Mr. Ajay Sharma, Advocate v. GNCT OF DELHI AND ANR

W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 1 of 8$~77 * IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI + W.P.(C) 4747/2017 (Disposed of case) ANJULIKA .....Petitioner Through: Mr. Ajay Sharma, Advocate. versus GNCT OF DELHI AND ANR .....Respondents Through: Mr. Naushad Ahmed Khan, Advocate. CORAM:HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE PRATEEK JALAN O R D E R% 17.09.2025REVIEW PET. 477/2025 (seeking review of the judgment dated 30.04.2025)1.The petitioner seeks review of a judgment dated 30.04.2025 by which the captioned writ petition was dismissed. Mr. Ajay Sharma, learned counsel for the petitioner, draws my attention to an order dated 30.07.2025 passed by a Division Bench in LPA No. 461/2025, which was filed against the judgment under review. The order of the Division Bench records as follows: “3. It is the case of the Appellant that the perusal of these documents would show that the findings arrived at by the learned Single Judge in Paragraph 9 of the Impugned Judgment were based on certain facts that can be rebutted, which reads as under:- “F.The petitioner was not examined at G.B. Pant Hospital on the date fixed, or even thereafter for a period of over one month. She approached the DoE, which issued an order in her favour. In the proceedings instituted by the School This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 20/09/2025 at 12:43:34 W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 2 of 8against the DoE’s order, the Division Bench again opined that a neurologist would be required to certify after examination as to whether the petitioner could be allowed to join her duties and the nature of her treatment. G. The petitioner did not produce the certification of the hospitals, identified by the Division Bench, within the period of eight weeks granted, and only after a further notice was issued by the School, was she examined at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. H. The Division Bench specifically required that the examining specialist would state in his or her opinion as to whether the petitioner herein could be allowed to resume her duties. The first certificate issued by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital did not contain a statement to this effect, which was finally given only in the certificate dated 09/10.08.2016.” 4. When this Court made a suggestion to the learned Counsel appearing for the Appellant that since these documents were not placed on record in the Courts below and in the fitness of things it would be appropriate for the Appellant to approach the learned Single Judge by filing a review petition. The learned Counsel for the Appellant accepts the suggestion given by this Court and seeks permission to withdraw this appeal with liberty to approach the learned Single Judge by filing a Review Petition. 5. Permission and liberty, as sought for, is granted. 6. It is made clear that the benefit of Section 14 of the Limitation Act would be available to the Appellant for exclusion of delay in filing a Review Petition.” 2.It may be noted at the outset that the review petition has been filed by a new counsel, Mr. Ajay Sharma, who was not the counsel who had filed or argued the writ petition. Such a practice has been deprecated by the Supreme Court in T.N. Electricity Board v. N. Raju Reddiar1 as follows:“1. It is a sad spectacle that a new practice unbecoming and not worthy of or conducive to the profession is cropping up. Mr 1 (1997) 9 SCC 736. This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 20/09/2025 at 12:43:34 W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 3 of 8Mariaputham, Advocate-on-Record had filed vakalatnama for the petitioner-respondent 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. When an appeal/special leave petition is dismissed, except in rare cases where error of law or fact is apparent on the record, no review can be filed; that too by the Advocate-on-Record who neither appeared nor was party in the main case. It is salutary to note that the court spends valuable time in deciding a case. Review petition is not, and should not be, an attempt for hearing the matter again on merits. Unfortunately, it has become, in recent time, a practice to file such review petitions as a routine; that too, with change of counsel, without obtaining consent of the Advocate-on-Record at earlier stage. This is not conducive to healthy practice of the Bar which has the responsibility to maintain the salutary practice of profession. In Review Petition No. 2670 of 1996 in CA No. 1867 of 1992, a Bench of three Judges to which one of us, K. Ramaswamy, J., was a member, had held as under: “The record of the appeal indicates that Shri Sudarsh Menon was the Advocate-on-Record when the appeal was heard and decided on merits. The review petition has been filed by Shri Prabir Chowdhury who was neither an arguing counsel when the appeal was heard nor was he present at the time of arguments. It is unknown on what basis he has written the grounds in the review petition as if it is a rehearing of an appeal against our order. He did not confine to the scope of review. It would not be in the interest of the profession to permit such practice. That apart, he has not obtained ‘No Objection Certificate’ from the Advocate-on-Record in the appeal, in spite of the fact that Registry had informed him of the requirement for doing so. Filing of the ‘No Objection Certificate’ would be the basis for him to come on record. Otherwise, the Advocate-on-Record is answerable to the Court. The failure to obtain the ‘No Objection Certificate’ from the erstwhile counsel has disentitled him to file the review petition. Even otherwise, the review petition has no merits. It is an attempt to reargue the matter on merits. On these grounds, we dismiss the review petition.”[Emphasis Supplied.] This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 20/09/2025 at 12:43:34 W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 4 of 83.Turning now to the merits of the review petition, reference may first be made to the following extracts of the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Malleeswari v. K. Suguna & Anr.2, wherein the scope of review jurisdiction under Order XLVII, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, has been clarified: “15. It is axiomatic that the right of appeal cannot be assumed unless expressly conferred by the statute or the rules having the force of a statute. The review jurisdiction cannot be assumed unless it is conferred by law on the authority or the Court. Section 114 and Order 47, Rule 1 of CPC deal with the power of review of the courts. The power of review is different from appellate power and is subject to the following limitations to maintain the finality of judicial decisions: 15.1 The review proceedings are not by way of an appeal and have to be strictly confined to the scope and ambit of Order 47 Rule 1 of CPC.315.2 Review is not to be confused with appellate powers, which may enable an appellate court to correct all manner of errors committed by the subordinate court.415.3 In exercise of the jurisdiction under Order 47 Rule 1 of CPC, it is not permissible for an erroneous decision to be reheard and corrected. A review petition, it must be remembered, has a limited purpose and cannot be allowed to be an appeal in disguise.515.4 The power of review can be exercised for the correction of a mistake, but not to substitute a view. Such powers can be exercised within the limits specified in the statute governing the exercise of power.615.5 The review court does not sit in appeal over its own order. A rehearing of the matter is impermissible. It constitutes an exception to the general rule that once a judgment is signed or pronounced, it 2 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1927. 3 Meera Bhanja v. Nirmala Kumari Choudhury, (1995) 1 SCC 170. 4 Aribam Tuleshwar Sharma v. Aribam Pishak Sharma, (1979) 4 SCC 389. 5 Parsion Devi v. Sumitri Devi, (1997) 8 SCC 715. 6 Lily Thomas v. Union of India, (2000) 6 SCC 224. This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 20/09/2025 at 12:43:34 W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 5 of 8should not be altered.7 Hence, it is invoked only to prevent a miscarriage of justice or to correct grave and palpable errors.816. To wit, through a review application, an apparent error of fact or law is intimated to the court, but no extra reasoning is undertaken to explain the said error. The intimation of error at the first blush enables the court to correct apparent errors instead of the higher court correcting such errors. At both the above stages, detailed reasoning is not warranted.17. Having noticed the distinction between the power of review and appellate power, we restate the power and scope of review jurisdiction. Review grounds are summed up as follows: 17.1 The ground of discovery of new and important matter or evidence is a ground available if it is demonstrated that, despite the exercise of due diligence, this evidence was not within their knowledge or could not be produced by the party at the time, the original decree or order was passed.17.2 Mistake or error apparent on the face of the record may be invoked if there is something more than a mere error, and it must be the one which is manifest on the face of the record.9 Such an error is a patent error and not a mere wrong decision.10An error which has to be established by a long-drawn process of reasoning on points where there may conceivably be two opinions can hardly be said to be an error apparent on the face of the record.1117.3 Lastly, the phrase ‘for any other sufficient reason’ means a reason that is sufficient on grounds at least analogous to those specified in the other two categories.12” [Emphasis supplied.] 4.In the present case, the Division Bench has noted that the petitioner seeks to rely upon further documents at this stage. However, the 7 Inderchand Jain v. Motilal, (2009) 14 SCC 663. 8 Shivdev Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR 1963 SC 1909.9 Hari Vishnu Kamath v. Syed Ahmad Ishaque, (1954) 2 SCC 881. 10 T.C. Basappa v. T. Nagappa, (1954) 1 SCC 905. 11 Satyanarayan Laxminarayan Hegde v. Mallikarjun Bhavanappa Tirumale, AIR 1960 SC 137. 12 Chhajju Ram v. Neki, 1922 SCC OnLine PC 11 and approved in Moran Mar Basselios Catholicos v. Mar Poulose Athanasius, (1954) 2 SCC 42. This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 20/09/2025 at 12:43:34 W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 6 of 8documents sought to be filed by the petitioner now, were available, both at the time of filing the writ petition and during its pendency. It was open to the petitioner, and indeed the petitioner was duty bound, to file all relevant documents at that stage. The consideration of new documents at the stage of review arises only if such documents could not be produced during the original proceedings despite exercise of due diligence. There is not a single averment in the review petition with regard to the diligence exercised by the petitioner at the stage of filing the writ petition. Since Mr. Sharma was engaged only after the writ petition was disposed of, he is also not in a position to make any submissions in this regard. In fact, the review petition appears to be an attempt to revisit the arguments advanced at the stage of hearing of the writ petition.5.According to Mr. Sharma, the documents at Annexure P-14 to Annexure P-21 of the review petition are the documents which he now seeks to place on record. I have, in the interest of justice, perused the said documents and find that they add little to the material that was placed before the Court at the stage of the writ petition itself, or to the analysis in the judgment under review. They are dealt with as follows: (a)The Show Cause Notice dated 07.05.2016 in Annexure P-14 was already on record in the writ petition and has been referred to in paragraph 7[M] of the judgement under review. What has been added in the review petition is the petitioner’s response dated 18.05.2016, which only refers to the petitioner’s medical examination of 17.05.2016 which was also placed on record and referred to in paragraph 7[N] of the judgement under review. This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 20/09/2025 at 12:43:34 W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 7 of 8(b)As noted above, the Medical Report itself was on record, and Annexure P-15 to the review petition is only a communication to the Hospital by which the Report was forwarded to the School. (c)Similarly, Annexure P-16 is an RTI application which concerns the very same medical examination, and the Hospital’s response thereto. (d)Annexures P-17 and P-18 comprise of further correspondence between the School and the Hospital, by which the School sought clarifications after the Report dated 17.05.2016 was submitted. The fact that such clarifications were sought has been noticed in paragraph 7 [O] of the judgment under review. (e)Annexure P-19 and P-20 comprise of correspondence between the petitioner and the School in July and August 2016, presumably to show that the petitioner sought permission to rejoin. These documents are also well after the order of the Division Bench dated 03.02.2016, and do not alter the conclusions in the judgement under review. (f) Annexure P-21 is an order dated 16.08.2016 in CONT. CAS. (C) 958/2016, which was already before the Court in the writ proceedings. 6. Consequently, no ground whatsoever is made out to revisit the judgment dated 30.04.2025 within the parameters of the review This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 20/09/2025 at 12:43:34 W.P.(C) 4747/2017 Page 8 of 8jurisdiction of this Court. No error apparent appears on the face of the record. 7. The review petition is, accordingly, dismissed. Having regard to the fact that the case concerns the petitioner’s termination from service, I refrain from imposing costs. PRATEEK JALAN, JSEPTEMBER 17, 2025 ‘JK’/‘JM’/