When all remedy at High Court gets exhausted then Petitions for special leave to appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution read with Orders XXI and XXII of the Rules can be filed before Supreme Court. Notwithstanding anything contained in Chapter IV of the Constitution, 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, except in relation to any court or tribunal constituted by or under any law relating to the armed forces. However, Article 136 does not confer a right of appeal on any party but it confers a discretionary power on the Supreme Court to interfere in suitable cases.
The jurisdiction conferred by Article 136 is divisible into two stages; first stage is upto the disposal of prayer for special leave to file an appeal and the second stage commences if and when the leave to appeal is granted and special leave petition is converted into an appeal.
Under Article 136, the Supreme Court may reverse, modify or affirm the judgment, decree or order appealed against while exercising its appellate jurisdiction and not while exercising the discretionary jurisdiction disposing of petition for special leave to appeal. The doctrine of merger, therefore, applies to the former and not to the latter. Once leave to appeal has been granted and appellate jurisdiction of Supreme Court has been invoked, the order passed in appeal would attract the doctrine of merger; the order may be of reversal, modification or merely affirmation.
On an appeal having been preferred or a petition seeking leave to appeal having been converted into an appeal before the Supreme Court, the jurisdiction of the High Court to entertain a review petition is lost thereafter, as provided by sub-rule (1) of Rule (1) of Order 47 of the Code.
The Special Leave Petition is filed under FORM 28 accompanied by following documents:
- a certified copy of the judgment or order appealed from; and an affidavit in support of the statement of facts contained in the petition.
- It is to be accompanied by list of dates in chronological order with relevant material facts or events pertaining to each of the dates.
- It is to be confined only to the pleadings before the Court whose order of judgement is challenged. Additional grounds may, however, be urged with due notice to the respondent and with leave of the Court.
- Copies of such petition or documents, which were part of the record in the case before the Court below, as may be necessary to answer the question of law arising for consideration in the petition or to make out the grounds urged in the petition, need to be produced as annexures to the petition.
- The documents filed as annexures needs to be arranged in chronological order and numbered as Annexure-1, Annexure-2, and Annexure-3 and so on and shall indicate page numbers also. They are required to be indexed separately.
- The petitioner may produce any document not part of the records in the Court below by making a separate application seeking leave of the Court to produce additional document stating the reasons for not producing it in the Court below and the necessity for its production in the Court.
- The English version of the relevant provisions of the Constitution, statutes, ordinances, rules, regulations, bye laws, orders, etc., referred to in the impugned judgment or order, shall be filed as appendix to the petition.
- Every petition shall be supported by the affidavit of the petitioners or one of the petitioners, as the case may be, or by any person authorized by the petitioner in which the deponent shall state that the facts stated in the petition are true and the statement of dates and facts furnished along with the petition are true to his knowledge and/or information and belief.
- No petition is entertained by the Registry unless it contains a statement as to whether the petitioner had filed any petition for special leave to appeal against the impugned judgment or order earlier and, if so, with what result, duly supported by an affidavit of the petitioner only.
- The petition must contain a statement as to whether the matter was contested in the Court appealed from and if so, the full name and address of all the contesting parties shall be given in the statement of facts in the petition.
- The SLP must contain a statement as to whether a letters patent appeal or writ appeal lies against the impugned judgment or order and whether the said remedy has been availed.
- No annexures to the petition is accepted unless they are certified copies of documents which have formed part of the record of the case in the Court appealed from.
