Open Access Research Article
RETHINKING FINALITY: THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA'S REVIEW JURISDICTION IN PRACTICE, JANUARY 2024 – DECEMBER 2025
Abstract
Article 137 of the Constitution of
India, read with Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 and Order
XLVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, confers upon the Supreme
Court a power of review that sits in tension with the equally fundamental
principle of finality of judgments. This paper examines that tension
empirically through a dataset of ten review petitions decided by the Supreme
Court between January 2024 and December 2025, spanning service law,
environmental regulation, child custody, medical education, contract and
property law, taxation, constitutional adjudication, land law, succession, and
armed forces service conditions. Of the ten petitions studied, eight resulted
in the recall or modification of the original judgment, one was rejected, and
one produced an internally inconsistent record in which a subsequent order
appears to have granted a review that an earlier order had refused. The paper
argues that while the formal test for review, an error apparent on the face of
the record, remains narrow in articulation, the cases studied reveal a
functionally broader practice in which misapplication of binding precedent,
post-decisional facts, and jurisdictional overreach are all treated as
sufficient to reopen a final judgment. The paper concludes with observations on
what this practice suggests about the doctrine of finality in Indian
constitutional adjudication.
Published Paper
Author Details
Authors: PRIYA SINGHRegistration ID: 1013371 | Published Paper ID: IJLRA13371Year: Oct-2026 | Volume: 3 | Issue: 7Approved ISSN: 2582-6433 | Country: Delhi, IndiaPage No.: 1213- 1226
Article Information
RETHINKING FINALITY: THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA'S REVIEW JURISDICTION IN PRACTICE, JANUARY 2024 – DECEMBER 2025
Authors: PRIYA SINGH
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Volume 3
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- AbbreviationIJLRA
- ISSN2582-6433
- AccessOpen Access
- LicenseCC 4.0
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