Raju Yadav v. Sarju Dusadh
Background
The petitioners had earlier lost a second appeal before the High Court, which held that no substantial question of law arose, thereby affirming the concurrent findings of the courts below. Their Special Leave Petition against that High Court order was also dismissed by the Supreme Court. The petitioners then filed this Review Petition, with a delay of 160 days, asking the Court to reconsider its dismissal of the SLP.
Decision Breakdown
The Court first condoned the 160-day delay in filing the review petition. On merits, however, it found that the grounds raised did not disclose any "error apparent on the face of the record", the standard required to succeed in a review, and accordingly dismissed the Review Petition, finally closing this round of litigation.
Lesson Learnt
A Supreme Court review petition is not a second chance to re-argue a case on its merits; it succeeds only where there is a glaring, self-evident error in the earlier order, and delay in filing it can be excused but will not help if that threshold isn't met.