Review and Curative Petition Jurisdiction of Supreme Court

A review curative petition is a request asking the Supreme Court of India to look again at a judgment or order it has already given — an exception to the general principle that a final decision of the highest court should not be reopened. The Constitution provides for this through Article 137, and the Supreme Court has, in addition, developed a further, more restricted remedy for exceptional cases even after a review has failed.

What Article 137 Provides

Article 137 states that, subject to the provisions of any law made by Parliament or any rules made under Article 145, the Supreme Court shall have power to review any judgment pronounced or order made by it. This is a deliberately narrow grant of power. It does not open every final decision of the Court to unlimited reconsideration; instead, it is exercised subject to whatever procedural rules the Court frames for itself, or any law Parliament chooses to make on the subject.

The underlying idea is that even the Supreme Court, as the final court of appeal, should have a mechanism to correct an error apparent on the face of its own record, rather than requiring every mistake to stand simply because no higher court exists to correct it. At the same time, because finality of judgments is itself an important value in the legal system, the review power is meant to be used sparingly and is not equivalent to a fresh appeal.

Why Review Jurisdiction Matters

A constitutional court's authority ultimately rests on its judgments being treated as final. Article 137 balances that need for finality against the possibility that even the Supreme Court can make a mistake — whether an obvious error in the judgment itself or the discovery of some fact that was not available earlier. By channelling this correction through the Court's own rules under Article 145, rather than leaving it open-ended, the Constitution keeps review petitions from becoming a routine second round of litigation.

This provision also reflects a wider constitutional theme visible in the 44th Amendment Act, 1978, which restored several safeguards diluted during the Emergency period, including the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and High Courts for judicial review that had been curtailed. While the 44th Amendment's judicial-review restoration was a distinct constitutional change concerning the courts' power to examine laws and executive action generally, it underscores the same broader principle Article 137 reflects: that access to correction and reconsideration by the higher judiciary is treated as a value worth constitutionally protecting.

Beyond Review: The Curative Petition

Because a review petition itself becomes final once decided, the Supreme Court has recognised, through its own judicial practice, a further and even narrower safeguard — commonly known as a curative petition — that a party may resort to only after a review petition has already been rejected. It is meant for truly exceptional situations, where allowing the Court's earlier order to stand unexamined would amount to a gross miscarriage of justice or an abuse of the Court's process. Unlike Article 137, which is an express constitutional provision, the curative petition is a judicially evolved remedy, and it is treated as available only in the rarest of cases, since reopening a matter that has already survived a review would otherwise undermine the very finality the review process is meant to secure.

Review vs Curative Petition

Aspect	Review Petition	Curative Petition
Constitutional basis	Article 137, read with rules under Article 145	Evolved by the Supreme Court itself, not a distinct constitutional article
When filed	Against a Supreme Court judgment or order, before it is treated as fully final	Only after a review petition has already been dismissed
Threshold	Error apparent on the record or similar limited grounds	Reserved for the rarest of cases involving gross miscarriage of justice or abuse of process

UPSC Relevance

Prelims

• Article 137 gives the Supreme Court power to review its own judgments, subject to Parliament's law or rules made under Article 145.
• A curative petition can be filed only after a review petition has been rejected, and is not itself named in a specific constitutional article.

Mains

• Discuss the constitutional rationale for allowing the Supreme Court to review its own final judgments under Article 137, and how this is reconciled with the value of finality in adjudication.
• Examine why the Supreme Court evolved the curative petition as a remedy distinct from, and subsequent to, the review jurisdiction under Article 137.

FAQ

Q1. What does Article 137 of the Constitution provide? It gives the Supreme Court the power to review any judgment it has pronounced or order it has made, subject to any law made by Parliament or rules made under Article 145.

Q2. Can a review petition be filed against any Supreme Court decision? A review petition is meant to correct only limited categories of error, such as an error apparent on the face of the record, rather than serving as a fresh appeal on the merits.

Q3. Is a curative petition mentioned in the Constitution's text? No. It is a remedy the Supreme Court has developed through its own judicial practice, available only after a review petition has already failed.

Q4. When can a curative petition be used? Only in the rarest of cases, where letting the earlier decision stand would result in a gross miscarriage of justice or an abuse of the Court's process.

Q5. Under which article does the Supreme Court frame the rules governing review petitions? Under Article 145, which empowers the Court to make rules of court, subject to which its Article 137 review power operates.

Quick Revision

• Article 137 — Supreme Court's power to review its own judgments or orders.
• Exercised subject to Parliament's law or Article 145 rules of court.
• Curative petition — a further, judicially evolved remedy, usable only after a review petition is dismissed.
• Curative petitions are reserved for the rarest of cases involving gross miscarriage of justice or abuse of process.
• The 44th Amendment Act, 1978 restored judicial review powers of the Supreme Court and High Courts that had been curtailed earlier.

Sources

• The Constitution of India, Article 137 — https://www.indiacode.nic.in/constitution

Further Reference

For deeper reading on this topic and the wider polity syllabus, these standard works are recommended:

• M. Laxmikanth, Indian Polity (McGraw Hill) — the standard UPSC handbook.
• D.D. Basu, Introduction to the Constitution of India (LexisNexis) — authoritative constitutional-law treatment.
• The Constitution of India — Bare Act