Article 141

India's founders wanted one final, authoritative voice on what the Constitution and laws mean, so that the same legal question isn't decided differently in different states or courts. Article 141 makes the Supreme Court's rulings on law binding everywhere, creating consistency and certainty across the country's legal system. This mirrors the common-law idea of precedent, adapted for a single apex court sitting atop a unified judiciary.

Courts have clarified that only the 'ratio decidendi' — the legal reasoning actually necessary to decide a case — is binding under Article 141, not passing remarks or examples ('obiter dicta'), though these can still be persuasive. In cases like Union of India v. Raghubir Singh (1989), the Supreme Court held that even its own past decisions bind smaller benches, and only a bench of equal or larger size can review or overrule them. Courts have also held that Article 141 applies only to law declared by the Supreme Court, not by High Courts (whose decisions bind only courts within their own territorial jurisdiction under separate principles).

• Myth: Every single word or comment the Supreme Court makes in a judgment is legally binding.
  Fact: Courts have clarified that only the core legal reasoning needed to decide the case (the ratio decidendi) is binding under Article 141; other remarks are only persuasive, not compulsory.
• Myth: High Court judgments are binding on all courts in India in the same way as Supreme Court judgments.
  Fact: Only the Supreme Court's declarations of law bind all courts nationwide under Article 141; a High Court's rulings mainly bind courts within its own jurisdiction.