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Karnail Singh vs State of Haryana & Ors.

Not available · 2024 INSC 424Decided 16 May 2024
Not available
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

The dispute concerned whether certain lands reserved for common village purposes under a 1948 consolidation law qualified as "shamilat deh" (village common land) under Haryana's 1961 land law, following a 1992 state amendment. In 2022, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court had allowed the State of Haryana's appeal against a Full Bench ruling of the Punjab and Haryana High Court (the "Jai Singh II" judgment) on this question. The present review petition was filed by one of the original respondents (a private landholder), asking the Court to recall its own 2022 judgment on the ground that it had failed to properly engage with the detailed reasoning of the High Court's Full Bench, including its reliance on Constitution Bench precedents and on more than 100 consistent High Court rulings applying the doctrine of stare decisis (the principle that settled legal positions should not be casually overturned).

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that a review is not an appeal in disguise and can only be granted for an "error apparent on the face of the record," not merely because a different view is possible. However, it found that the 2022 judgment had indeed overlooked key aspects of the High Court Full Bench's reasoning, including its treatment of binding Constitution Bench decisions (Ranjit Singh, Ajit Singh, and Bhagat Ram) and its stare decisis analysis based on over 100 consistent prior rulings, without explaining why that reasoning was wrong. This omission amounted to an error apparent on the record. The Court therefore allowed the review petition, recalled its 2022 judgment, restored Civil Appeal No. 6990 of 2014 to file, and directed it be listed for a fresh hearing.

Lesson Learnt

A review petition can succeed even against a Supreme Court judgment if the Court failed to genuinely grapple with a lower court's detailed reasoning or established precedent, but this is a narrow exception, reserved for a clear, self-evident error, not a chance to re-argue the case.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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