Govt. of NCT of Delhi vs. M/S. K.L. Rathi Steels Ltd. & Ors.
Background
In numerous Delhi land-acquisition disputes, various courts (including the Supreme Court itself in earlier orders) had held that the government's acquisitions had "lapsed" under Section 24(2) of the 2013 land acquisition law, applying the Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in Pune Municipal Corporation vs. Harakchand Misirimal Solanki. That precedent was later declared per incuriam and eventually overruled outright by a five-judge Constitution Bench in Indore Development Authority vs. Manohar Lal (2020). The Government of NCT of Delhi and the Delhi Development Authority then filed a large batch of review/recall applications asking the Court to reopen all the earlier orders that had relied on the now-overruled Pune Municipal Corporation ruling and reconsider the acquisitions on merits, while affected landowners opposed this as an impermissible attempt to reopen final, binding decisions merely because the law changed later.
Decision Breakdown
Justice M.R. Shah held that because the Constitution Bench had explicitly stated that "all other decisions" following Pune Municipal Corporation were also overruled, the review applications should be allowed: he recalled the earlier orders in the batch of appeals and restored them to be reheard afresh on their own merits in light of Indore Development Authority, keeping all parties' arguments (including on possession) open. Justice B.V. Nagarathna disagreed with both his reasoning and conclusion, holding that under the Explanation to Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Civil Procedure Code, a mere subsequent judicial decision overruling the law relied upon in an earlier judgment is expressly not a valid ground for review, and that allowing these reviews would reopen "hundreds" of settled cases across the country and violate the finality of litigation. Instead of reviewing the merits, she granted only limited practical relief: extending by one year, from the date of her order, the time for the government authorities to initiate fresh land acquisition proceedings under the 2013 Act in cases where they were still in possession of the land, without disturbing or reviewing the original orders. Because the two judges reached fundamentally different outcomes, this remains a split decision on the bench.
Lesson Learnt
A later Supreme Court ruling that overturns the legal precedent an earlier case was decided on does not, by itself, automatically entitle a losing party to reopen that earlier, final decision: Indian procedural law treats "the law changed afterward" as an explicitly barred ground for review, valuing finality of litigation even when the law is later found to have been wrongly applied.