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Sandeep v. The State of Haryana

Review Petition (Criminal) · 2021 INSC 850Decided 8 Dec 2021
Review Petition (Criminal) No. 414 of 2021 in Criminal Appeal No. 1613 of 2018
Justice Uday Umesh Lalit · Justice Ajay Rastogi

Background

In the underlying criminal appeal, the Supreme Court had earlier examined the evidence against several accused, including the petitioner, Sandeep, and a co-accused, Pradeep, and upheld their conviction and sentence, while granting the benefit of doubt and acquitting two other accused, Krishna Devi and Ishwar. Sandeep filed the present review petition asking the Court to reconsider that earlier judgment as it applied to him.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that the review petition did not point to any "error apparent on the face of the record", the narrow legal standard required to reopen a final judgment through review, and found that the original judgment had already taken all relevant circumstances into account before upholding Sandeep's conviction. On that basis, the review petition was dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

A review petition is not a second appeal or a chance to re-argue a case on its merits; courts will only reopen a final judgment where there is a clear, obvious error on the face of the record, which is a very limited and high bar to meet.

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

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