No Fresh Petitions After Earlier SLP Dismissals: SC

The Supreme Court has said that once a special leave petition has been dismissed, no further petition should be filed, as the filing of such frivolous cases only adds to the court’s pendency, contributes to docket explosion and results in a waste of judicial time.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan dismissed a special leave petition filed by the Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax challenging the Karnataka High Court’s judgment dated September 27, 2024.

Court noted that there was a gross delay of 260 days in filing the petition. Referring to its earlier order of July 26, 2024 in Deputy Director of Income Tax and Anr vs M/s Vodafone Idea Ltd, the bench dismissed the present petition on the same basis.

“We fail to understand why the Department is continuously filing special leave petitions such as the present one, despite the orders passed earlier by this court dismissing similar petitions following the decision in Engineering Analysis Centre of Excellence Private Limited vs Commissioner of Income Tax and Another (2022),” the bench observed.

Court also pointed out that the review petition filed against the judgment relied upon had already been dismissed by a three-judge bench.

“We also wish to observe that once the special leave petition has been dismissed by the Supreme Court based on an earlier judgment of this court, there ought not to be any more petitions filed by the Department, which will in any case be dismissed based on the earlier judgment,” the bench said.

“For the reason that filing of such frivolous cases will only add to the pendency of this court and to docket explosion and lead to waste of judicial time,” the bench added.

Case Title: The Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax vs M/s Maxis International SDN BHD

Judgment Date: November 28, 2025

Bench: Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan