TL;DR: A curative petition is the last resort inside the Supreme Court of India, available only after a review petition has already been dismissed. The Court invented it in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra, (2002) 4 SCC 388, decided on 10 April 2002, and confined it to two grounds: a violation of natural justice, or a judge’s undisclosed connection to the case that raises a real apprehension of bias. It requires a Senior Advocate’s certificate, goes first to the three senior-most judges plus the judges who passed the original judgment, and is almost always dismissed on the papers.

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What a curative petition is, and the problem it was built to solve

A curative petition asks the Supreme Court of India to revisit a judgment it has already delivered, after a review petition against the same judgment has already failed. It is not a second review under another name. It exists for one narrow category of case: a judgment final in every procedural sense, yet reached through a process so flawed that letting it stand would itself be an injustice.

The Supreme Court created the curative petition under its own inherent jurisdiction in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra, decided on 10 April 2002 in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 509 of 1997, along with a connected writ petition filed under Article 32, the same constitutional writ jurisdiction the Court held could not be used to reopen its own final judgments. No statute enacted the curative petition, and no constitutional amendment authorised it. It answers a specific structural problem: what happens when a litigant has exhausted appeal and review, and only then discovers that the judgment itself was reached without a fair hearing, or by a judge who should have recused.

Before Rupa Ashok Hurra, the answer was, formally, nothing. Once a review petition was dismissed, the judgment was final under Article 137 of the Constitution, which gives the Supreme Court “power to review any judgment pronounced or order made by it,” subject to rules made under Article 145. Once that power was exhausted, no further internal remedy existed. The curative petition closes that gap, and it was built narrow on purpose.

The doctrine of finality, and the gap review left open

Litigation has to end somewhere. A losing party who could reopen a decided case indefinitely would make every judgment provisional, and nothing would ever be safe to rely on or enforce. Review under Article 137 already balances that need for finality against the risk of an uncorrected error, narrowly: an error apparent on the face of the record, newly discovered evidence, or an analogous sufficient reason, decided ordinarily on the papers without a hearing.

That balance leaves one category of case unaddressed. A judgment can be procedurally final, can survive review because no error is apparent on its face, and can still rest on a defect that has nothing to do with the reasoning at all: the losing party was never served notice and had no chance to be heard, or the judge who decided the case had an undisclosed connection to a party that would have justified recusal. Neither defect shows up by reading the judgment closely, because neither is a mistake in its logic. Both are defects in the process that produced it.

Rupa Ashok Hurra arose from exactly that gap. The underlying dispute was a matrimonial matter between Rupa Ashok Hurra and Ashok Hurra, decided by the Supreme Court on 10 March 1997 in Civil Appeal No. 1843 of 1997. A three-judge bench later referred the question to a Constitution Bench: could the Court’s own final judgment ever be treated as a nullity, and was a fresh writ petition under Article 32 available once ordinary appeal and review had run their course. The Constitution Bench, comprising Chief Justice S.P. Bharucha and Justices S.S.M. Quadri, S.N. Variava and Shivaraj V. Patil, answered both questions on 10 April 2002.

Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra: what the Court actually held

The Court’s first holding closed one door. It rejected the argument that a fresh writ petition under Article 32 could reopen a final Supreme Court judgment. Allowing that would have meant the Court’s own judgments were never truly final, since any unhappy litigant could simply refile as a writ petition.

Having closed that door, the Court opened a much narrower one. Writing for the Bench, Justice Quadri held that a petitioner is entitled to relief “ex debito justitiae” - as a matter owed in justice - only on establishing one of two things, in the Court’s own words: “(1) violation of principles of natural justice in that he was not a party to the lis but the judgement adversely affected his interests or, if he was a party to the lis, he was not served with notice of the proceedings and the matter proceeded as if he had notice and (2) where in the proceedings a learned Judge failed to disclose his connection with the subject-matter or the parties giving scope for an apprehension of bias and the judgment adversely affects the petitioner.”

The first branch covers a litigant never actually heard: someone not a party but adversely affected, or a party never served notice, so the case proceeded as though notice had been given. The second covers a judge’s undisclosed conflict: a connection to the subject matter or a party, not disclosed, creating a real apprehension of bias, where the judgment went against the party who did not know of it.

What the test excludes matters as much as what it covers. It does not cover a claim the Court got the law wrong, fresh evidence, or a claim that review should have succeeded. Those grounds belong to review, and the Court built the curative petition to sit outside that territory, not duplicate it.

The same paragraph fixed the procedural scaffolding around the two grounds: the petition must aver that the grounds were already taken in the review petition and dismissed by circulation; it must carry a Senior Advocate’s certificate; it goes first to the three senior-most judges together with the judges who passed the judgment, if available; a majority of that bench decides whether a hearing is needed; and the Court may impose exemplary costs if it finds the petition without merit and vexatious. Order XLVIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 converts each direction into a numbered rule.

Order XLVIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013: the procedure

Rupa Ashok Hurra supplied the test. Order XLVIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 supplies the numbered procedure, and its opening rule makes the relationship explicit: “Curative Petitions shall be governed by Judgment of the Court dated 10th April, 2002 delivered in the case of ‘Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra and Ors.’ in Writ Petition (C) No. 509 of 1997.” Everything that follows is the Rules Committee translating that one judgment into a filing procedure.

Rule 2 fixes three requirements. Rule 2(1) requires the petitioner to “aver specifically that the grounds mentioned therein had been taken in the Review Petition and that it was dismissed by circulation” - a ground cannot be raised for the first time here. Rule 2(2) requires “a certificate of the Senior Advocate that the petition meets the requirements delineated in the above case.” Rule 2(3) adds a certificate from the Advocate-on-Record that the petition “is the first curative petition in the impugned matter,” which the vakalatnama the petitioner executes for that AOR has to support.

Rule 3 sets the timing, and it differs sharply from review’s fixed thirty-day window: “The Curative Petition shall be filed within reasonable time from the date of Judgment or Order passed in the Review Petition.” There is no fixed number of days in the Rules, and this article has not found a provision that quantifies “reasonable time” further, so a table entry on this point should read “not specified in the Rules” rather than guess at a figure.

Rule 4 covers disposal, in four sub-rules. Rule 4(1) directs that the petition “shall be first circulated to a Bench of the three senior-most judges and the judges who passed the judgment complained of, if available.” Rule 4(2) makes circulation the default, echoing review’s own procedure: “Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, a curative petition shall be disposed of by circulation without any oral arguments but the petitioner may supplement his petition by additional written arguments.” Rule 4(3) is the escape valve: if a majority concludes “the matter needs hearing then it shall be listed before the same Bench, as far as possible.” Rule 4(4) supplies the deterrent, covered separately below.

Order XLVIII sits in Part IV of the consolidated Supreme Court Rules, 2013, immediately after the review provisions in Order XLVII and immediately before the general costs provisions in Order XLIX - a placement that reflects what the curative petition actually is: the last procedural step inside the Court’s own docket.

The senior advocate certification: a deliberate filter

The Senior Advocate’s certificate under Rule 2(2) is not a formality any advocate completes by rote. It puts a second, independent professional judgment between a disappointed litigant and the docket, before the petition is even filed.

The reason becomes clear once the scale of the underlying problem is considered. A large number of litigants who lose in the Supreme Court, and lose again at review, remain convinced their case was wrongly decided. Very few actually fit either branch of the Rupa Ashok Hurra test - genuine denial of notice, or a genuine undisclosed conflict on the part of the deciding judge. Without a filter, the docket would absorb every such filing as a matter of course.

The certificate shifts that first filtering decision onto the Bar. A Senior Advocate has to put their name to a specific representation: that the petition, on the papers, actually meets the requirements Rupa Ashok Hurra laid down. That is different from advising a client the case has merit in the ordinary sense. It requires testing the petition against a two-branch checklist unrelated to whether the underlying judgment was fair on the merits, and declining the certificate where it fails.

A petition that cannot secure a certificate never gets filed in a form the Registry will accept. One that does has already survived a round of scrutiny aimed specifically at the Rupa Ashok Hurra grounds, not the general merits of the case. Practitioners preparing the certificate should treat “does this fit the natural justice or undisclosed bias test, and only that test” as the entire question, resisting the pull to certify a petition merely because the result feels unjust.

Bench composition: the three senior-most judges, and the original bench

Rule 4(1) sends every curative petition, first, to “a Bench of the three senior-most judges and the judges who passed the judgment complained of, if available.” That sentence combines two ideas of judicial legitimacy.

The first is seniority on the Court as a whole. The three senior-most sitting judges bring institutional weight to a decision about whether the Court should revisit its own final judgment - a step the Court itself has described as touching finality “though on limited ground.” Placing that decision with the most senior judges available, rather than any panel from the roster, signals that reopening a closed matter is not routine.

The second is proximity to the original decision. The judges who delivered the judgment under attack are added “if available,” for the same reason review places a review petition before the original bench where possible: those judges are best positioned to know whether the process behind their own judgment was compromised by a lack of notice or an undisclosed conflict. A judge assessing a claim that they personally failed to disclose a connection is, plainly, evaluating a claim about their own conduct.

“If available” carries real weight where judges retire on reaching a fixed constitutional age. Years can separate a judgment from the exhaustion of review and the filing of a curative petition, and by the time one reaches the Registry, one or more original judges may no longer sit on the Court. Rule 4(1) does not spell out a named substitute beyond that qualifying phrase; where the original judges are unavailable, the three senior-most judges carry the first-stage decision alone.

Circulation in chambers, and when a hearing follows

Like a review petition, a curative petition is not, by default, argued in open court. Rule 4(2) makes that explicit: it is disposed of “by circulation without any oral arguments,” unless otherwise ordered, though the petitioner may supplement it with written arguments.

The ordinary curative petition is read, not heard. The three senior-most judges, with the original bench where available, work through the petition, the certificate, the underlying judgment, and any written submissions, entirely on paper. There is no day in court and no chance to answer a judge’s question as it is asked. A petition that spends its pages restating the merits of the underlying dispute, rather than showing exactly how notice was defective or exactly what connection went undisclosed, wastes the one opportunity it has.

Rule 4(3) keeps this from being an absolute bar: where a majority of the circulating bench concludes the matter needs hearing, it is listed before the same bench, so far as possible. A hearing is not something a petitioner can demand; it is something the bench decides the matter warrants. The Rupa Ashok Hurra judgment also lets the bench ask a senior counsel to assist as amicus curiae at any stage, giving the Court an independent professional view where it thinks that would help.

The practical consequence for drafting mirrors review petition drafting, sharpened further: assume the petition will be decided on the papers, and write every paragraph to persuade a reader who will never hear the point argued aloud.

Costs on a vexatious curative petition

Rule 4(4) gives the Court a deterrent against curative petitions filed without a genuine basis: if it concludes, at any stage, that the petition “is without any merit and vexatious, it may impose exemplary costs on the petitioner.” “Exemplary” signals these are not ordinary costs compensating the other side for expense; they discourage using a curative petition as a further round of argument dressed in the vocabulary of natural justice or bias.

This rule sits directly downstream of the certification requirement above. The certificate is meant to screen out petitions that do not fit the Rupa Ashok Hurra grounds before filing. The costs power backs that screen up if a petition gets through anyway, or is filed without a genuine certificate and found frivolous on inspection. Together, the two provisions keep the docket clear of curative petitions that are, in substance, an attempt to reargue a case already lost twice.

For a practitioner, the cost risk is a reason to treat certification seriously rather than as a hurdle on the way to a filing the client wants regardless. A petition drafted around genuine, evidenced grounds carries little cost exposure. One drafted to give a disappointed client a further day in court, without the facts to support it, is exactly the filing Rule 4(4) exists to discourage.

The route from judgment to review to curative

The diagram below traces the path from a Supreme Court judgment through review to the narrow curative stage, and shows where each rule discussed above sits in that sequence.

flowchart TD
    A[Supreme Court judgment or order] --> B[Review petition filed under Article 137]
    B --> C{Review allowed or dismissed?}
    C -- Allowed --> D[Judgment recalled or modified]
    C -- Dismissed --> E{Denial of notice, or undisclosed judicial bias?}
    E -- No qualifying ground --> F[No further remedy - finality applies]
    E -- Ground exists --> G[Curative petition drafted, Senior Advocate certificate required]
    G --> H[Circulated to 3 senior-most judges plus original bench, Order XLVIII Rule 4]
    H --> I{Majority finds hearing needed?}
    I -- No --> J[Dismissed in chambers, no oral hearing]
    I -- Yes --> K[Listed before same bench, as far as possible]
    K --> L{Curative petition allowed?}
    L -- Yes --> M[Judgment or review order recalled - rare]
    L -- No --> N[Dismissed - exemplary costs possible if vexatious]

Curative petitions that have actually succeeded

Most discussion of curative petitions treats their success as theoretical. It is not. The Supreme Court has, on identifiable occasions, actually allowed one, and naming those occasions is more useful than a vague assurance that success is possible.

The most significant recent instance is Surendra Koli v. State of Uttar Pradesh, decided on 11 November 2025 and reported at 2025 INSC 1308, arising from the Nithari killings prosecution. The bench, Justices Vikram Nath, Surya Kant and Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, allowed the petition: “For the reasons recorded above, the curative petition is allowed.” The Court recalled and set aside both its own 2011 judgment affirming the conviction and death sentence in Criminal Appeal No. 2227 of 2010, and the 2014 order dismissing the review petition against it, then allowed the criminal appeal itself and set aside the judgments beneath it. The reasoning turned on the reliability of a confessional statement recorded after prolonged custody without adequate access to counsel, and on contradictions in the alleged recoveries of evidence - a process-level defect closer to the curative jurisdiction’s core than an ordinary disagreement with how evidence was weighed.

A second, more modest instance is Latoori Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, decided 11 March 2024 in Curative Petition (Civil) No. 108 of 2023, before Chief Justice Dr D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna and B.R. Gavai. A review petition had been dismissed for a delay of two hundred and ninety-six days. The curative petition succeeded on a narrower point: the petitioner was entitled to the benefit of limitation extensions the Court had itself ordered during the COVID-19 pandemic - the kind of factual gap our guide to condonation of delay treats as central to any late filing - so the review had not actually been out of time. The order recalled the dismissal and directed the review petition be placed for fresh disposal by circulation: “The Curative Petition is accordingly allowed in the above terms.”

Neither example is built on a claim that the earlier bench simply reasoned poorly. Koli turned on a defect in how the evidence was obtained and evaluated. Latoori Singh turned on a verifiable factual error in a limitation calculation, not a contested legal argument. Neither reads like a second attempt at the argument the review petition already made.

Review petition and curative petition compared

FeatureReview petitionCurative petition
BasisArticle 137 of the Constitution; Order XLVII, Supreme Court Rules, 2013Evolved by the Court in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra, (2002) 4 SCC 388; codified in Order XLVIII, Supreme Court Rules, 2013
When availableAfter the original judgment or orderOnly after a review petition on the same grounds has been filed and dismissed by circulation
GroundsError apparent on the record, new evidence, or an analogous sufficient reason (Order XLVII Rule 1, CPC)Violation of natural justice, or a judge’s undisclosed connection creating an apprehension of bias (Rupa Ashok Hurra)
Time limit30 days from the judgment or order (Order XLVII Rule 2)“Within reasonable time” from the order in the review petition (Order XLVIII Rule 3); no fixed number of days specified in the Rules
Senior Advocate certification required✗✓ (Order XLVIII Rule 2(2))
AOR certificate that it is the first such petition✗✓ (Order XLVIII Rule 2(3))
Default mode of disposalCirculation in chambers, no oral arguments, unless otherwise orderedCirculation, no oral arguments, unless otherwise ordered (Order XLVIII Rule 4(2))
First benchAs far as practicable, the same judges who decided the matterThree senior-most judges, plus the judges who passed the judgment, if available (Order XLVIII Rule 4(1))
Oral hearing as of right✗ (narrow exception for death sentence review, Mohd. Arif @ Ashfaq v. Registrar, Supreme Court of India, (2014) 9 SCC 737)✗
Costs on a meritless filingNot specified as a distinct exemplary-costs rule in Order XLVII✓ - exemplary costs, if the Court finds the petition without merit and vexatious (Order XLVIII Rule 4(4))

Where the Rules are silent, the table records that silence rather than treating it as a documented refusal.

Why practitioners still file, knowing the odds

An honest account has to start from a blunt fact: this article has not found any official, published figure from the Supreme Court or any government body on how many curative petitions are filed each year, or what proportion succeed, and no number is offered here that cannot be attributed to a named source. What can be said, from the two verified outcomes above and from the structure of the test itself, is that the Rupa Ashok Hurra grounds were drawn to exclude nearly everything a disappointed litigant actually wants to argue. A litigant who believes the Court weighed the evidence wrongly, applied the wrong precedent, or should have reached a different conclusion has no curative remedy at all, however strongly that belief is held.

Given that, the reason practitioners still file is not a belief the odds are good. It is that the curative petition is the only mechanism left inside the Court’s own process once review has failed, and for the rare client whose case genuinely fits one of the two grounds - proof notice never arrived, or documented evidence of an undisclosed connection between a judge and a party - there is no other route to correcting a final judgment through the Court itself. Filing is also a matter of professional completeness: a lawyer who identifies a genuine natural-justice or bias claim has an obligation to pursue the remedy that exists for it, knowing the certification will screen out anything short of a genuine fit.

What separates a filing worth making from one that risks costs under Rule 4(4) is whether the ground can be stated, and evidenced, without reference to the merits of the underlying dispute at all. A petition summarised in a sentence that never mentions who should have won - “the petitioner was never served notice,” or “the judge failed to disclose a directorship in a party company” - is what the certification and bench rules were built to let through. One that cannot be summarised that way is very likely what they were built to stop. Niyam’s citator lets counsel confirm, before drafting either a review or curative ground, whether the precedent behind it is still good law or has since been qualified, which matters more here than in most filings, since a curative petition gets essentially one attempt to make its case on paper.

A related point deserves mention. Some litigants approach a curative petition as a way of buying time against an adverse judgment about to be enforced, rather than a genuine attempt to establish natural justice or bias grounds. That use invites the costs power directly, and does a disservice to keeping the jurisdiction available for the cases it was actually built for - a different concern from anticipating an ex parte move by the other side while a matter is pending, which is what a caveat petition addresses instead.

Frequently asked questions

What is a curative petition in the Supreme Court of India?

A curative petition asks the Supreme Court to revisit a judgment it has already delivered, after a review petition against the same judgment has been dismissed. The Court created this remedy itself in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra, (2002) 4 SCC 388, and confined it to two grounds: a violation of natural justice, or a judge’s undisclosed connection to the case raising an apprehension of bias. It is governed procedurally by Order XLVIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013.

When did the Supreme Court create the curative petition?

On 10 April 2002, in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra, decided in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 509 of 1997 and a connected petition, by a Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice S.P. Bharucha and Justices S.S.M. Quadri, S.N. Variava and Shivaraj V. Patil. The Court fashioned the remedy under its own inherent jurisdiction, since neither the Constitution nor any statute had provided one.

What are the grounds for filing a curative petition?

Exactly two, as stated in Rupa Ashok Hurra: a violation of natural justice, where the petitioner was either not a party but adversely affected, or was a party but never served with notice; or a judge’s failure to disclose a connection with the subject matter or a party, creating an apprehension of bias, where the judgment went against the petitioner. Disagreement with the Court’s reasoning on the merits is not a ground.

Is a curative petition available before filing a review petition?

No. Order XLVIII Rule 2(1) requires the petitioner to specifically aver that the grounds relied on were already taken in the review petition, and that the review was dismissed by circulation. A curative petition cannot be filed as a first response to an adverse judgment, and cannot introduce a ground never raised at the review stage.

Who can certify a curative petition?

A Senior Advocate must certify, under Rule 2(2), that the petition meets the requirements laid down in Rupa Ashok Hurra. Separately, under Rule 2(3), the Advocate-on-Record must certify it is the first curative petition filed in the matter. Both certificates are preconditions for the Registry to accept the filing, not optional supporting material.

What does the senior advocate certificate actually verify?

That the petition, on the facts and grounds pleaded, actually fits one of the two Rupa Ashok Hurra grounds - denial of notice or a fair hearing, or an undisclosed judicial conflict of interest - rather than restating dissatisfaction with the earlier judgment. The certificate is a professional representation to the Court, made before filing, that the petition clears that specific threshold.

Which judges hear a curative petition?

Rule 4(1) sends the petition first to a bench of the three senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, together with the judges who passed the judgment under challenge, if still available. Where a majority of that bench concludes the matter needs a hearing, it is listed before the same bench so far as possible, rather than a fresh panel.

Is a curative petition heard in open court?

Ordinarily, no. Rule 4(2) makes circulation the default mode of disposal, without oral arguments, though the petitioner may supplement it with written arguments. The bench can direct a hearing under Rule 4(3) if a majority concludes the matter needs one, and can appoint a senior counsel as amicus curiae at any stage, but neither is available to a petitioner as of right.

Is there a time limit for filing a curative petition?

Rule 3 requires the petition be filed “within reasonable time from the date of Judgment or Order passed in the Review Petition,” but the Rules do not fix a specific number of days. That is a deliberate contrast with review’s fixed thirty-day limit, and this article has not found any provision quantifying “reasonable time” further.

Can costs be imposed for filing a curative petition?

Yes. Rule 4(4) allows the Court, at any stage, to impose exemplary costs on a petitioner if it concludes the petition is without merit and vexatious. This backs up the certification requirement, and is a real risk for a curative petition drafted to reargue the merits rather than demonstrate a genuine natural-justice or bias defect.

How many curative petitions succeed?

No official, published figure from the Supreme Court or any government body on the total filed or allowed has been found for this article, so no percentage is stated here. The Court has allowed curative petitions on identifiable occasions - Surendra Koli v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2025 INSC 1308, decided 11 November 2025, and Latoori Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, decided 11 March 2024, are two verified examples.

What is the difference between a review petition and a curative petition?

A review petition asks the Court to revisit its own judgment on an error apparent on the record, new evidence, or an analogous reason, within thirty days of the judgment. A curative petition is available only after that review has already been dismissed, confined to a violation of natural justice or an undisclosed judicial conflict, with no time limit fixed in days and a mandatory Senior Advocate certificate review does not require.

Can a curative petition be filed a second time in the same matter?

No. Rule 2(3) requires the Advocate-on-Record to certify the petition is the first curative petition in the matter, foreclosing a second attempt against the same judgment through this route. Once filed and decided, the curative jurisdiction for that judgment is exhausted.

Does filing a curative petition stay the underlying judgment?

Filing does not automatically stay the judgment or order under challenge. Any stay has to be separately sought and separately justified before the bench considering the petition, the same way a stay is not an automatic consequence of filing a review petition. A petitioner needing interim protection while the petition is pending has to ask for it explicitly.

What happens if the original judges are no longer on the Court?

Rule 4(1) sends the petition to the judges who passed the judgment complained of “if available.” Where one or more have since retired, the Rule does not spell out a named substitute beyond that qualifying phrase, and the three senior-most sitting judges carry the first-stage decision on their own.

Can amicus curiae be appointed in a curative petition?

Yes. The Rupa Ashok Hurra judgment records that the bench may, at any stage, ask a senior counsel to assist as amicus curiae. This gives the Court an independent professional view where the bench considers it useful, separate from the arguments advanced by either party’s own counsel.

Is there a curative petition for High Court judgments?

The curative petition, as created in Rupa Ashok Hurra and codified in Order XLVIII, is specific to the Supreme Court’s own final judgments. A litigant aggrieved by a High Court judgment has separate remedies within the High Court’s own review jurisdiction, or an appeal to the Supreme Court, rather than a curative petition against the High Court’s order itself.

Should every unsuccessful review be followed by a curative petition?

No. A curative petition should follow only where the case genuinely fits one of the two Rupa Ashok Hurra grounds, not simply because the review was dismissed and the client remains unsatisfied. Filing on facts that plainly do not meet the standard risks dismissal and exposes the petitioner to exemplary costs under Rule 4(4).

Where this leaves a practitioner

The curative petition is deliberately the narrowest instrument in the Supreme Court’s own procedure. It exists for one category of case: a final judgment reached without a fair hearing, or by a judge with an undisclosed conflict, where every ordinary avenue has already been exhausted. It is not a second review, and treating it as one is the most common way a curative petition fails at the certification stage before it is even filed.

Getting the ground right starts with confirming a genuine gap exists between what the review petition argued and what the curative petition would argue - the averment Rule 2(1) demands is not a formality, since a curative petition repeating a review ground has no basis to proceed. It also means confirming the authority behind the natural-justice or bias argument still holds, rather than relying on a remembered citation that has since been distinguished, a risk our piece on hallucinated citations in India documents. Niyam is built to check exactly that: it searches across a large corpus of Indian judgments with every result grounded in a citable primary source, which is the discipline a Senior Advocate needs before certifying a petition under Rule 2(2), not after.

For the procedure that has to be exhausted before a curative petition can even be considered, our guide on the review petition in the Supreme Court covers Order XLVII in full, including the thirty-day limit and the error-apparent standard. A curative petition, like a review petition or a transfer petition, must be filed by an Advocate-on-Record under a vakalatnama, never by the litigant directly. Before drafting either document, read the judgment under challenge with the discipline the Court itself will apply - our guide on how to read a judgment sets out that process, how to cite Indian judgments covers the citation itself, and our note on certified copies of judgments covers the document a curative petition has to be built around. The Court’s power to do complete justice under Article 142 is a separate, wider tool the curative jurisdiction does not draw on, and the two should not be confused when drafting.