- (1.)Vide order dated 21 st March, 2012, IA No.6871/2011, filed by the petitioner was allowed, subject to payment of Rs.50,000/- as cost and the Additional Affidavit filed by him was taken on record. Vide Review Petition No.268/2012, the respondent No.1 is seeking review of the aforesaid order primarily on the following grounds:-
i) The proposition of law propounded by the Court in the order dated 21 st March, 2012 to the effect that the court ought to give opportunity to the petitioner to amend the plaint or amplify the material facts was erroneous and against the law laid down by the Supreme Court, since in none of the judgments, the Supreme Court said that the delay was immaterial in allowing the amendment;

ii) In the present case even material facts are missing and therefore there was no question of amplifying the same since the material facts cannot be supplied after expiry of the period of limitation;

iii) The petitioner has not disclosed the source of information in respect of commission of the alleged corrupt practices and the verification of the Additional Affidavit of the petitioner does not meet the requirement of law;

iv) The court did not consider the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Bhagwan Das vs. Thakur Das, 2000 84 DLT 57 where the Election Petition was dismissed for non-disclosure of material facts;

v) The reliance by the Court upon Mahendra Pal vs. Ram Dass Malanger & Ors., 2000 AIR(SC) 16 was misplaced since the petitioner had not obtained any permission to file the Additional Affidavit;

vi) Because the contents of the Additional Affidavit cannot be treated as material particulars;

vii) Because the Additional Affidavit has been filed by the petitioner in a surreptitious and covert manner;

viii) Because there is an error apparent on the face of the record in the impugned order by brushing aside undue delay of 900 days by holding that permission to give particulars cannot be rejected merely on account of delay;

ix) Because the Supreme Court has held in Dhartipakar Madan Lal Agarwal vs. Rajiv Gandhi, 1987 AIR(SC) 1577 that casting more than ones does not amount to a corrupt practice;

x) Because Supreme Court has held in Ram Sukh vs. Dinesh Agarwal, 2009 10 SCC 541 held that no cause of action arises if material facts are missing;

The review petition has been opposed by the petitioner.

(2.)A Review Petition would lie primarily if there is a mistake or error apparent on the face of the record or some new and important matter or evidence is discovered which after exercise of due diligence was not in the knowledge of the review petitioner or could not be produced by him at the time when the order was passed. In Thungabhadra Industries Ltd. vs. Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, 1964 AIR(SC) 1372, the order of September, 1959 contained a statement that the case did not involve any substantial question of law. It was held that even if the aforesaid statement was wrong, it would not follow that it was an error apparent on the face of the record because a mere erroneous decision could not be characterized as vitiated by error apparent. It was held that a review is not an appeal in disguise whereby an erroneous decision is reheard and corrected but lies only for patent error. In Parsion Devi & Ors v. Sumitri Devi & Ors, 1997 8 SCC 715, the Supreme Court held that an error which is not self-evident and has to be detected by a process of reasoning can hardly be said an error apparent on the face of the record, justifying the court to exercise its power of review under Order 47 Rule 1 of CPC. It was further held that in exercise of the jurisdiction under Order 47 Rule 1 of CPC, is not permissible for an erroneous decision to be re-heard and corrected.
In REJENDRA KUMAR V. RAMBHAI, 2007 15 SCC 513, the Supreme Court held that in the absence of an error apparent on the face of the record, the finality attached to the judgment/order cannot be disturbed. In Inder Chand Jain v. Motilal, 2009 14 SCC 663, the Supreme Court held that the review Court does not sit in appeal over its own order and re-hearing of the matter is not permissible in law.

(3.)A perusal of Para 6 of the order dated 21.3.2012 would show that the Court, while passing the said order considered the case of respondent No.1 that the Election Petition lacks material facts and falls short of mandatory requirement of Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act. It was also noted that the Additional Affidavit had been filed only after respondent No.1 had filed IA No.7208/2010 for dismissal of the Election Petition on the ground that it does not contain material particulars. The Court also considered the allegations that the Additional Affidavit had been filed in a surreptitious manner without seeking permission of the Court. The Court also took note of the contention of respondent No.1 that there was failure on the part of the petitioner to explain the delay in filing the Additional Affidavit and the Election Petition was liable to be rejected for want of material particulars since the lacunae in the Election Petition could not be filled by way of an Additional Affidavit. It would, therefore, not be correct to say that the contention of respondent No.1 have not been taken into consideration while passing the order dated 21 st March, 2012. If the respondent No.1 is aggrieved on account of the Court not accepting his above-referred contentions, the proper remedy for him is to file an appeal against the order dated 21 st March, 2012 and a Review Petition is not the appropriate remedy.