Vimla Devi v. Chhabiram

Special Leave Petition (Civil) · 2021 INSC 736Decided 16 Nov 2021
Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 12937 of 2020
Justice Uday Umesh Lalit · Justice Hemant Gupta · Justice S. Ravindra Bhat

Background

In the underlying civil dispute, the High Court had earlier allowed a Second Appeal and restored the judgment and order originally passed by the Trial Court (the order itself does not describe the nature of the underlying dispute). The petitioner's Special Leave Petition challenging that High Court decision was heard and dismissed by the Supreme Court, with the Court affirming the view taken by the High Court. The petitioner then filed this Review Petition, seeking reconsideration of that dismissal, with a 45-day delay in filing it.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court condoned the 45-day delay in filing the review petition and dismissed the petitioner's separate application seeking an open-court hearing of the review. On the merits of the review itself, the Court held that the grounds raised did not disclose any "error apparent on the face of the record" that could justify interfering with its earlier decision dismissing the Special Leave Petition. The Review Petition was accordingly dismissed, finally confirming the earlier outcome.

Lesson Learnt

A review petition is not a second opportunity to re-argue a case on its merits: it succeeds only where there is a clear, self-evident error on the face of the record, and mere disagreement with the earlier outcome is not a valid ground for review.

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