Calcutta High Court Reiterates Principles Governing HC's Jurisdiction To Review Own Judgment Passed In Writ Plea

The Calcutta High Court recently reiterated the principles governing HC's power/jurisdiction to review its own judgment passed in a writ plea. The Court also stressed that the Court has very limited scope to review its own rulings.

The bench of Justice Shekhar B. Saraf essentially reiterated the principles of review as observed in the case of The State of West Bengal & Anr. Vs. Confederation of State Government Employees & Ors. (2019) 3 WBLR (Cal) 39.

In this case, the Court had culled out the following principles, after a perusal of the landmark Supreme Court Judgments on the issue of review:

A. The power to review is inherent in the High Court and the High Court can review its own order/judgment passed in a writ petition.

B. This power of review is a limited power and would be governed by the principles of Section 151 read with Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

C. Firstly, a Court can review its own judgment when there is discovery of new and important matter or evidence that was in spite of exercise of due diligence not within the knowledge or could not be produced due to cogent reasons by the party seeking a review. Secondly, the court may review its order or judgment on account of some mistake or error apparent on the face of the record. Thirdly, a residuary clause in Rule 1 of Order XLVII provides for a review 'for any other sufficient reason'. It is to be noted that the Apex Court on several occasions has held that the third condition "for any other sufficient reason" has to be read within the four corners of the first two conditions.

D. An error which is not self-evident and has to be detected by a process of reasoning is not an error apparent on the face of the record.

E. A review petition has a limited purpose and cannot be allowed to be "an appeal in disguise". There is a sharp distinction between an erroneous decision that can be only appealed against and an error apparent on the face of the record that is subject to review.

The case in brief

The Court was dealing with a review plea filed by Harisadhan Halder and others against an order of the HC (July 11, 2017) passed in the Writ Petition ex parte.

Essentially, the Court had asked the Prodhan of the Raidhigi Gram Panchayat to consider the representation of the writ petitioner and till the hearing of the said representation, it was ordered no further construction was to be carried out at the plot concerned.

Moving to the Court, the applicant claimed that the petitioners/respondents had suppressed material facts in order to secure an ex parte order. It was contended that the petitioners/respondents did not disclose to the Court that a sanction plan for the said plot had already been obtained in 1994 by the father of the applicants.

Court's order

At the outset, the Court noted that though the order was passed by the Court ex parte, however, the service of the writ petition was duly made upon the respondents/applicants, and despite that, none had appeared for such respondents/applicants, and thus, the Court had passed the order ex-parte.

The Court further discarded the argument of the respondents/applicants that there had been suppression of material facts. In fact, the Court noted that the Court had only directed respondent no. 9 to decide on the representation of the writ petitioner and while doing so granted an opportunity of hearing to be given to both the writ petitioner and the private respondent (the petitioner herein).

"The Court by itself did not go into merits of the case of the writ petitioner. In light of the same, the attempt of the petitioner to file a Review Application one year after the order dated July 11, 2017 is clearly a mala fide action and is bereft of any merit whatsoever," the Court further added.

Lastly, the Court also noted that though new facts that have been brought before the Court in the Review Petition, however, the same were in the special knowledge of the applicant herein and choosing to not appear in the matter, due care was not taken by the applicant.

In view of this, the Court dismissed the review plea.

Case title - HARISADHAN HALDER & ORS. v MADHAI MONDAL & ORS.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Cal) 279

Click Here To Read/Download Order