SLP in a Service Matter: 90 Days, Certified Copy and Condonation

Where the 90 days come from

A special leave petition is a request to the Supreme Court under Article 136 of the Constitution to allow an appeal against a judgment it is not otherwise bound to hear. The time limit, which most people simply call the SLP 90 days rule, is in Order XXI of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013: 90 days from the date of the judgment or order you want to challenge. Where a party first asked the High Court for a certificate of fitness to appeal and the High Court refused, the SLP must be filed within 60 days of that refusal. In service cases that certificate route is rarely used, so the 90 days is the figure most people deal with.

In a central government service matter, the judgment you challenge in the Supreme Court is almost always a High Court judgment. The Supreme Court held in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) that orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal are first tested by a writ before a Division Bench of the High Court that has jurisdiction over the bench. So the usual chain is: departmental remedy, Original Application before the tribunal, writ petition in the High Court, and only then an SLP. If you have a tribunal order in hand and want to go higher, our guide on a writ petition against a tribunal order covers that earlier step.

The 90 days apply whichever side lost in the High Court. An employee whose writ was dismissed has 90 days. A ministry whose writ against the employee's tribunal win was dismissed also has 90 days. In practice, departments often cross that line and then ask for condonation, which is why a later section of this guide deals with answering a late SLP filed against you. Our page on SLPs against High Court service judgments explains the wider Supreme Court process.

Think of the SLP limitation in a service matter as a fixed fence, not a guideline. The Supreme Court can condone delay, but it is not obliged to, and in recent years it has been firmer about long, poorly explained delay, including delay by the government.

Counting the days: what is excluded and what is not

Section 12 of the Limitation Act, 1963 sets the rules for leaving out certain days, and the Supreme Court registry applies the same logic when it checks whether a petition is within Supreme Court limitation. The day the judgment was pronounced is not counted. The time needed to obtain a certified copy of the judgment is also excluded. Everything else counts, including holidays that fall in the middle of the period.

The phrase that trips people is time requisite for obtaining a copy. It means the period from the date you applied for the certified copy to the date the copy was ready for delivery. If the judgment was delivered on 5 March and you applied for the copy on 25 March, the 20 days in between are counted against you. If the copy was ready on 10 April, only 25 March to 10 April is left out. Collecting the copy a week later from the copying section does not give you that extra week.

Section 4 of the Limitation Act helps when the last day falls on a day the Supreme Court registry is closed: you may file on the day it reopens. Do not plan around this. Registry calendars, partial working days during the summer break and e-filing outages can all create confusion, and a petition filed on the very last day leaves no room for a scanning error or a rejected upload.

One more point from experience. People often count from the date the judgment was uploaded on the High Court website, or from the date their lawyer told them about it. Neither is the legal starting point. The date printed on the judgment is what the registry will use.

Dates that decide your SLP limitation

Certified copy SLP rules: can you file before the copy arrives?

The Supreme Court Rules require a petition to be accompanied by a certified copy of the judgment challenged. Copying sections in some High Courts take weeks, so the Rules allow an application for exemption from filing the certified copy. That application is decided by the Court along with the SLP, not as a formality at the counter.

In Harsh Bhuwalka v. Sanjay Kumar Bajoria (2024), a bench of the Supreme Court refused to hear an SLP on merits because the petitioners had not actually applied for a certified copy until after filing, years after the High Court order. The Court asked for substantial compliance with the Rules and said that an exemption application should attach the receipt for the copy application, state why exemption is sought, confirm that the copy application has not lapsed for want of stamps or requisites, and promise to file the certified copy once it is supplied.

For a service litigant, the lesson is simple. Apply for the certified copy within days of the judgment, even if you have not yet decided whether to go to the Supreme Court. It costs little. Without that receipt, the exclusion under Section 12 does not arise and the exemption application looks weak.

Check whether the copy application needs further stamps or folios once the copying section works out the number of pages. In several High Courts an application lapses if the requisite fee is not deposited within the notified time. A lapsed application gives you nothing to exclude.

From the High Court judgment to a filed SLP: a working order

This sequence assumes the judgment went against you and you are inside the 90 days.

1. Week 1: get the judgment and apply for the certified copy

   Download the judgment from the High Court website and apply for a certified copy, online or at the copying section. Keep the receipt and note the application number. If the High Court lawyer is applying for you, ask for a photo of the receipt the same day.

2. Week 1 to 2: gather the full record

   Collect the tribunal's order, the Original Application with annexures, the department's reply, your rejoinder, the writ petition, counter affidavits and all interim orders in the High Court. The Supreme Court will see the High Court's judgment through these papers.

3. Week 2 to 3: find an Advocate-on-Record and share the papers

   Only an Advocate-on-Record can file in the Supreme Court. Your service lawyer will usually brief one. Send the record in a single organised folder with an index, not as fifty WhatsApp images.

4. Week 3 to 6: settle the questions of law and the list of dates

   An SLP must show why the Supreme Court should step in: a question of law of general importance, a clear error that causes injustice, or a conflict with its own rulings. The list of dates and synopsis come first in the paper book and decide how the bench reads everything after it.

5. Week 6 to 10: draft, verify and file

   The petition, the affidavit, the exemption application if the certified copy is awaited, and any interim application are finalised and e-filed. A diary number is generated. The registry then checks the petition for defects.

6. After filing: cure defects quickly and track listing

   Defects notified by the registry must be cured within the time it allows. Late re-filing has led to dismissals in some cases, so treat the defect notice as urgent. Once registered, the matter is listed for admission.

If you are already past the 90 days, the same steps apply, with one addition: an application for condonation of delay supported by an affidavit and documents explaining the gap.

Delay in SLP: what the Supreme Court looks for before condoning it

Section 5 of the Limitation Act lets a court admit a late appeal or application if the applicant shows sufficient cause for not filing in time. The Supreme Court applies the same idea to late SLPs. There is no fixed number of days that is acceptable. A delay of 40 days with no explanation can fail; a delay of 200 days with a documented hospital stay may be condoned.

The older view, from Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag v. Mst. Katiji (1987), favoured a liberal approach so that cases are decided on merits rather than thrown out on technicalities. Later decisions have tightened this. In Office of the Chief Post Master General v. Living Media India Ltd. (2012), the Court said that government departments cannot expect special treatment on delay simply because files move slowly. In Pathapati Subba Reddy v. Special Deputy Collector (2024), the Court said the law of limitation must be applied as written, and that a liberal approach cannot override a lack of bona fides or gross negligence.

For an employee, sufficient cause usually means something outside your control that stopped you from filing: serious illness, a death in the family, the High Court copying section not issuing the copy, an advocate who kept the file and did nothing despite your follow-up, or genuine inability to arrange money for the Supreme Court in time. Each must be backed by paper: discharge summaries, death certificates, copies of letters and messages to the advocate, bank records where poverty is pleaded.

The application must account for the whole period of delay in a believable way. Courts do not usually demand an explanation for each single day, but a gap of three months described in one vague line will not hold. Write it the way you would explain it to a strict but fair officer: date, event, what you did next.

Explanations that carry weight, and ones that rarely do

• Usually considered. Medical treatment of the petitioner or a dependant, with records covering the dates; death in the family; the copying section's delay shown by its own endorsement; an advocate's failure to file despite instructions, supported by messages or letters.
• Considered with care. Financial hardship of a retired Group C or D employee or a widow, with bank and pension records; distance and lack of knowledge where the petitioner lives far from Delhi and had no legal support, explained honestly.
• Rarely accepted. Waiting to see whether the department would settle the matter after the High Court judgment; sending fresh representations to the ministry; a vague statement that papers were being collected.
• Often counter-productive. A delay application that gives inconsistent dates, blames the court without proof, or copies a template paragraph used in many other cases. Benches notice.

Review in the High Court first: does it stop the clock?

Some litigants file a review petition before the High Court Division Bench, hoping it will correct an obvious error without the cost of the Supreme Court. That is a legitimate choice when there is an error apparent on the face of the record. The problem is that the Limitation Act does not automatically exclude the time spent on the review from the 90 days for the main judgment.

If the review is dismissed, the SLP must normally challenge the main judgment as well as the review order. An SLP against only the review order is unlikely to get anywhere, because the dismissal of a review does not create a fresh judgment on merits. By then, the 90 days for the main judgment may have gone, and you are asking for condonation with the review period as your explanation. The Supreme Court has sometimes accepted a bona fide review as sufficient cause, but you cannot rely on it.

Our guide on choosing between a review and the next forum explains how this choice is weighed at the tribunal stage; the same thinking applies one level up. Where the error is serious and the review is a long shot, filing the SLP within time is usually safer.

When the department's SLP is late: answering its condonation application

Many service litigants meet the Supreme Court for the first time as respondents. You won in the tribunal, the department's writ was dismissed by the High Court, and months later a notice arrives saying the Union of India has filed an SLP with an application to condone a delay of, say, 312 days. Meanwhile the tribunal's order remains unimplemented.

You are entitled to oppose condonation. Read the department's delay application closely. Look for dates when the file was sent for legal opinion, when the Ministry of Law approved the SLP, and when the papers reached the Advocate-on-Record for the government. Gaps of several months between these points, with no reason given, are the kind of administrative delay that Living Media said does not deserve special leniency.

Also point out what the delay has cost you: arrears frozen, pension not revised, promotion not granted, a retiree growing older while the order sits unimplemented. If you had already filed a contempt petition before the tribunal for non-implementation, mention its dates. The Supreme Court has, in some cases, refused to condone delay or condoned it on condition of costs or of paying the employee in the meantime.

If you expect the department to go to the Supreme Court, you can file a caveat there so that you are informed before any order is passed against you. Our separate guide on defending your win when the department challenges it covers the High Court stage of the same problem.

Who files, and how the Supreme Court registry handles your petition

Only an Advocate-on-Record can file an SLP and sign the papers in the Supreme Court. Your own service lawyer may argue the matter with the Advocate-on-Record or brief senior counsel, but the filing must go through the Advocate-on-Record. The firm works with Advocates-on-Record for Supreme Court filing and keeps your service lawyer in the loop, which avoids the record being rebuilt from scratch.

Filing is now largely electronic. Once the petition is uploaded, a diary number is generated. The registry examines the papers for defects such as missing annexures, unreadable pages, a missing affidavit or a missing exemption application. You will be given time to cure these. If the petition is re-filed after that time, the registry may call for an application to condone the delay in re-filing, separate from any delay in the original filing.

After registration, the case is listed before a bench for admission. Many SLPs are dismissed at this first hearing, often in a few lines. That is not a judgment on the details of your service history; it is the Court declining to exercise a discretionary power. If notice is issued, the respondents file counter affidavits and the matter may wait months or years for final hearing.

Interim relief, such as a stay of the High Court judgment, has to be asked for separately and is not given as a matter of course.

Time and cost at each stage of an SLP

Papers to have ready before you meet the Advocate-on-Record

Group C staff, retirees and candidates: points that differ

A Group C or D employee who has lost in the High Court should weigh the Supreme Court route with a clear head. An SLP is costly compared to a tribunal case and is not a second appeal. If the High Court has remanded the matter for a fresh decision rather than ruling finally against you, it can be wiser to go back before the tribunal or the department and win on facts.

Retirees and family pensioners face a different pressure: time. A pensioner of 74 waiting for revised pension does not gain from a case that sits in the Supreme Court for four years. On the other hand, where the High Court judgment affects an entire class of pensioners, the question may already be pending in the Supreme Court in someone else's SLP, and your lawyer can check for a tagged matter.

Candidates challenging a recruitment result often have the shortest effective window. The recruitment year moves on, posts are filled, and the Supreme Court may decline to disturb appointments already made. A candidate who loses in the High Court should decide within days, not weeks.

Railway and postal employees, defence civilians and scientists in central institutions all follow the same SLP route once the High Court has ruled. The difference lies in what went before, which is why the High Court record matters so much. If the writ was weak because the grounds were thin, our guide on grounds that work in a writ against a tribunal order shows what the Supreme Court will also be looking for.

Before you decide to file: honest limits

Special leave is discretionary. The Supreme Court does not take an SLP only because the High Court was wrong on facts; it looks for a question of law, a serious miscarriage of justice, or a conflict with its own decisions. If your case turns entirely on how the High Court read an APAR or a seniority list, ask your lawyer frankly whether it is the kind of issue the Court entertains.

If the High Court has already given you partial relief, compare what you might gain against what you might lose if the department files a cross-challenge or the Court sends the whole matter back. Service disputes involving arrears can also have limitation issues of their own; our guide on the realistic timeline of a service dispute helps set expectations.

Finally, keep the department's implementation in view. Unless the Supreme Court stays the High Court judgment, that judgment must be followed. An SLP filed by the department is not, by itself, a stay.

What to do in the next seven days

Advocate B.K. Singh's first question on any High Court loss is not about the merits. He asks for two dates: the date of the judgment and the date of the copy application, and he writes the deadline on the cover of the file before reading anything else. If you do only one thing this week, apply for the certified copy and keep the receipt safe.

The second thing he sees go wrong is the explanation for delay being written in the last week, from memory. Advocate B.K. Singh tells clients to keep a simple diary from the day of the judgment: when they called a lawyer, when a hospital admission happened, when papers were sent. If the SLP is filed in time, the diary is not needed. If it is not, that diary becomes the backbone of the condonation application.

For the broader picture of Supreme Court work in service cases, see our page on a special leave petition against a High Court service judgment. If you are working out whether an older grievance is in time at the tribunal stage, our guide on explaining delay in a condonation application covers reasons that tend to be accepted.

To have your dates checked and your papers read before the 90 days run out, or for updates on the law on SLP limitation, contact Advocate B.K. Singh.