Special Leave Petition: What It Is, Which Orders It Can Challenge, Who Files It, and What It Must Contain

A Special Leave Petition is a petition requesting the Supreme Court of India to grant special leave to appeal against 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. It is not an ordinary appeal of right; it invokes the extraordinary, discretionary jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 136 of the Constitution of India.

What Is a Special Leave Petition?

Under Article 136(1) of the Constitution of India, 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.¹

The key legal character of this jurisdiction is its discretionary nature. As established by the constitutional text, parties do not possess an inherent right of appeal to the Supreme Court merely because a legal error occurred below. Instead, the petitioner must first persuade the Court that the cause involves a substantial question of law, a gross miscarriage of justice, or circumstances sufficiently exceptional to warrant the exercise of the Court's discretionary power.

Article 136(2) explicitly excludes judgments, decrees, determinations, sentences, or orders passed or made by any court or tribunal constituted by or under any law relating to the Armed Forces.¹

Which Orders Can a Special Leave Petition Challenge?

A Special Leave Petition can be filed against any judgment, decree, determination, sentence, or order passed or made by any court or tribunal in the territory of India. This includes High Courts, lower civil and criminal courts, industrial tribunals, tax tribunals, and central or state administrative tribunals.

Where is it not available? It cannot be filed against orders of courts or tribunals constituted by or under any law relating to the Armed Forces (Article 136(2)).¹ Whether special leave should be granted in a given case is for the Court to decide when the petition comes up for admission; the Registry's scrutiny before that stage is a check of procedural conformity, not of merits.⁸

Who Files a Special Leave Petition?

The filing of a petition in the Supreme Court is governed by the Supreme Court Rules, 2013. An Advocate-on-Record is the advocate "entitled under these rules to act as well as to plead for a party in the Court" (Order I Rule 2(1)(b)),² and under Order IV Rule 1(b), "no advocate other than the Advocate-on-Record for a party shall appear, plead and address the Court in a matter unless he is instructed by the Advocate-on-Record or permitted by the Court".³

The Advocate-on-Record: The petition is filed through an Advocate-on-Record, who files the vakalatnama and the memorandum of appearance for the party and assumes professional responsibility for the filing, including compliance with the published requirements of the Supreme Court Registry.³⁶

Parties in person: Order IV Rule 1(c) provides for a party who wishes to appear and argue in person. Such a party must file, along with the petition, an application seeking permission to appear and argue in person, stating the reasons why they cannot engage an advocate; the application is considered after an interaction with the Registrar concerned (from which an advocate enrolled with a State Bar Council is exempt), and only if the Court allows the application may the party appear and argue in person.⁴

What Must a Special Leave Petition Contain?

The structure, formatting, and arrangement of a Special Leave Petition are governed by Order XXI (civil) and Order XXII (criminal) of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, Form No. 28 appended to the Rules, and the Handbook on Practice and Procedure and Office Procedure.⁵⁶

Order XXI Rule 3(1)(a) requires the petition to be in Form No. 28; interim relief, if any, is prayed for in the petition itself, with no separate application.⁵ The petition must be verified by an affidavit of the petitioner or a person authorised by them (Rule 3(1)(e)), and must be accompanied by a certified copy of the judgment or order appealed from and an affidavit in support of the facts stated (Rule 4).⁵ Annexures are certified copies of documents from the record of the court below, or true copies affirmed as such by affidavit (Rule 5).⁵

Rule 3(1)(f) fixes the order in which the papers are arranged:⁵

1. The list of dates, in chronological order, with the relevant material facts or events against each date (Rule 3(1)(b)).
2. The certified copy of the judgment and order against which leave to appeal is sought.
3. The Special Leave Petition in Form No. 28 — the cause title, the questions of law, the grounds, and the prayer, with the declarations the Rules require: that no other petition seeking leave to appeal has been filed against the same judgment (Rule 3(2)), whether the matter was contested in the court below, and whether a letters patent appeal or writ appeal lay against the order and was availed of (Rules 3(3)–(5)).
4. The appendix: the English version of the relevant provisions of the Constitution, statutes, rules or orders referred to in the impugned judgment.
5. The annexures, each indexed separately and with page numbers (Rule 3(1)(d)).

Beside these, the filing set carries the affidavit verifying the petition, the vakalatnama executed by the party in favour of the Advocate-on-Record, the listing proforma that the Registry's check list requires, and the court fee, and is filed with the spare sets the Rules prescribe (Rule 6).⁵⁶

The Time Limit for Filing

Order XXI Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 provides that where a certificate of fitness to appeal was refused by the High Court, a petition for special leave shall 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; sections 4, 5, 12 and 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 apply to the computation.⁷ Order XXII Rule 1 states the periods for a petition in criminal proceedings: sixty days from the date of the order refusing leave to appeal, sixty days in a case involving a sentence of death, and ninety days in any other case.⁹ A petition filed after the period must be accompanied by an application for condonation of delay stating sufficient cause. A separate article in this series covers the time limit, condonation and the Registry's limitation report.

Civil Versus Criminal Special Leave Petitions

The procedural requirements differ depending on whether the subject matter is civil or criminal, as outlined in the Supreme Court Rules, 2013.

What Happens Next?

Once a petition is compiled and submitted, it enters the Registry's scrutiny. The Registry examines whether the filing conforms with the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, the Handbook, and the current circulars. If defects are found, they are notified, and the Rules allow a period for removing them before the petition is registered and listed.

For what happens after submission — Registry scrutiny, defects, the cure cycle, registration and listing — read the companion guide: What happens after a Special Leave Petition is filed in the Supreme Court?. The second guide sets out what the Registry checks, and the third is the Supreme Court Special Leave Petition filing checklist.

Where Nyave Fits

Nyave is India's first deterministic pre-filing verification platform built for Supreme Court Special Leave Petitions. It operates as a pre-filing check for completed petition sets.

Upload the complete petition set as a single PDF.

Detection runs on a deterministic rule engine built on a 106-rule* knowledge layer drawn from the Supreme Court Rules 2013, the Supreme Court Handbook 2025, and 13* Registry circulars.

Nyave reports what the Registry is likely to flag before submission, citing the exact rule and page for each finding.

Nyave does not draft petitions, advise on legal merits, or replace the Advocate-on-Record or the Registry. A reader with a completed petition set can sign up and run it through Nyave.

See a real report: one real filing, 279 pages, checked by Nyave →