Chairman & Managing Director, Central Bank of India & Ors. v. Central Bank of India SC/ST Employees Welfare Association & Ors.
Background
In an earlier judgment dated 9 January 2015, the Supreme Court had ruled on a batch of appeals about whether certain Office Memoranda gave Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe bank officers a right to reserved promotion quotas, concluding the memoranda gave only a "concession," not a binding reservation. The banks and the Union of India later filed review petitions arguing the earlier judgment's operative directions (paragraphs 33-37) contained an error apparent on the record, inconsistent with its own reasoning elsewhere in the judgment.
Decision Breakdown
The Court held that it has the inherent power to recall or correct its own order where there is a clear mistake and perpetuating it would cause a miscarriage of justice: this power exists to avoid injustice, not merely to re-argue a settled case. Examining the original judgment, the Bench found the operative paragraphs did contain an error on the face of the record that was inconsistent with the Court's own reasoning on reservation versus mere "concession." It therefore allowed the review petitions, deleted the problematic paragraphs (33-37) of the earlier judgment, and substituted new operative paragraphs clarifying that it is for the State/Banks, not the courts, to decide whether to introduce reservation in promotions, while leaving the parties to bear their own costs.
Lesson Learnt
A review petition is not an appeal and will only succeed where there is a genuine, demonstrable error apparent on the face of the record in the Court's own earlier order, not simply because a party disagrees with the outcome. It also illustrates that courts generally cannot compel the government or a public employer to create a reservation policy; they can only enforce one that already exists.