• The Supreme Court has invoked its extraordinary powers to do complete justice under Article 142 of the Constitution and ordered the release of A.G. Perarivalan in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

• Article 142 “provide(s) a unique power to the Supreme Court, to do “complete justice” between the parties,e., where at times law or statute may not provide a remedy, the Court can extend itself to put a quietus to a dispute in a manner which would befit the facts of the case.
• From the Union Carbide Case in 1989 to the Ayodhya Ram Mandir judgment in 2019, the top court has many a time invoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.

WHY WAS THE NEED FOR ARTICLE 142?

• The Article 142 gives unlimited power to the Supreme Court to do complete justice in cases where the litigants have suffered injustices during the proceedings.
• The farmers, who faced delays in getting their share of reliefs, felt this provision would help the disadvantaged people in the society.
• According to Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, “The Supreme Court shall exercise these powers and will not be deterred from doing justice by the provision of any rule or law, executive practice or executive circular or regulation.”

• The court dismissed the Centre’s argument that the President exclusively, and not the Governor, had the power to grant pardon in a case under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
• Because, this argument would declare Article 161 a “dead letter,” resulting in an exceptional situation in which Governors’ pardons in murder cases dating back 70 years would be rendered invalid.