Allahabad High Court
Sharda Prasad Mishra vs State Of U.P. And Others on 10 October, 2013
Bench: B. Amit Sthalekar
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?AFR
Court No. - 27
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 60191 of 2006
Petitioner :- Sharda Prasad Mishra
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Dharam Pal Singh,N.Tripathi,S. Niranjan
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Ajai Bhanot,Nripendra Mishra
Hon'ble B. Amit Sthalekar,J.
Ref.Review Application No.172414 of 2013
This review application has been filed by Sri Sujeet Kumar Rai for reviewing the judgement of this Court dated 6.3.2013.
Heard Sri Dharmpal Singh, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Sri N.Tripathi, learned counsel for the writ petitioner.
When the case was initially heard one Sri S.K.Singh had appeared for the respondent nos.2 to 7. This review application has been filed by the learned counsel, who was not the counsel for the respondent when the judgement was passed.
The Supreme Court in the case of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and another vs. N. Raju Reddiear and another A.I.R. 1997 SC 1005 has held that review petition cannot be entertained at the behest of a counsel or a person, who had not appeared before the Court or was not party in the main case. Para-1 of the judgement reads as under:-
"1.It is a sad spectacle that a new practice unbecoming and not worthy of or conducive to the profession is cropping up. Mr. Mariaputham, Advocate-on-Record had filed vakalatnama for the petitioner-respondent when the special leave petition was filed. After the matter was disposed of, Mr. V. Balachandran, Advocate had filed a petition for review. That was also dismissed by this Court on 24-4- 1996. Yet another advocate, Mr. S.U.K. Sagar, has now been engaged to file the present application styled as "application for clarification", on the specious plea that the order is not clear and unambiguous. When an appeal/special leave petition is dismissed, except in rare cases where error of law or fact is apparent on the record, no review can be filed; that too by the Advocate-on-Record who neither appeared nor was party in the main case. It is salutary to note that the court spends valuable time in deciding a case. Review petition is not, and should not be, an attempt for hearing the matter again on merits. Unfortunately, it has become, in recent time, a practice to file such review petitions as a routine; that too, with change of counsel, without obtaining consent of the Advocate-on- Record at earlier stage. This is not conducive to healthy practice of the Bar which has the responsibility to maintain the salutary practice of profession. In Review Petition No.2670 of 1996 in CA No.1867 of 1992, a Bench of three Judges to which one of us, K. Ramaswamy,J., was a member, has held as under:
"The record of the appeal indicates that Shri Sudarsh Menon was the Advocate-on-Record when the appeal was heard and decided on merits. The review petition has been filed by Shri Prabir Chowdhury who was neither an arguing counsel when the appeal was heard nor was he present at the time of arguments. It is unknown on what basis he has written the grounds in the review petition as if it is a rehearing of an appeal against our order. He did not confine to the scope of review. It would not be in the interest of the profession to permit such practice. That part, he has not obtained " No Objection Certificate" from the Advocate-on-Record in the appeal, in spite of the fact that Registry had informed him of the requirement for doing so. Filing of the "No Objection Certificate" would be the basis for him to come on record. Otherwise, the Advocate-on-Record is answerable to the Court. The failure to obtain the "No Objection Certificate" from the erstwhile counsel has disentitled him to file the review petition. Even otherwise, the review petition has no merits. It is an attempt to reargue the matter on merits. On these grounds, we dismiss the review petition".
The review application is , therefore, not maintainable.
Even otherwise on the merit of the review petition, it is noticed that the ground no.1 of the review petition is that judgment and order dated 6.2.2012 could not be brought to the notice of the Court. In ground no.2 it has further been alleged that the petitioner had embezzled a sum of Rs.15,31,302/- but this fact could not be disputed at the time of filing of counter affidavit as well as at the time of argument. Ground Nos.3 and 4 are in the same nature as Ground No.2. Merely because judgment and order dated 6.2.2012 could not be brought to the notice of the Court is itself no ground for reviewing the judgment inasmuch as this ground cannot be said to be an error of fact or law apparent on the face of the record nor it can be said to be some fact, which has come into existence after the judgement in the writ petition has already been delivered. So far as the Grounds no.2, 3 are 4 are concerned, the fact that the matter of embezzlement could not be 'disputed' at the time of filing of the counter affidavit or at the time of argument is also no ground for reviewing the judgment of the Court being a case of ineptitude and incompetency of the respondents to dispute a particular fact at the time of filing of counter affidavit or at the time of argument. Therefore, even on merits there is no good ground for reviewing the order dated 6.3.2013.
The review application is rejected.
Order Date :- 10.10.2013
Asha
