LI Network
Published on: December 06, 2023 at 12:36 IST
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has imposed a cost of ₹50,000 on the State for filing multiple review petitions on the same factual basis.
The court observed that a litigant cannot adopt inconsistent stands and misuse the review process by repetitively raising points previously abandoned.
The State, as the review petitioner, sought to challenge a judgment favoring the respondent in a writ petition, directing the State to take over the respondent’s services as a Lecturer in Economics from September 14, 2006. Following the State’s appeal (LPA) against this judgment, resolved on October 30, 2018, a review petition was later filed, alleging that the respondent lacked the necessary educational qualifications.
The review petition was granted on August 20, 2021, leading to the restoration of the LPA to its original number. However, a second review petition was subsequently filed by the State, reiterating the claim of the respondent’s supposed lack of qualifications under the Recruitment & Promotion Rules.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Jyotsna Rewal Dua stated, “A litigant cannot be permitted to take inconsistent, contradictory & shifting stands in the same case at his whims & fancies. It is not open for a litigant to keep re-thinking back and forth after the pronouncement of the judgment in order to have it reviewed multiple times on the same ground. No case for review is made out.”
The court noted that the ground for the current review was the same as the one given up by the review petitioner during the hearing of the LPA.
The Court dismissed the review petition, citing the lack of a case for review and the delay of 207 days in filing it.
The court expressed confusion over why the review petitioner filed a second review petition on the same ground and imposed a cost of ₹50,000, to be deposited within three weeks.
Case Title: State Of H.P. v. Chaman Lal Bali & Ors.
