Reena Sahu v. State Of Chhattisgarh

: Mr. Kishore Narayan, Advocate For Respondent(s) : Mr. Vinod Tekam, Government Advocate 2 (Hon’ble Shri Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, J.) Order on Board 24/06/2026

Heard.

Present is a review petition filed by the petitioner with following prayer :-

That this Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to allow this review petition and recall the order dated 09.07.2025 passed in WPS No. 5594/2025 and grant reliefs prayed in the original writ petition i.e. WPS/5594/2025, in the interest of justice.

The impugned order was passed by this Court in WPS No. 5594/2025, whereby the writ petition filed by the review petitioner was dismissed on

09.07.2025. Thereafter, the second writ petition bearing WPS No. 14021/2025 was withdrawn from this Court vide order dated

19.03.2026 with liberty to avail other alternate remedy available to petitioner under the law. Thereafter, the third writ petition bearing WPS No. 3372/2026 was withdrawn from this Court vide order dated

20.04.2026 with liberty to avail the other remedy available under law.

A perusal of the order passed by this Court in WPS No.5594/2025 dated 09.07.2025 goes to show that the matter was argued by Mr. Mateen Siddiqui, Advocate, on behalf of the petitioner, whereas the present review petition has been filed by Mr. Kishore Narayan, Advocate, who is a new counsel.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Tamil Nadu Electricity 3 Board & Anr vs N. Raju Reddiar & Anr, reported in (1997) 9 SCC 736, has deprecated the practice of filing successive applications after decision of the case and that too, by engaging different Counsel. The aforesaid judgment is being reproduced below: "1. It is a sad spectacle that a new practice unbecoming and not worthy of or conducive to the profession is cropping up. Mr Mariaputham, Advocate-on-Record had filed vakalatnama for the petitioner-opposite party when the special leave petition was filed. After the matter was disposed of, Mr V. Balachandran, Advocate had filed a petition for review. That was also dismissed by this Court on 24-4-1996. Yet another advocate, Mr S.U.K. Sagar, has now been engaged to file the present application styled as "application for clarification", on the specious plea that the order is not clear and unambiguous.

The observation made in N. Raju Reddiar (supra) has been further relied upon by the Allahabad High Court in the recent judgment in the matter of Jai Singh vs The State of U.P. through its Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban Planning & Ors, 2023 SCC OnLine All 4490. The Hon’ble Division Bench of this Court also taken a similar view in case of “Sanjeev Kumar Yadav V/s State of Chhattisgarh and Others”, Review Petition No. 422/2025, decided on 15.12.2025.

The Division Bench of Allahabad High Court in the matter of “Vinita Bhatnagar v. Union of India” 2018 SCC Online Allahabad 6411 followed the N. Raju Reddiar case (supra) and has held that:-

1. …….. It is well-settled that a review application ought not to have been filed by a Counsel who has not argued the matter but ought to have been filed by the same Counsel who has earlier argued the matter. In T.N. Electricity Board v. N. Raju Reddiar the Apex Court has deprecated the practice of arguing the matter by one Counsel and review by another Counsel and has observed that the review application ought to have been filed by the, same Counsel who has argued the matter.

The scope of review jurisdiction is no longer res-integra and it is well settled through a catena of decisions that, an application for review cannot be treated to be an opportunity to argue the case on merits afresh. In the garb of the review application, rehearing of the appeal on merits cannot be allowed. 5

In the matter of “Tungabhadra Industries Limited v. The Government of Andhra Pradesh” AIR 1964 SC 1372, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that “A review is by no means an appeal in disguise, whereby an erroneous decision is reheard and corrected, but lies only for patent error.”

In the matter of “Parsion Devi and others v. Sumitri Devi and others” 1997 (8) SCC 715, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in para-9 held as under :- "Under Order 47 Rule 1 CPC a judgment may be open to review inter alia if there is a mistake or an error apparent on the face of the record. An error which is not self evident and has to be detected by a process of reasoning, can hardly be said to be an error apparent on the face of the record justifying the court to exercise its power review under Order 47 Rule 1 CPC. In exercise of the jurisdiction under Order 47 Rule 1 CPC it is not permissible for an erroneous decision to be "reheard and corrected". A review petition, it must be remembered has limited purpose and cannot be allowed to be "an appeal in disguise. "

In the matter of “M/S Shanti Conductors (P) Ltd v. Assam State Electricity Board” 2020 (2) SCC 677, the Hon'ble Supreme Court dismissed the petition and held that :- "The scope of review is limited and under the guise of review, petitioner cannot be permitted to reagitate and reargue the questions, which have already been addressed and decided.”

The learned counsel could not dispute the above-stated proposition of law as laid down by the Apex Court and further could not give a plausible reply for non-appearance of Mr. Mateen Siddiqui, Advocate, in the present review petition. 6