Article 142 — Doing Complete Justice

Article 142 of the Constitution of India is the textual source of the Supreme Court's extraordinary equitable authority. Clause (1) provides that the Court, in exercise of its jurisdiction, "may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it," and that such orders are enforceable throughout the territory of India in the manner prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament. Clause (2) supplements this by granting the Court power to secure the attendance of persons, the discovery of documents, and the investigation or punishment of contempt of itself. The provision was debated in the Constituent Assembly as a residuary instrument of justice, deliberately framed in open-ended language so the apex court would not be left powerless where existing statutes or precedents produced an inequitable result. It operates alongside Article 32 (writ jurisdiction), Article 136 (special leave), and Article 141 (binding precedent) as part of the constitutional architecture of the Supreme Court.

The procedural mechanics begin with the threshold requirement that a "cause or matter" be pending before the Court — Article 142 is not a free-standing source of original jurisdiction and cannot be invoked in the abstract. Once a matter is properly before the bench, whether by appeal, special leave, writ, or original suit, the Court may mould relief beyond what the parties have pleaded or what the governing statute strictly permits. In practice the power is exercised at the final stage of disposal, often to terminate protracted litigation, to dissolve a marriage on the ground of irretrievable breakdown not recognised by the Hindu Marriage Act, to award compensation, to regularise an irregular but equitable arrangement, or to issue directions that fill a legislative vacuum until Parliament acts. Orders under Article 142 are enforceable nationwide and require no separate executing decree.

A recurring variant is the use of Article 142 to issue guidelines that operate as interim law. Where a statutory gap exists, the Court has framed binding directions to govern conduct until the legislature intervenes — the most cited instance being the Vishaka guidelines on workplace sexual harassment (1997), which functioned as law for sixteen years until the 2013 Act. The Court has also deployed the power to commute sentences, to grant bail on equitable terms, to direct the closure or relocation of polluting industries, and to do justice between parties where rigid application of limitation, procedure, or contract would defeat substantive fairness. The boundary case of Supreme Court Bar Association v. Union of India (1998) clarified that Article 142 supplements existing law but cannot be used to override express statutory prohibitions or to ignore the substantive provisions of a statute dealing with the subject.

Contemporary invocations are numerous and politically salient. In Manoj Narula v. Union of India and in several electoral and governance matters the Court has shaped directions under this head. In the Ayodhya title dispute, M. Siddiq v. Mahant Suresh Das (2019), the five-judge bench expressly invoked Article 142 to direct the Union to allot five acres to the Sunni Waqf Board while decreeing the disputed site. In Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023), a Constitution Bench held that the Court may dissolve a marriage on the ground of irretrievable breakdown directly under Article 142, waiving the statutory cooling-off period under the Hindu Marriage Act. The power was also central to the disposal of the 2G spectrum and coal-block allocation cancellations, and to numerous environmental orders of the National Capital Region.

Article 142 must be distinguished from adjacent provisions. Article 136, the special leave to appeal, governs how a matter reaches the Court; Article 142 governs what relief the Court may grant once it is seized of that matter. Article 32 confers writ jurisdiction for enforcement of fundamental rights and is itself a fundamental right, whereas Article 142 is a power of the Court, not a citizen's entitlement. The inherent powers of the High Courts under Article 226 and of all civil courts under Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure are narrower and statute-bound, while Article 142 is constitutional and unique to the Supreme Court. It is also distinct from the curative-petition jurisdiction articulated in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra (2002), which addresses finality of judgments rather than the substance of relief.

The provision is the subject of sustained controversy over judicial overreach. Critics, including sitting Union ministers and members of Parliament, have argued that wide directions under Article 142 encroach on legislative and executive functions and that the phrase "complete justice" lacks justiciable limits. The 2023 prohibition order in the Tamil Nadu Governor reference and the 2025 ruling fixing timelines for gubernatorial and presidential assent to bills — said to have used Article 142 to deem bills assented — drew sharp objections that the Court was legislating. Defenders point to the Court's own self-imposed limits in Prem Chand Garg v. Excise Commissioner (1963) and the Bar Association case, which bar use of the power to contravene substantive statutory or fundamental-right provisions.

For the working practitioner — the civil services aspirant preparing GS Paper 2, the policy researcher, or the desk officer tracking centre-state friction — Article 142 is indispensable to understanding the balance between judicial activism and the separation of powers. It explains how the Supreme Court manufactures remedies in a constitutional system that lacks an explicit equity jurisdiction, why apex-court guidelines can bind the executive, and where the recurring tension between the judiciary and the political branches originates. Mastery of the named precedents and the doctrinal limits permits precise analysis of any case in which the Court does what no statute authorises yet justice appears to demand.