Criminal Special Leave Petitions (SLPs) – Supreme Court of India

A criminal SLP is a Special Leave Petition (Criminal) filed in the Supreme Court of India under Article 136 of the Constitution. It asks the Apex Court for leave to appeal against a judgment, sentence, or final/interim order of a High Court — or, in a proper case, of any other court or tribunal in India.

It is not an appeal as of right. Leave is discretionary. Most criminal SLPs are dismissed at the threshold stage. The few that are admitted are subsequently numbered as regular criminal appeals. Until leave is granted, there is no appeal pending in the ordinary statutory sense — only a petition invoking the Supreme Court’s extraordinary constitutional jurisdiction.

That distinction matters immensely for bail, limitation, and what the Court will actually entertain. At The Chambers of Tarun Gaur, Advocates, criminal SLPs are the last-court step after the Delhi High Court (or another High Court) has decided an appeal, revision, bail application, quashing petition, or writ. When relief is refused at the High Court stage, engaging an authoritative Bail Lawyer in Delhi is crucial to determine whether the order suffers from perversity justifying special leave. Advocate Tarun Gaur appears independently before the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India, after formative professional training under Mr. Mohit Mathur, Senior Advocate (former President of the Delhi High Court Bar Association) and securing All India Rank 1 in AILET LL.M. from National Law University (NLU) Delhi.

Article 136 empowers the Supreme Court to grant special leave to appeal from any judgment, decree, determination, sentence, or order in any cause or matter passed by any court or tribunal in India. The Court has settled, over decades of constitutional jurisprudence, that this jurisdiction is:

• ✔ Extraordinary and Residuary: Reserved for exceptional situations where substantial injustice has occurred.
• ✔ Correcting Grave Injustice or Settling Law: Meant to cure a grave miscarriage of justice or to settle a substantial question of law of general public importance.
• ✔ Not a Routine Second Appellate Look: Not a mechanism to re-hear every High Court bail order, re-appreciate findings of fact, or re-weigh sentences that the petitioner dislikes.

A criminal SLP is therefore fundamentally unlike a first appeal from a Magistrate to Sessions, or from Sessions to the High Court under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) or the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS). Those statutory appeals exist as a matter of legal right. An SLP exists because the Constitution confers plenary discretion upon the Supreme Court to choose whether to hear the case.

A critical procedural rule: Do not file an SLP when a statutory or constitutional criminal appeal already lies. File the appeal.

Article 134 of the Constitution grants an appeal as of right to the Supreme Court from a High Court criminal judgment if the High Court:

• (a) On appeal, reversed an order of acquittal and sentenced the accused to death; or
• (b) Withdrew a case from a subordinate court, tried it, convicted, and sentenced the accused to death; or
• (c) Certifies under Article 134A that the case is fit for appeal to the Supreme Court.

Furthermore, The Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction) Act, 1970, read with Section 379 CrPC / Section 420 BNSS, enlarges that right: where the High Court, on appeal, reverses an acquittal and convicts the accused with a sentence of death, life imprisonment, or imprisonment of 10 years or more, an appeal lies to the Supreme Court as of right.

The Supreme Court has consistently held that SLPs filed in such matters must be converted into regular criminal appeals. Filing only an SLP when Section 379 / Section 420 already gives an appeal is a drafting defect, not a legal strategy. Similarly, Section 415(1) BNSS / Section 374(1) CrPC sends directly to the Supreme Court any conviction recorded by the High Court in its extraordinary original criminal jurisdiction.

If none of these statutory doors is open, the only constitutional path is Article 136.

Note on Precedential Value: Dismissal of an SLP in limine (without leave, often without a detailed judgment) does not declare binding law under Article 141. Only a reasoned judgment upon grant of leave and conversion into a reported appeal creates binding law.

Securing leave requires demonstrating that the petition goes beyond ordinary dissatisfaction with an adverse order:

Notice versus Leave: The Supreme Court may issue notice, grant interim bail or an interim stay, and decide leave at a subsequent stage. Issuance of notice is not equivalent to grant of leave. Until leave is granted, the High Court order continues in full force unless explicitly stayed.

Drafting and settling a Criminal SLP requires strict compliance with the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 and precision advocacy:

• ✔ Impugned Order: Certified copy of the High Court judgment or order. Exemption applications are filed when urgent listing is sought, but certified copies must be pursued diligently.
• ✔ Petition Structure: Drafted strictly in the prescribed Supreme Court form for SLP (Crl.), containing a chronological List of Dates and Events, clearly framed Questions of Law, and concise Grounds.
• ✔ Selective Annexures: The FIR, charge-sheet (if relevant), trial court judgment, High Court order, and documents directly supporting the substantial questions of law. A bulky paperbook that unselectively reprints the entire trial record weakens the petition.
• ✔ Limitation (90 Days): Ordinarily 90 days from the date of the High Court order under Supreme Court Rules. Any delay requires a detailed application for Condonation of Delay setting out day-to-day justification.
• ✔ Interim Relief Application: A separate prayer for interim relief — such as interim bail, stay of arrest, stay of sentence, or stay of High Court directions — supported by custody calculations, sentence term, and demonstrable legal defects.
• ✔ Registry Office Report: The Registry scrutinizes petitions for defects, limitation, and court fees. Uncured defects delay listing, which can prove fatal in urgent bail matters.
• ✔ Advocate-on-Record (AoR) Practice: An SLP is governed by strict Supreme Court AoR rules. Filing, service upon the State, and mentioning for urgent listing follow specialized Apex Court conventions.

A common misconception is that filing an SLP stays proceedings. Filing an SLP does not automatically suspend the High Court order:

• ✔ When Bail Is Dismissed by High Court: Custody continues unabated unless the Supreme Court explicitly grants interim bail or protection from arrest.
• ✔ When Conviction Is Affirmed or Special Act Bail Denied: The sentence continues to run unless stayed. Suspension of sentence in the Supreme Court follows the foundational principles of Section 430 BNSS / Section 389 CrPC: short fixed-term sentences with lengthy appeal pendency lean towards suspension; whereas challenging the denial of Bail in NDPS Case (involving commercial quantity under Section 37) requires establishing patent statutory non-compliance or prolonged incarceration under Article 21.
• ✔ State Challenges to Bail: If the High Court has granted bail, the State’s SLP does not automatically cancel it. The Supreme Court interferes with the grant of bail only on settled, narrow grounds (perversity, consideration of irrelevant factors, or tampering with justice).
• ✔ Immediate Filing of Interim Relief: Applications for interim relief must be filed concurrently with the SLP, rather than weeks later when surrender or arrest is imminent.

A complainant who has already exhausted a victim’s appeal under the BNSS / CrPC in the High Court does not get an automatic second statutory appeal in the Supreme Court. Article 136 remains entirely discretionary.

Understanding the post-SLP hierarchy is essential for finality:

• ✔ Review Petition (Article 137): If the Supreme Court decides a criminal appeal (or dismisses an SLP with a reasoned order treated as final), review lies under Article 137 on narrow grounds — an error apparent on the face of the record, not a rehearing on merits.
• ✔ Curative Petition: Rarer still, established under Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra (2002). A curative petition addresses fundamental defects such as violation of natural justice or judicial bias, after a review petition has been dismissed. It is not a third SLP against the High Court.
• ✔ High Court Review Bar: The High Court cannot review its own criminal judgment on merits because of the statutory bar under Section 403 BNSS / Section 362 CrPC. The next court of recourse is the Supreme Court, via SLP or statutory appeal — not an impermissible recall application styled as review.

An SLP is won or lost on the framing of the question of law and on drafting restraint. A petition that merely reprints every grievance from the trial court does not secure leave. The petition that isolates the High Court’s legal error, the custody arithmetic, and the binding Supreme Court precedents that the High Court missed, commands attention.

Advocate Tarun Gaur prepares and settles criminal SLPs arising from Delhi High Court orders across:

• ✔ Anticipatory, Regular & Interim Bail rejections
• ✔ FIR Quashing orders under Section 528 BNSS / Section 482 CrPC
• ✔ Discharge Dismissals under CrPC and BNSS
• ✔ Appeals against conviction and suspension of sentence
• ✔ Criminal revisions, Section 138 NI Act, and Criminal Writs
• ✔ Convict release, Parole & Furlough under Delhi Prison Rules
• ✔ Special statute litigation: NDPS Cases, POCSO Cases, and Money Laundering (PMLA)

That last-court discipline is the same High Court and Supreme Court criminal method learned under Mohit Mathur, Senior Advocate. Advocate Tarun Gaur holds All India Rank 1 in AILET LL.M. (NLU Delhi). Clients seeking an accomplished Criminal Lawyer in Delhi, appellate counsel before the Delhi High Court, or specialized defense representation for Supreme Court SLP proceedings need a candid, objective assessment: is this a fit case for an SLP, a statutory Supreme Court appeal, or a matter that should stop at the High Court?