# Special leave petition under Article 136: complete filing guide **TL;DR:** A special leave petition (SLP) asks the Supreme Court to exercise its discretionary power under Article 136 of the Constitution to allow an appeal against any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order of any court or tribunal in India. It is the single largest category of filing at the Supreme Court, and it proceeds in two distinct stages - grant of leave, then hearing of the appeal after leave is granted - governed procedurally by Order XXI (civil) and Order XXII (criminal) of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013. --- ## On this page - [What Article 136 actually says](#what-article-136-actually-says) - [How wide the discretion is on its face](#how-wide-the-discretion-is-on-its-face) - [The self-imposed limits the court has read into it](#the-self-imposed-limits-the-court-has-read-into-it) - [What special leave means procedurally: leave stage versus appeal stage](#what-special-leave-means-procedurally-leave-stage-versus-appeal-stage) - [Limitation: the 90-day and 60-day periods](#limitation-the-90-day-and-60-day-periods) - [Mandatory contents of an SLP under Order XXI](#mandatory-contents-of-an-slp-under-order-xxi) - [Criminal SLPs under Order XXII](#criminal-slps-under-order-xxii) - [Filing without impleading and condonation of delay](#filing-without-impleading-and-condonation-of-delay) - [What happens at the miscellaneous-day hearing](#what-happens-at-the-miscellaneous-day-hearing) - [Drafting mistakes that get SLPs dismissed at the threshold](#drafting-mistakes-that-get-slps-dismissed-at-the-threshold) - [How AI-assisted research strengthens an SLP](#how-ai-assisted-research-strengthens-an-slp) - [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions) - [Filing a special leave petition with confidence](#filing-a-special-leave-petition-with-confidence) --- ## What Article 136 actually says [Article 136 of the Constitution](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/427855/) sits in Chapter IV of Part V, under the heading "Special leave to appeal by the Supreme Court". Clause (1) reads: "Not with standing anything in this Chapter, the Supreme Court may, in its discretion, grant special leave to appeal from any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order in any cause or matter passed or made by any court or tribunal in the territory of India." Clause (2) carves out one exception: "Nothing in clause (1) shall apply to any judgment, determination, sentence or order passed or made by any court or tribunal constituted by or under any law relating to the Armed Forces." Two words in clause (1) do most of the work. "Any" appears three times - any judgment, any court or tribunal, any cause or matter - and "discretion" tells you that even where every other condition is met, the Court is never obliged to grant leave. The opening phrase, "notwithstanding anything in this Chapter", is a deliberate override: Article 136 is not read down by the specific appellate provisions that precede it in the same chapter, such as Articles 132 to 134A, which govern constitutional, civil and criminal appeals as of right, subject to a certificate from the High Court. Article 136 is a residual, standalone grant of appellate jurisdiction that Parliament and the High Courts cannot narrow by statute or by declaring a tribunal's decision "final". The only express carve-out is clause (2), for orders of courts or tribunals constituted under armed forces law - principally the Armed Forces Tribunal. Everything else, from a magistrate's order in a cheque-bounce case to a National Green Tribunal ruling to a High Court's dismissal of a writ petition, falls within the words "any court or tribunal in the territory of India". That last category matters in practice, because many SLPs arrive at the Supreme Court after a litigant has already exhausted the [five constitutional writs](/blog/five-writs-explained) before a High Court under [Article 226](/blog/high-courts-article-226) and lost. --- ## How wide the discretion is on its face Read literally, clause (1) gives the Supreme Court appellate reach over every adjudicating body in the country, civil or criminal, statutory tribunal or constitutional court, interlocutory order or final judgment. There is no monetary threshold, no requirement that the order below be final, and no requirement that a question of law of general public importance be involved, unlike the certificate route under Articles 133 and 134A. The Supreme Court itself described the breadth of this power in [Durga Shankar Mehta v. Thakur Raghuraj Singh, AIR 1954 SC 520](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/937486/). A Constitution Bench held that Article 136 "vests in the Supreme Court a plenary jurisdiction in the matter of entertaining and hearing appeals, by granting of special leave, against any kind of judgment or order made by a Court or Tribunal in any cause or matter" and that "the Constitution for the best of reasons did not choose to fetter or circumscribe the powers exercisable under this article in any way." The Court went further, holding that the power "overrides ordinary laws" and that no finality clause in any statute can by itself exclude it, because "no presumption can arise from words and expressions declaring an adjudication of a particular Tribunal to be final and conclusive, that there was an intention to exclude the exercise of the special power". In principle, no order in the Indian judicial or quasi-judicial system is beyond the Supreme Court's reach under Article 136. In practice, the Court exercises that reach through self-imposed constraints built up over seven decades, because a court that heard everything under Article 136 would cease to function as an apex court. --- ## The self-imposed limits the court has read into it The same Durga Shankar Mehta bench supplied the counterweight to its own description of plenary power. It held that the powers under Article 136 are "in the nature of special or residuary powers which are exercisable outside the purview of ordinary law, in cases where the needs of justice demand interference by the Supreme Court" and that "the article does not create any general right of appeal from decisions of all Tribunals", adding that "the powers under article 136 are exercisable only under exceptional circumstances." The most quoted formulation of that restraint comes from one of the earliest Article 136 cases the Court decided, [Pritam Singh v. The State, 1950 AIR 169](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/743851/). A Constitution Bench held: "Generally speaking, this Court will not grant special leave, unless it is shown that exceptional and special circumstances exist, that substantial and grave injustice has been done and that the case in question presents features of sufficient gravity to warrant a review of the decision appealed against." That sentence, written in the Supreme Court's first year of existence, remains the standard practitioners cite when they explain to a client why an SLP is not simply a third or fourth round of appeal. The consequence for a drafter is practical rather than doctrinal. A petition that only re-argues the facts, without identifying a substantial question of law, a manifest error apparent on the record, a jurisdictional excess, gross violation of natural justice, or a perverse finding unsupported by evidence, is unlikely to persuade the Court to expend one of a limited number of leave grants on it. Concurrent findings of fact by two courts below are, as a matter of settled practice, particularly hard to dislodge at the leave stage, precisely because Pritam Singh frames the exercise as exceptional rather than routine. Building that argument starts with [how to read a judgment](/blog/how-to-read-a-judgment) closely enough to isolate the actual legal error rather than a factual disagreement. | Feature | What Article 136 permits | What the court's self-imposed practice restricts | |---|---|---| | Scope of orders covered | Any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order of any court or tribunal (Article 136(1)) | Armed forces tribunals excluded (Article 136(2)) | | Nature of the exercise | Discretionary grant of leave, not an appeal as of right | Exercised only in exceptional and special circumstances (Pritam Singh) | | Relationship to statutory finality clauses | Overrides finality clauses in ordinary legislation (Durga Shankar Mehta) | Not specified in the Rules whether a specific class of statutory tribunal is treated as presumptively excluded | | Re-appreciation of concurrent facts | Not textually barred | As a matter of settled practice, disfavoured absent perversity or manifest error | --- ## What special leave means procedurally: leave stage versus appeal stage The phrase "special leave to appeal" describes a two-step process, and understanding the split is the single most useful procedural fact for anyone filing or opposing an SLP. The Supreme Court set out the structure in [Kunhayammed v. State of Kerala, (2000) 6 SCC 359](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1940266/), decided 19 July 2000: "The exercise of jurisdiction conferred on this Court by Article 136 of the Constitution consists of two steps: (i) granting special leave to appeal; and (ii) hearing the appeal." At the first step, the Court held, "the Court is not exercising its appellate jurisdiction; it is merely exercising its discretionary jurisdiction to grant or not to grant leave to appeal." The petition remains a petition. It does not become an appeal, and the petitioner does not become an appellant, until leave is actually granted. That distinction has a direct consequence for the doctrine of merger - the principle that an appellate order takes the place of the order under challenge. Kunhayammed held that "an order refusing special leave to appeal may be a non-speaking order or a speaking one. In either case it does not attract the doctrine of merger." Dismissal of an SLP, in other words, does not by itself affirm the correctness of the order below in a way that binds other courts; it simply means the Supreme Court declined to interfere, and the order under challenge continues to rest on its own reasoning at whatever level it was passed. Merger, and with it a change in the character of the underlying order, occurs only "once leave to appeal has been granted and appellate jurisdiction of Supreme Court has been invoked" - from that point on, "the order passed in appeal would attract the doctrine of merger; the order may be of reversal, modification or merely affirmation." In practical filing terms, the same document a petitioner files - captioned "Special Leave Petition" - converts, on the day leave is granted, into a civil or criminal appeal without a fresh pleading. The Registry re-numbers the matter, the petitioner becomes the appellant, and the case proceeds to final hearing on merits. Everything before that point is argued on whether leave should be granted at all, not on the full merits, though in practice the two bleed into each other because a court cannot assess "grave injustice" without looking at the substance. Once leave is granted, the appeal also falls within reach of the Supreme Court's power to do [complete justice under Article 142](/blog/article-142-complete-justice), a separate power frequently invoked at final disposal. ```mermaid flowchart TD A[Impugned judgment or order of a court or tribunal] --> B[Certified copy obtained] B --> C[SLP drafted under Order XXI or Order XXII, SC Rules 2013] C --> D[Filed through Advocate-on-Record with AoR certificate] D --> E[Registry scrutiny for defects] E --> F{Defects found?} F -->|Yes| G[Defects cured or refiling] G --> E F -->|No| H[Listed for preliminary hearing on admission] H --> I{Leave granted?} I -->|No| J[SLP dismissed - no merger of order below] I -->|Yes| K[Petition converts to civil or criminal appeal] K --> L[Notice to respondents, exchange of pleadings] L --> M[Final hearing on merits] M --> N[Judgment - doctrine of merger applies] ``` --- ## Limitation: the 90-day and 60-day periods Limitation for an SLP is not calculated under the ordinary Schedule to the Limitation Act, 1963 the way a first appeal or a civil revision would be. It is fixed by the Supreme Court Rules themselves, and it sits in two separate places depending on whether your matter is civil or criminal. Order XXI Rule 1 governs special leave petitions in civil proceedings. Order XXII Rule 1 governs special leave petitions in criminal proceedings. Both are printed in the [Supreme Court Rules, 2013 as published in the Gazette of India](https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s3ec0490f1f4972d133619a60c30f3559e/uploads/2024/01/2024011691-1.pdf), and both are expressly made subject to Sections 4, 5, 12 and 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963. Order XXI Rule 1 says that where a certificate of fitness to appeal was refused by the High Court, a civil SLP must be lodged within sixty days from the date of the order of refusal, and in any other case within ninety days from the date of the judgment or order sought to be appealed from. Order XXII Rule 1 carries the same two periods for criminal matters and adds a third that civil practitioners never encounter: in a case involving a sentence of death, the period is sixty days from the date of the judgment or order, not ninety. Both rules carry the same proviso, which excludes the time between making an application for leave to appeal to the High Court from a single Judge's judgment and its rejection. The practical rule of thumb is straightforward. Where the petitioner sought a certificate under Article 133 or 134A and it was refused, the sixty-day clock runs from that refusal. In every other case, which given how rarely certificates are sought is the great majority of SLPs, the ninety-day clock runs from the date of the judgment, decree, sentence or order under challenge, unless a death sentence is involved. Time spent obtaining a certified copy is excluded from the computation under the ordinary provisions of the Limitation Act, which is why the first thing any AOR does on being briefed is confirm when the certified copy was applied for and received. | Situation | Limitation period | Runs from | |---|---|---| | Certificate of fitness to appeal was sought and refused by the court below | 60 days | Date of the order refusing the certificate | | No certificate was sought, or the case does not involve a certificate route | 90 days | Date of the judgment, decree, sentence or order appealed from | | Criminal matter involving a sentence of death | 60 days | Date of the judgment or order appealed from | | Time taken to obtain a certified copy | Excluded from computation | Statutory exclusion under the Limitation Act | | Filing beyond the applicable period | Requires a condonation of delay application | Not specified in the Rules as an automatic bar - discretionary relief | Miss the window and the SLP is not automatically dead, but it is no longer a petition you can simply file. It becomes a petition that must be accompanied by an application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act seeking condonation of delay, on affidavit, explaining every day of the gap. For the standard the Court applies to that explanation, see our companion piece on [condonation of delay](/blog/condonation-of-delay), which sets out the Katiji and Balakrishnan lines of authority in full rather than repeating them here. Pulling the exact date of the order under challenge and confirming the current status of the case is also easier with a working knowledge of [checking case status on eCourts and NJDG](/blog/check-case-status-ecourts-njdg). --- ## Mandatory contents of an SLP under Order XXI Order XXI of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, framed under Article 145 of the Constitution, is the order that governs the form and content of civil special leave petitions. The Supreme Court's own description of the order, given in [Saumya Chaurasia v. Directorate of Enforcement](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/105022391/) (14 December 2023), records that "Order XXI of the Supreme Court Rules 2013 framed under Article 145 ... deals with provisions regarding Special Leave Petitions" and that "Rule 3 of the said Order XXI mandates inter alia that the SLPs shall be confined only to the pleadings before the court/tribunal whose order is challenged", with the petitioner permitted to annex only such documents from the record below as are necessary to answer the question of law or make out the grounds urged. That confinement rule is not a technicality. In Saumya Chaurasia, the AOR's certificate stated the SLP was "confined only to the pleadings before the Court/Tribunal whose order is challenged and the other documents relied upon in those proceedings", while the petition in fact relied on a charge-sheet and cognizance order never placed before the High Court whose order was under challenge. The Supreme Court treated the false certificate as a serious matter going to the credibility of the pleading and the counsel who signed it, not a curable formality. Beyond Rule 3's confinement requirement, the settled practice format for an SLP - reflected in how petitions are drafted and accepted by the Registry - includes a synopsis, a chronological list of dates, a statement of facts, the questions of law framed for the Court's consideration, the grounds on which leave is sought, the prayer clause, and the AOR's certificate. That certificate does two things: it confirms confinement to the record below as Rule 3 requires, and it is the professional attestation the Court relies on without independently re-verifying every annexure - why a false one is treated so severely. A petitioner cannot file an SLP directly. Only an Advocate-on-Record can file and act in any matter before the Supreme Court, so engaging one is the first practical step for any litigant, wherever they are located. The AOR system exists precisely so that someone with personal, professional accountability to the Court stands behind every certificate on the record, and that engagement is formalised through a [vakalatnama](/blog/vakalatnama) executed in the AOR's favour. Every annexure drawn from the record below should in turn be a properly obtained [certified copy of the judgment](/blog/certified-copy-of-judgment) or order, not an uncertified downloaded copy. --- ## Criminal SLPs under Order XXII Criminal special leave petitions - against an order of acquittal, conviction, sentence, or an interlocutory or final order in a criminal proceeding - are governed by Order XXII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, a separate order from the civil track under Order XXI. Rule 3 of Order XXII requires that the petition "shall be accompanied by a certified copy of the judgment or order appealed from," as the Supreme Court recorded in [Harsh Bhuwalka v. Sanjay Kumar Bajoria](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/150596829/) (5 August 2024). That is stricter than the civil track's Rule 3, which permits annexing only the extracts necessary to make out the grounds; a criminal SLP must carry the certified copy of the order under attack, given that liberty, sentence or the outcome of a prosecution frequently turns on it. The self-imposed restraint discussed under Pritam Singh applies with particular force in the criminal context, because the Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned that Article 136 is not meant to convert every conviction or bail refusal into routine reconsideration at the apex level. Where the High Court has exercised discretion - on [bailable and non-bailable offences](/blog/bailable-vs-non-bailable), for instance - within settled principle, the Supreme Court's practice is to interfere sparingly rather than substitute its own view of the facts. --- ## Filing without impleading and condonation of delay An SLP is filed against the parties arrayed in the proceeding below - ordinarily the parties on the other side of the order under challenge, plus, in a criminal matter arising from a State prosecution, the State. A petitioner cannot add a fresh party who was never before the court or tribunal below merely because that party's interests might now be affected; a stranger who wants to be heard must seek impleadment as an intervenor, not be added as a respondent unilaterally. Where a necessary party has not been impleaded, the Registry can raise this as a defect at scrutiny, and curing it before the preliminary hearing is cheaper than doing so after notice has gone out. Filing after the limitation period discussed above requires an application for condonation of delay, supported by an affidavit that accounts for every segment of the gap between the last date for filing and the actual date of filing. The Rules make clear that where a delay application accompanies a defective or late petition, the Court examines sufficient cause under Section 5 of the Limitation Act using the same liberal, justice-oriented approach it applies in any other proceeding, and the affidavit is scrutinised for specificity rather than accepted on a bare assertion that "the delay was unavoidable." Our guide to [condonation of delay](/blog/condonation-of-delay) sets out the day-by-day accounting standard the Court expects and the drafting discipline that a credible delay affidavit requires. --- ## What happens at the miscellaneous-day hearing SLPs are ordinarily listed for their preliminary hearing on admission on a miscellaneous day, one of the days the Supreme Court sets aside for fresh matters rather than final hearings of already-admitted cases. A bench works through a large volume of petitions in a short span, and each hearing is brief: counsel gets a short oral opportunity to persuade the Court the case crosses the Pritam Singh threshold, and the bench decides, on that limited exchange plus the written petition, whether to issue notice or dismiss at the threshold. Three outcomes are realistically possible. The bench can dismiss the SLP outright, which, per Kunhayammed, does not attract the doctrine of merger and leaves the order below undisturbed and unaffirmed. The bench can issue notice, moving the matter toward the second Kunhayammed step - an appeal after leave is eventually granted - by calling for the respondent's response. Or, less commonly at the first hearing but frequently at a later one, the bench can grant leave outright and, where the record permits, proceed to final disposal the same day. Because the hearing is so compressed, the written petition - the synopsis, the list of dates, and the questions of law - does more work than oral advocacy can realistically do in the few minutes available. --- ## Drafting mistakes that get SLPs dismissed at the threshold A recurring set of errors accounts for a disproportionate share of SLPs that never get past the preliminary hearing. **Arguing facts instead of law.** A petition that reads as a fourth round of factual argument, without identifying a question of law, a jurisdictional error, a perversity in the finding, or a violation of natural justice, does not meet the Pritam Singh standard. Concurrent findings of fact by two courts below are especially difficult to dislodge without pointing to something the courts below got legally wrong, not merely something the petitioner disagrees with. **A defective or inaccurate AOR certificate.** As Saumya Chaurasia shows, a certificate asserting confinement to the record below, when the petition in fact relies on material that was never before the court whose order is challenged, invites the sharpest kind of judicial scrutiny and can taint the credibility of the entire filing, not just the offending paragraph. **Annexing material outside the record below.** Order XXI and Order XXII both anchor the petition to what was actually argued and placed on record below. Smuggling in a document that post-dates the impugned order, or was available but never placed before the court below, is not a shortcut - it is a ground to question the entire petition. **Missing the limitation window without a credible delay affidavit.** Filing sixty or ninety days late without a specific, date-anchored explanation, or a delay application that recites only general hardship, invites dismissal of the delay application first and the SLP with it. **Treating the synopsis and list of dates as boilerplate.** Given how compressed the miscellaneous-day hearing is, a synopsis that fails to state the exact question of law in one or two sentences, or a list of dates with gaps, does real damage. The bench often forms its first impression from these two pages before counsel speaks. **Citing an authority that is no longer good law.** A petition that leans on a precedent later overruled or substantially distinguished undermines its own credibility the moment the bench or the respondent's counsel points it out. [Checking that an authority is still good law](/blog/good-law-checking) before it goes into the grounds is a basic filing discipline, not an optional extra. **Filing without impleading a necessary party, or impleading a stranger to the record.** Both errors draw Registry objections that delay listing and, if missed at scrutiny, can surface later as a ground to resist the petition on maintainability rather than merits. | Drafting choice | ✓ Correct approach | ✗ Common mistake | |---|---|---| | Framing the challenge | State a specific question of law or manifest error | Re-argue disputed facts already concluded below | | AOR certificate | Confirm every document annexed was genuinely part of the record below | Certify confinement to the record while annexing outside material | | Criminal SLP documentation | Attach the certified copy of the judgment or order under Order XXII Rule 3 | File without the certified copy and expect the Registry not to notice | | Limitation | File within 90 days (or 60 days after certificate refusal), or attach a specific delay affidavit | Assume a general assertion of hardship will excuse a late filing | | Parties | Array the actual parties from the proceeding below as respondents | Add a stranger to the record as a respondent without seeking impleadment | | Synopsis and list of dates | Draft them to carry the case on their own, since the hearing is brief | Treat them as a formality copied from the main petition | --- ## How AI-assisted research strengthens an SLP The Pritam Singh threshold - exceptional and special circumstances, substantial and grave injustice - is not a checklist; it is a standard the Court has applied and refined across thousands of admission-stage orders since 1950. Knowing how the Court has applied that standard to facts similar to yours, rather than reciting the formula in the abstract, is what separates a serious filing from a hopeful one. This is exactly the kind of question focused legal research answers well: which recent orders granted leave on a perverse concurrent finding, how the Court has treated an AOR's certification obligation under Order XXI Rule 3, or what distinguishes a dismissed SLP from one where notice issued on a comparable question of law. Reading digests case by case is slow, and a fabricated citation in an SLP - given how closely the Court now scrutinises certificates and annexures, as Saumya Chaurasia illustrates - is a serious professional risk. Our note on [AI hallucinated citations in India](/blog/ai-hallucinated-citations-india) explains why every citation in a filing this sensitive must be checked against a primary source before it goes on record. [Niyam](https://niyam.ai) is built to support that discipline. It searches across a large corpus of Indian judgments with every answer grounded in a real, citable source, so you can move from a general sense of the Pritam Singh standard to specific, verifiable authority that fits your facts. For related Supreme Court remedies that sometimes come up alongside or instead of an SLP, our guides to the [review petition](/blog/review-petition-supreme-court-guide), the [curative petition](/blog/curative-petition-india) and [how to file a caveat petition](/blog/how-to-file-caveat-petition) cover the adjoining ground without repeating it here. Once a petition is drafted, our note on [how to cite Indian judgments](/blog/how-to-cite-indian-judgments) is a useful check before filing. --- ## Frequently asked questions ### What is a special leave petition under Article 136? A special leave petition, or SLP, is an application asking the Supreme Court to exercise its discretionary power under Article 136 of the Constitution to grant leave to appeal against a judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order of any court or tribunal in India, other than those constituted under armed forces law. It is a petition, not an appeal, until the Court actually grants leave. ### How is an SLP different from a regular appeal? A regular statutory appeal is a right conferred by a specific law once conditions such as a certificate of fitness are met. An SLP is not a right; it is a discretionary remedy the Supreme Court may decline even where every procedural requirement is satisfied. The Supreme Court in Pritam Singh v. The State held it will generally grant special leave only where exceptional and special circumstances show substantial and grave injustice. ### Does an SLP become an appeal automatically? No. Under Kunhayammed v. State of Kerala, exercising jurisdiction under Article 136 involves two steps - granting leave, and hearing the appeal. The petition converts into a civil or criminal appeal only from the date leave is actually granted. Before that, the Court is exercising discretionary, not appellate, jurisdiction. ### What is the limitation period for filing an SLP? Order XXI Rule 1 for civil matters and Order XXII Rule 1 for criminal matters both give ninety days from the date of the judgment or order under challenge in the ordinary case, or sixty days from the date a certificate of fitness to appeal was refused by the court below, where such a certificate was sought. Order XXII Rule 1 adds a sixty-day period where the case involves a sentence of death. Time spent obtaining a certified copy of the order is excluded from this computation under the general provisions of the Limitation Act. ### What happens if an SLP is dismissed? A dismissal of an SLP, whether by a speaking or a non-speaking order, does not attract the doctrine of merger, as the Supreme Court held in Kunhayammed. The order under challenge remains the operative order at whatever level it was passed; the Supreme Court has simply declined to interfere, which is not the same as affirming the order on its merits. ### Who can file an SLP in the Supreme Court? Only an Advocate-on-Record can file and act in a matter before the Supreme Court. A litigant, however far from Delhi, engages an AOR who is responsible for drafting, filing and certifying the petition, including the certificate that the petition is confined to the pleadings and record before the court or tribunal whose order is under challenge. ### What must a civil SLP contain under the Supreme Court Rules? Order XXI of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 requires, among other things, that the petition be confined to the pleadings before the court or tribunal whose order is challenged, with only such documents from that record annexed as are necessary to make out the grounds urged. In settled practice this sits alongside a synopsis, a list of dates, a statement of facts, the questions of law, the grounds, a prayer clause and the Advocate-on-Record's certificate. ### What must a criminal SLP contain? Criminal SLPs are governed by Order XXII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013. Rule 3 of that Order requires the petition to be accompanied by a certified copy of the judgment or order appealed from, a stricter documentary condition than the civil track, given the liberty and sentencing consequences typically at stake. ### Can I file an SLP without impleading every party from the proceeding below? The respondents to an SLP are ordinarily the parties from the proceeding under challenge. Omitting a necessary party is a defect the Registry can raise at scrutiny, and it is better cured before the preliminary hearing than left to surface later as a maintainability objection from the other side. ### Can a stranger to the case be added as a respondent in an SLP? Not by the petitioner's unilateral choice. A person who was not a party to the proceeding below and wants to be heard should apply to be impleaded as an intervenor rather than being added directly as a respondent, since the petition is meant to track the record and parties of the case actually decided below. ### What is the AOR certificate and why does it matter? The Advocate-on-Record's certificate is the AOR's formal attestation, required as part of filing, that the petition and its annexures comply with the Rules, including confinement to the record below under Order XXI Rule 3. The Supreme Court in Saumya Chaurasia v. Directorate of Enforcement treated a certificate that inaccurately asserted this confinement as a serious matter, not a curable formality, when the petition in fact relied on material never placed before the court whose order was challenged. ### Is condonation of delay available for a late SLP? Yes. A petitioner who files beyond the ninety-day or sixty-day window can apply for condonation of delay under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, supported by an affidavit that accounts for every segment of the delay. The Court applies the same sufficient-cause standard used in other condonation matters, examined in detail in our guide to [condonation of delay](/blog/condonation-of-delay). ### What is a miscellaneous-day hearing? A miscellaneous day is a day in the Supreme Court's weekly calendar set aside for fresh matters, including SLPs at the admission stage, as opposed to final hearing of already-admitted appeals. The preliminary hearing on an SLP, where the Court decides whether to issue notice or dismiss the petition, is typically held on such a day and is necessarily brief given the volume of matters listed. ### Can the Supreme Court refuse to entertain an SLP even if the petitioner has a strong case on the facts? Yes. Because Article 136 confers a discretionary, not an appeal-as-of-right jurisdiction, the Court can decline to grant leave even where the underlying facts might otherwise support relief, particularly where the case does not meet the Pritam Singh threshold of exceptional circumstances and grave injustice, or where the Court considers the matter better resolved through another remedy. ### Does Article 136 apply to tribunal orders as well as court judgments? Yes. The text of Article 136(1) extends to "any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order" of "any court or tribunal in the territory of India", and the Supreme Court in Durga Shankar Mehta v. Thakur Raghuraj Singh held that this power overrides finality clauses in ordinary legislation. The only express exclusion under clause (2) is for courts or tribunals constituted under armed forces law. ### How does research help in deciding whether to file an SLP at all? Because the Pritam Singh threshold is applied case by case rather than through a fixed test, researching how the Court has treated comparable fact patterns - the same kind of perversity, the same category of jurisdictional error - is often the difference between a petition worth filing and one that will not survive the preliminary hearing. A citator-backed research tool such as [Niyam](https://niyam.ai) can surface that pattern from verified primary sources rather than a lawyer's memory of a handful of reported cases. --- ## Filing a special leave petition with confidence An SLP is simultaneously the widest and the narrowest remedy in Indian appellate practice - wide on the face of Article 136's text, narrow in the self-imposed restraint the Supreme Court has applied since Pritam Singh in 1950. Getting the filing right means treating both halves seriously: leave is discretionary and exceptional, and the mechanics of Order XXI or Order XXII, the AOR certificate, and the limitation window must be exactly right, because the Registry and the bench both scrutinise the mechanics before they reach the merits. Niyam is built for the research half of that work. It draws on a large, verified corpus of Indian judgments to help you find the precedent that actually matches your facts, confirm whether an authority remains good law, and build the questions of law and grounds that a petition needs to clear the threshold - with every citation traceable to a primary source rather than a plausible-sounding guess. [Start for ₹100](https://app.niyam.ai/register) and put a research assistant built for Indian law behind your next filing.