High Court of Chhattisgarh
Case Details
1 Reserved on – 25.03.2025 Delivered on -24.06.2025 NAFR HIFZURRAHMAN ANSARI Digitally signed by HIFZURRAHMAN ANSARI Date: 2025.06.24 17:12:57 +0530 HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR REVP No. 25 of 2025 Municipal Corporation Bilaspur Through Its Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. versus --- Petitioner 1 - Dushyant Singh S/o Late Mahesh Singh Aged About 46 Years Working As Pump Operator, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara Bilaspur, District- Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh., 2 - Mahesh Soni S/o Late Gopi Soni Aged About 42 Years Working As Pump Operator, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara Bilaspur, District- Bilapsur, Chhattisgarh. 3 - Dharmendra Dubey S/o Late Ganesh Dubey Aged About 47 Years Working As Helper, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara Bilaspur, Disrtrict- Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh., 4 - Ajay Soni S/o Late Jainarayan Soni Aged About 44 Years Working As Pump Operator, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara, Bilaspur, District- Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. 5 - Laxmi Narayan S/o Late Dayaram Kaushik Aged About 49 Years Working As Kuli, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Salampur, Bilaspur, District- Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh 6 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Its Secretary, Urban Administration And Development Department, Mantralaya, Mahanadi Bhawan, Atal Nagar, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. 7 - Director Office Of Directorate, Urban Administration And Development Department, Chhattisgarh. Indrawati Bhawan, Raipur, Nagar Atal 8 - Joint Director Office Of Directorate, Urban Administration Development Department, Chhattisgarh. Indrawati Bhawan, Raipur, Nagar, Atal 9 - Joint Director, Regional Office, Urban Administration And Development Department, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. --- Respondent(s) For Petitioner
Legal Reasoning
the order dated 21.08.2023 passed by this Court in WPS No. 4546/2019. 2. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that by order dated 21.08.2023, this Court directed that the case of the petitioners be considered in parity with that of 3 similarly situated persons namely Shiv Gupta, Dilip Yadav, Mahboob Khan, and Prem Sonwani. He further submits that the petitioners had earlier filed WPS No.
Arguments
: Mr. H. B. Agrawal Sr. Advocate with Ms. A. Sandhya Rao, For Respondent No. 1 to 5 : Mr. Vinod Deshmukh, Advocate For Respondent No. 6 to 9 Mr. Abhishek Singh, PL Advocate 2 REVP No. 272 of 2024 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Its Secretary, Urban Administration And Development Department, Mantralaya, Mahanadi Bhawan, Atal Nagar, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. 2 - Director, Office Of Directorate, Urban Administration And Development Department, Indrawati Bhawan, Atal Nagar, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. 3 - Joint Director, Officer Of Directorate, Urban Administration And Development Department, Indrawati Bhawan, Atal Nagar, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. 4 - Joint Director, Regional Office, Urban Administration And Development Department, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. Versus ---Petitioners 1 - Dushyant Singh S/o Late Mahesh Singh, Aged About 46 Years Working As Pump Operator, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara Bilaspur, District-Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. 2 - Mahesh Soni S/o Late Gopi Soni, Aged About 42 Years Working As Pump Operator, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara Bilaspur, District-Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. -------(Petitioner) 3 - Dharmendra Dubey S/o Late Ganesh Dubey, Aged About 47 Years Working As Helper, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara Bilaspur, District-Bilaspur (C.G.) 4 - Ajay Soni S/o Late Jainarayan Soni, Aged About 44 Years Wokring As Pump Operatior, Municipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Gondpara, Bilaspur, District-Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. 5 - Laxmi Narayan S/o Late Dayaram Kaushik, Aged About 49 Years Working As Kuli, Minicipal Corporation, Bilaspur, R/o Salampur, Bilaspur, District- Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. 6 - Municipal Corporation Bilaspur Through Its Commissioner Municipal Corporation Bilasur Chhattisgarh --- Respondent(s) For Petitioner For Respondent No. 1 to : M. Abhishek Singh, PL : Mr. Vinod Deshmukh,Advocate 5 For Respondent No. 6 Mr. H. B. Agrawal Sr. Advocate with Ms. A. Sandhya Rao, Advocate Hon'ble Shri Justice Sachin Singh Rajput CAV Order 1. These two review petitions have been filed by the petitioners seeking review of
Decision
4114/2011 which has been disposed of on 29.07.2011 with liberty to file a fresh representation, which they did. Upon scrutiny, their claim was rejected on 03.08.2013 due to a break in service exceeding one month under Clause "B"(iii). Other persons challenged the said rejection in WPS No. 4182/2014 and obtained relief by order dated 28.02.2019. Petitioners, however, did not challenge the rejection order in time but filed WPS No. 4546/2019 only on 01.06.2019, after considerable delay and without filing any application for condonation of delay. He further submits that the impugned order does not mention the objections raised by the respondents, nor the material facts such as the rejection order dated 03.08.2013 or the recommendations of the Commissioner were placed before this Court at the time when the order impugned was passed. He further submits that the observation made in Para-5 of the impugned order does not reflect the correct factual aspect of the matter and the case of the petitioners is not comparable with WPS No. 4182/2014, therefore, he prays that order dated 21.08.2023 passed in WPS No. 4546/2019 may be suitably modified. It is further pleaded that no material was placed before the Court as to how the petitioners in the writ petition can be said to be similarly situated to the persons with whom the parity was being sought. 3. Learned counsel for the respondents oppose the submissions and submit that the grounds which have been raised by the petitioners in their respective review petitions would amount to almost recall of the order dated 21.08.2023 passed in WPS No. 4546/2019. He submits that if the petitioners are indeed aggrieved by any of the findings recorded by this Court while deciding the writ petition, the appropriate recourse for them would have been to challenge the same before the Appellate Court as prescribed under the law. He placed reliance on the judgment passed by this Court in case of C.D. Tirkey Vs. State of Chhattisgarh and Ors. 4 passed in REVP No. 218/2013 order dated 01.11.2013 and State of Chhattisgarh Vs. Ku. Vinima Deewan and one other connected matter passed in REVP No. 261/2024 order dated 22.11.2024. 4. Heard counsel for both the parties and perused the order sought to be reviewed, the grounds taken in the writ petitions as also the instant review petitions. 5. All the grounds taken by the petitioners at this stage such as delay and laches, the parity sought and the non-consideration of certain documents do not appear to be something new which were not within the knowledge of the parties at the time of hearing of WPS No. 4546/2019. Order 47 Rule 1 CPC specifically stipulates that any judgment or order can be subjected to review inter alia if there is a mistake or an error apparent on the face of record. It further stipulates that an error which is not self evident but can be detectable by a process of reasoning can hardly be said to be an error apparent on the face of the record. Thus, the points to be reviewed could very much be raised at the time of argument of the writ petition itself and cannot be supposed to be taken recourse of by filing the review petitions. Since the respondents in WPS No. 4546/2019 have failed to bring on record their stand by filing the return, at this stage they are precluded to invoke the review jurisdiction seeking modification of its own orders. A review cannot be entertained merely to enable the party to fill up the lacunae in the case which could have been resorted to at the time of hearing of the writ petition itself at the first instance. It is also pertinent to mention here that these review petitions do not point out any patent legal error in the impugned order apparent on the face of record, and introduction of any new point in order to get the relief as per one’s own choice is not permissible in the eye of law by invocation of review jurisdiction. 6. It is well settled position of law that scope of review jurisdiction should be invoked very sparingly because its scope is very limited. If the review sought to 5 be obtained is of the nature to change the import or purport of the relief already been granted, it is not permissible by way of review. The Court sitting in review jurisdiction cannot re-appreciate or re-assess the material on record which has already been taken into consideration at the time of passing the order to be reviewed. As already said, the grounds raised in these review petitions can be agitated in the appellate jurisdiction rather than by way of review jurisdiction. The Division Bench of this Court in case of Union of India Vs. Abhishek Jain and ors. passed in REVP No. 83/2025 order dated 25.04.2025 has observed that only an error apparent on the face of the record can be corrected by exercising review jurisdiction. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in case of S. Madhusudan Vs. Narayana Reddy and others, 2022 Live Law (SC) 685 has observed that an erroneous decision can be corrected by exercising review jurisdiction. A judgment can be open to review if there is a mistake or an error apparent on the face of record, but an error that is detectable by a process of reasoning, cannot be described as an error apparent on the face of record for the Court to exercise its power of review. 7. In view of the aforesaid factual position if seen in the light of the judicial pronouncement of the Supreme Court as referred to above, this Court is of the view that the review sought for by the petitioners cannot be granted while exercising the power of review particularly when the points urged by the petitioners in the writ petitions were already within their knowledge at the time of hearing thereof. 8. Consequently, the aforementioned review petitions being without any merit are liable to be and hereby dismissed. H.Ansari/J. Sd/- (Sachin Singh Rajput) Judge