Rajasthan High Court - Jaipur
Satya Narayan Khunteta Son Of Shri ... vs State Of Rajasthan on 26 November, 2018
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN
BENCH AT JAIPUR
S.B. Writ Review No. 173/2018
In
S. B. Civil Writ Petition No. 9850/2008
Smt. Vijay Baijal W/o Shri Akhileshwar Das Baijal, aged about 67
years, 4, Manav Ashram Colony, Tonk Road, Jaipur Raj.
----Review Petition/Petitioner-Non Applicant
Versus
1. The Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Rajasthan,
Jaipur.
----Review Petition/Respondent-Applicant
2. Managing Committee, Geeta Bajaj Bal Mandir Sansthan, Jaipur Through Its Secretary.
----Respondent Connected With S.B. Writ Review No. 174/2018 Satya Narayan Khunteta S/o Shri Damodar Prasad Khunteata, aged about 67 years, Resident Of 52, Phase-III, Jhalana Doongri Jaipur
----Review Petition/Petitioner-Non Applicant Versus
1. State Of Rajasthan Through Chief Accounts Officer, Government Secretariat, Jaipur
2. Collector, Jaipur
3. Treasurer, Treasury Officer, P.d. Account, Collectorate, Jaipur
---Respondents
4. The Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Rajasthan, Jaipur.
----Review Petition/Respondent-Applicant and S.B. Writ Review No. 226/2018 In S. B. Civil Writ Petition No. 3205/2010 Satya Narayan Khunteta Son Of Shri Damodar Prasad Khunteta, Aged About 75 Years, Resident Of 52, Phase III, Jhalana Doongri, Jaipur
----Petitioner Versus
1. State Of Rajasthan, Through Chief Accounts Officer, Government Secretariat, Jaipur (2 of 7) [WRW-173/2018]
2. Collector, Jaipur
3. Treasurer, Treasury Office, Pd Account, Collectorate, Jaipur
4. Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Near Vidyut Bhawan, Jyoti Nagar, Jaipur
----Respondents For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Nikhil Simlote on behalf of Mr. R. B. Mathur Mr. Madhukar Tiwari Mr. Nitesh Pareek on behalf of Mr. Ajay Kumar Bajpai For Respondent(s) : Mr. D. P. Sharma Mr. Virendra Lodha Senior Counsel with Mr. Jai Lodha Mr. S. K. Gupta, AAG HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJEEV PRAKASH SHARMA Order 26/11/2018
1. Delay in filing the review petition No.226/2018 is condoned.
2. The review petitions have been filed by the respondents-Regional Provident Fund Commissioner praying for reviewing the order passed by this court dated 23.10.2017.
3. Counsel appearing for the PF Department submits that they have filed D. B. Special Appeal No.2045/2018 and D. B. Special Appeal No. 6/2018 before the Division Bench, wherein they prayed for liberty to file review petitions and the appeals were disposed of with liberty to file review petitions before the learned Single Judge in reference to the judgment of Regional Provident Fund Commissioner Vs. Sanatan Dharam Girls Secondary School and Ors. 2007 (1) SCC 268.
4. Power of review before this court is statutory power available under the provisions of CPC as well as under Article 226 (3 of 7) [WRW-173/2018] of the constitution in accordance with High Court Rules, therefore no liberty is required for filing of a review to Single Bench from the Division Bench.
5. I have carefully examined the entire record and convinced that the judgment of which review has been sought, does not suffer from any error apparent warranted its reconsideration, the review petitioners have not produced any material to substantiate its assertion which goes contrary to the findings arrived at in the judgment under review.
6. In Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation Ltd. V/s Mawasi & Ors., AIR 2012 SC 3874, it has been held as under:
"9. At this stage it will be apposite to observe that the power of review is a creature of the statute and no Court or quasi-judicial body or administrative authority can review its judgment or order or decision unless it is legally empowered to do so. Article 137 empowers this Court to review its judgments subject to the provisions of any law made by Parliament or any rules made under Article 145 of the Constitution. The Rules framed by this Court under that Article lay down that in civil cases, review lies on any of the grounds specified in Order 47 Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 which reads as under:
"Order 47, Rule 1:
1. Application for review of judgment.- (1) Any person considering himself aggrieved-
(a) by a decree or order from which an appeal is allowed, but from which no appeal has been preferred,
(b) by a decree or order from which no appeal is allowed, or
(c) by a decision on a reference from a Court of Small Causes, (4 of 7) [WRW-173/2018] and who, from the discovery of new and important matter or evidence which, after the exercise of due diligence was not within his knowledge or could not be produced by him at the time when the decree was passed or order made, or on account of some mistake or error apparent on the face of the record, or for any other sufficient reason, desires to obtain a review of the decree passed or order made against him, may apply for a review of judgment to the court which passed the decree or made the order.
(2) A party who is not appealing from a decree or order may apply for a review of judgment notwithstanding the pendency of an appeal by some other party except where the ground of such appeal is common to the applicant and the Appellant, or when, being Respondent, he can present to the Appellate Court the case of which he applies for the review.
Explanation-The fact that the decision on a question of law on which the judgment of the Court is based has been reversed or modified by the subsequent decision of a superior Court in any other case, shall not be a ground for the review of such judgment."
10. The aforesaid provisions have been interpreted in several cases. We shall notice some of them. In S. Nagaraj v. State of Karnataka, 1993 Supp (4) SCC 595, this Court referred to the judgments in Raja Prithwi Chand Lal Choudhury v. Sukhraj Rai, AIR 1941 FC 1 and Rajunder Narain Rae v. Bijai Govind Singh (1836) 1 Moo PC 117 and observed:
"Review literally and even judicially means re-examination or re-consideration. Basic philosophy inherent in it is the universal acceptance of human fallibility. Yet in the realm of law the courts and even the statutes lean strongly in favour of finality of decision legally and properly made. Exceptions both statutorily and judicially have been carved out to correct accidental mistakes or miscarriage of justice. Even when there was no statutory provision and no rules were framed by the highest court indicating the circumstances in which it could rectify its order the courts culled out such power to avoid abuse of process or miscarriage of justice. In Raja Prithwi Chand Lal Choudhury v. Sukhraj Rai the Court observed that even though no rules had been framed permitting the highest Court to (5 of 7) [WRW-173/2018] review its order yet it was available on the limited and narrow ground developed by the Privy Council and the House of Lords. The Court approved the principle laid down by the Privy Council in Rajunder Narain Rae v. Bijai Govind Singh that an order made by the Court was final and could not be altered:
"... nevertheless, if by misprision in embodying the judgments, by errors have been introduced, these Courts possess, by Common law, the same power which the Courts of record and statute have of rectifying the mistakes which have crept in.... The House of Lords exercises a similar power of rectifying mistakes made in drawing up its own judgments, and this Court must possess the same authority. The Lords have however gone a step further, and have corrected mistakes introduced through inadvertence in the details of judgments; or have supplied manifest defects in order to enable the decrees to be enforced, or have added explanatory matter, or have reconciled inconsistencies."
Basis for exercise of the power was stated in the same decision as under:
"It is impossible to doubt that the indulgence extended in such cases is mainly owing to the natural desire prevailing to prevent irremediable injustice being done by a Court of last resort, where by some accident, without any blame, the party has not been heard and an order has been inadvertently made as if the party had been heard."
Rectification of an order thus stems from the fundamental principle that justice is above all. It is exercised to remove the error and not for disturbing finality. When the Constitution was framed the substantive power to rectify or recall the order passed by this Court was specifically provided by Article 137 of the Constitution. Our Constitution-makers who had the practical wisdom to visualise the efficacy of such provision expressly conferred the substantive power to review any judgment or order by Article 137 of the Constitution. and Clause (c) of Article 145 permitted this Court to frame rules as to the conditions subject to which any judgment or order may be reviewed. In exercise of this power Order XL had been framed empowering this Court (6 of 7) [WRW-173/2018] to review an order in civil proceedings on grounds analogous to Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The expression, 'for any other sufficient reason' in the clause has been given an expanded meaning and a decree or order passed under misapprehension of true state of circumstances has been held to be sufficient ground to exercise the power. Apart from Order XL Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules this Court has the inherent power to make such orders as may be necessary in the interest of justice or to prevent the abuse of process of Court. The Court is thus not precluded from recalling or reviewing its own order if it is satisfied that it is necessary to do so for sake of justice."
7. A close look at the judgments passed by this court earlier, goes to show that the Division Bench was misinformed that the court had not taken into consideration the judgment passed by the Supreme Court in the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner's case (supra). In fact, both the circulars quoted in the said judgment were made as a basis for arriving at the conclusion. No new point has been urged before me. It appears that the entire exercise has been undertaken apparently at askance of the petitioners before the Division Bench at the initially stage itself, requesting for allowing them to file review. In view of the fact that the Division Bench was given wrong information about the judgment and precious time of this court has been wasted, cost of Rs.20,000/- is imposed on the review petitioners to be deposited in the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority, Rajasthan High Court Premises, Jaipur.
8. Another review petitions have been preferred by the petitioners, wherein they have prayed that the amount of pension to be released by the State Government instead of the PF Department if their review is allowed. This court has already dismissed the review petition filed by the Regional Provident Fund (7 of 7) [WRW-173/2018] Commissioner Authorities, hence all the three review petitions are also dismissed.
9. Copy of this order be placed in other connected files.
(SANJEEV PRAKASH SHARMA),J Chouhan/ Jatin/14-15 & 62 Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)