{"id":122903,"date":"2026-09-05T11:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T05:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=122903"},"modified":"2026-09-05T11:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T05:31:11","slug":"article-142-in-focus-supreme-courts-extraordinary-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/article-142-in-focus-supreme-courts-extraordinary-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Article 142 in Focus: The CJP Case and the Supreme Court&#8217;s Extraordinary Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Article 142 Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Supreme Court recently used its special powers under <\/span><b>Article 142<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Constitution to quash FIRs filed against participants in nationwide exam protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This decision has renewed debate over a provision that gives the Court unusually wide powers \u2014 one that legal scholars have argued about since the Constitution was adopted.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>What Happened in the CJP Case?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A bench led by CJI Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, closed cases linked to the July protests over the NEET-UG 2026 exam leak.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Centre told the Court it had &#8220;consciously decided&#8221; not to pursue these cases, and the Court also ordered compensation \u2014 within three months \u2014 for families of students who died by suicide over the leak.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nearly all FIRs from the protests were quashed, except those involving about 2,873 individuals with &#8220;serious and grave criminal antecedents.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As part of the same hearing, CJP was asked to publicly commit to calling off a protest march planned for September 5.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In effect, the Court became the platform through which the government fulfilled a demand CJP had made back in July.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>About Article 142<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Article 142 allows the Supreme Court to pass any order necessary for &#8220;<\/span><b>doing complete justice<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8221; in a case before it.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unusually for a constitutional provision, it does <\/span><b>not define<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> what &#8220;complete justice&#8221; means, or lay down when it can be used \u2014 leaving this entirely to the Court&#8217;s discretion.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its roots go back to <\/span><b>Section 210 of <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/government-of-india-act-1935\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Government of India Act, 1935<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and further still, to the colonial-era practice of deciding cases based on &#8220;justice, equity and good conscience&#8221; when no written law applied.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It appeared in the Draft Constitution as Article 118 and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on <\/span><b>May 27, 1949 \u2014 without any real debate<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Essentially, its true scope was left for the Court to shape over the following decades, case by case.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>How Has the Court Used This Power Before?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because it is so open-ended, Article 142 has become one of the Supreme Court&#8217;s most frequently used tools. Some notable examples:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/bhopal-gas-tragedy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1989)<\/a>:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Used to secure a <\/span><b>$470 million settlement<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from Union Carbide, and to quash criminal cases against the company.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Ayodhya Title Dispute:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Applied to resolve the case on &#8220;preponderance of probability,&#8221; awarding five acres of land to the Muslim side.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>A G Perarivalan&#8217;s release (2022):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Ordered release of a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Court has also used it to grant divorces where a marriage has &#8220;irretrievably broken down,&#8221; and in various public interest cases<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An empirical study by <\/span><b>IIM Ahmedabad researchers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, examining all cases from 1950 to 2023 referencing &#8220;Article 142&#8221; or &#8220;complete justice,&#8221; found <\/span><b>1,579 references and 791 direct invocations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 mostly in civil matters.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Has the Court Tried to Limit Its Own Power?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Supreme Court is often called one of the most powerful constitutional courts in the world, largely because of how it uses Article 142.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This power becomes even more significant in a &#8220;polyvocal&#8221; court, where <\/span><b>38 judges<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> typically sit in small benches of two.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A &#8220;polyvocal&#8221; court is a supreme court that speaks through multiple small, independent benches rather than a single unified voice, leading to different or overlapping interpretations of the law.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The term is most famously used to describe the Supreme Court of India.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Court has occasionally tried to set boundaries on itself:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Prem Chand Garg v State of Uttar Pradesh (1962):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Held that Article 142 orders must still respect fundamental rights and existing law.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Supreme Court Bar Association v Union of India (1998):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Held that Article 142 can <\/span><b>fill gaps<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> left by a statute, but cannot <\/span><b>override<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> an existing statutory scheme.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the Court has often departed from its own cautionary rulings.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Why Does the CJP Order Raise Concerns?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Normally, an FIR is examined individually \u2014 under <\/span><b>Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 to check whether an offence is genuinely made out, or whether the case is clearly malicious.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the CJP order, however, thousands of FIRs from multiple states were grouped together and quashed <\/span><b>without individual scrutiny<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as part of a negotiated deal between the government and a protest group.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Legal scholars argued that criminal law provisions cannot be overridden through such a blanket judicial decree \u2014 since this bypasses the normal legal process, rather than simply filling a gap in it.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>A Recurring Source of Controversy<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This isn&#8217;t the first time Article 142 has drawn sharp criticism:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the Court last year used the same provision to treat long-pending <\/span><b>Tamil Nadu Bills<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as automatically assented to, the then Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar described it as a <\/span><b>&#8220;nuclear missile&#8221;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> against democratic institutions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Former Attorney General K K Venugopal wrote in 2017 that while the provision had done &#8220;tremendous good&#8221; for disadvantaged sections, it needed proper checks and balances.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the <\/span><b>Sabarimala judgment<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, he went further, calling Article 142 a <\/span><b>&#8220;Kamdhenu <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">from which unlimited powers flowed<\/span><b>&#8220;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (referring to the mythical wish-granting cow).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He suggested that only <\/span><b>five-judge Constitution Benches<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> should be allowed to invoke it \u2014 to prevent its use resting on the interpretation of a single small bench<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Article 142 remains one of the Supreme Court&#8217;s most powerful yet controversial tools \u2014 enabling it to deliver justice beyond the limits of ordinary law, but also raising concerns about judicial overreach when used to bypass established legal procedures.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The CJP case highlights this tension sharply, reviving long-standing calls for clearer limits on how and when this extraordinary power should be exercised.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-law\/cjp-cases-supreme-court-article-142-explained-10861850\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/what-is-article-142-that-the-supreme-court-used-to-quash-firs-against-neet-protesters-explained\/article71418671.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article 142 Supreme Court powers allow it to deliver complete justice, but the CJP case raises concerns over judicial overreach and limits on extraordinary powers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":105301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[179,60,22,59],"class_list":["post-122903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","tag-article-142","tag-mains-articles","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-mains-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122903"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122940,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122903\/revisions\/122940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}