engineering Co. Ltd., (1961) AC 388. Viscount Simonds, "It is, no doubt, proper when considering tortious liability for negligence to analyse its elements and to say that the plaintiff must prove a duty owed to him by the defendant, a breach of that duty by the defendant, and consequent damage. But there could be no liability until the damage has been done. It is not the act but the consequences on which tortious liability is founded for tort.

CPC- Sec 100(4) Kannan v. V.S. Pandurangam, 2008(1) RCR (Civil) 193 (SC) It is true that in this case no substantial question of law has been formulated by the High Court. However, in our opinion, merely because no substantial question of law has been formulated by the High Court that does not mean that the judgment of the High Court automatically becomes a nullity or that it must necessarily be set aside by this Court on that ground alone. The appellant before us must also show prejudice to him on this account. By a series of decisions of this Court it has been settled that omission to frame an issue as required under Order XIV, Rule 1 C.P.C. would not vitiate the trial in a suit where the parties went to trial fully knowing the rival case and led evidence in support of their respective contentions and to refute the contentions of the other side

Civil- issue Sayeda Akhtar v. Abdul Ahad, AIR 2003 SC 2985 that even if no specific issue has been framed but if the parties were aware of that issue and have led evidence on it, the Appellate Court should not interfere with the findings of the trial Court.