In a review petition, the Division Bench of the Orissa High Court noted the judicial stance and the law regarding the scope of review and held that the scope is very limited and there are certain grounds only on whose basis a review petition can be admitted, other than them a party cannot use the mechanism of review like another appeal. It was further noted that if the party is aggrieved it may approach a higher court, but entertaining a review to reconsider the case would amount to exceeding its jurisdiction.
Brief Facts:
The current review petition is seeking a review of the order dated 16.02.23 where a writ petition was dismissed justifying the rejection of the bid of the petitioner due to non-compliance with the conditions of the notice inviting tender.
In the previous writ petition, the petitioners had prayed to quash the order dated 17.01.2023 and to issue directions to the opposite parties to accept the technical bid of the petitioner and to allow him to participate in the financial bid, whereby the court noted that the conditions in the notice inviting tender were not complied with and that is why the same was rejected, hence the current review petition has been filed to review the previous judgment.
The petitioners have argued that the review has been filed on pure questions of law, whereas the respondent side has contended that the review of the impugned order cannot be sustained in the eye of the law.
Observations of the Court:
The Hon’ble court first noted that on a bare look at the pleadings, it shows that the petitioner has attempted to re-open the matter once again for re-adjudication which is not permissible in the eye of the law. So, the court found it necessary to go through the scope of the petition for review and referred to Section 114 read with Order - XLVII, Rule-1 of the CPC.
The court then referred to various judgments in this regard to understand the judicial stance on the topic of review and concluded that the scope of review is very limited, which means that there can be only three grounds on which a review petition can be admitted, first when on the face of the record there is an apparent error, second if there is a serious irregularity in the proceeding and third if a mistake is committed by an erroneous assumption of a fact, which if allowed will cause the miscarriage of justice. Then the Supreme Court’s judgment was referred to where it was held that review by no means, is an appeal in disguise. Then the court further went on to refer different cases of the supreme court and it was concluded that in the garb of review, a party cannot be permitted to reopen the case. The court noted that if a case has been decoded by the court after full consideration of the arguments, then if the party is aggrieved it may approach a higher court, but entertaining a review to reconsider the case would amount to exceeding its jurisdiction. The court then noted the ground of review that had been formulated in the Kamlesh Verma case by the Supreme Court.
Further, Against the backdrop of the above observations, the court examined the current case and concluded that the writ petition was adjudicated by following due procedure and by giving an opportunity of hearing to all the parties, as can be noted by the order sought to be reviewed.
The Decision of the Court:
Since the writ petition was dismissed by passing a reasoned order and no case was made out by the petitioner for review, the current petition was dismissed.
Case Title: Debjyoti Dutta v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and
Coram: Justice B.R. Sarangi, Justice M.S. Raman
Case No.: RVWPET No. 88 of 2023
Advocates for the Petitioners: M/s. Biswajit Das, S. Misra, D. Chauhan, A. Sharma and
Y. Harshavardhan, Advocates
Advocate for the Respondents: Mr.P.R. Barik, Advocate
Read Judgment @LatestLaws.com
Picture Source :
