Which one of the following powers of the Supreme Court is also conferred on a High Court?

Correct — C, Power of court of record. Article 129 makes the Supreme Court a court of record with all the powers of such a court, including the power to punish for its contempt; Article 215 says the same thing for every High Court in almost identical words. Being a court of record has two limbs — the court's proceedings are recorded for perpetual memory and are admitted as evidence without further proof, and the court can commit for contempt of itself. That second limb is why the two Articles are drafted as a pair, and it is the only one of the four powers listed here that the Constitution gives to both levels.

• (a)Advisory power — Article 143 lets the President refer a question of law or fact of public importance to the Supreme Court for its opinion. No High Court has any comparable jurisdiction, and a Governor cannot make such a reference.
• (b)Power of doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before the court — This is Article 142, and it belongs to the Supreme Court alone. Its decrees are enforceable throughout India, and the phrase 'complete justice' has no counterpart in the High Court chapter.
• (d)Power to allow/refuse Special Leave Petitions — Special leave under Article 136 is the Supreme Court's discretionary gateway from any court or tribunal in India except a court martial. A High Court hears appeals under its own statutory and constitutional heads, not by granting special leave.

The Constitution deliberately gives the Supreme Court a set of powers no other court has — advisory jurisdiction under Article 143, complete justice under Article 142, special leave under Article 136, and binding precedent under Article 141. Alongside these it gives both the Supreme Court and the High Courts a smaller shared set, of which the court-of-record status under Articles 129 and 215 is the clearest example. Writ jurisdiction is the other shared power, under Article 32 for the Supreme Court and the wider Article 226 for the High Courts.

Questions of this shape reward a two-column memory rather than an article-number memory. Put advisory opinion, complete justice, special leave and declared law in the Supreme-Court-only column; put court of record and writs in the shared column. The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, passed after the H. N. Sanyal Committee reported, regulates how the contempt power is exercised, but the power itself flows from the Constitution and would survive the statute.

• Article 129 — the Supreme Court is a court of record with the power to punish for contempt of itself.
• Article 215 — every High Court is a court of record with the same power.
• Article 143 gives advisory jurisdiction to the Supreme Court alone, and it may decline to answer a reference.
• Article 142 empowers only the Supreme Court to pass any decree necessary for doing complete justice.
• Writ jurisdiction is shared: Article 32 for enforcement of fundamental rights, Article 226 for those and 'any other purpose'.

• Assuming a High Court's contempt power comes from the 1971 Act; it comes from Article 215.
• Reading Article 226 as narrower than Article 32 — it is wider, since it also covers rights other than fundamental rights.
• Thinking the Supreme Court must answer every presidential reference.

A shared-versus-exclusive sorting question. The examiner offers three exclusive powers and one shared one, so the work is elimination, not recall.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The power of a High Court to punish for contempt of itself flows from

  • (a)Article 129
  • (b)Article 215
  • (c)the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971
  • (d)Article 226

  Answer(b) Article 215 — which makes every High Court a court of record.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article may the President seek the Supreme Court's opinion on a question of law of public importance?

  • (a)Article 136
  • (b)Article 141
  • (c)Article 143
  • (d)Article 145

  Answer(c) Article 143 — the advisory jurisdiction, which no High Court shares.