Review is Not a Rehearing: SC Quashes HC Order on Judicial Recruitment

In a significant ruling that serves as a critical reminder of the boundaries of judicial power, the Supreme Court of India recently set aside an order from the Madhya Pradesh High Court in the case of High Court of Madhya Pradesh & Anr. vs. Jyotsna Dohalia & Anr.

The core issue was straightforward: can a High Court, using its power of "review," effectively re-hear a case and substitute its own opinion for that of another bench that already decided the matter?

The Supreme Court's answer was a resounding no, delivering a sharp lesson on the difference between a review and an appeal. This case emerged from a tangled judicial recruitment process. After the eligibility rules for becoming a Civil Judge in Madhya Pradesh were amended, their legality was challenged.

To prevent the recruitment from stalling, the Supreme Court permitted all candidates to take the preliminary exam provisionally.

However, two candidates, Jyotsna Dohalia and another, scored just below the cut-off mark. Their initial petition, arguing that the cut-off would drop once ineligible candidates were removed, was dismissed by the High Court, which found their argument speculative.

Instead of appealing this dismissal to the Supreme Court, the candidates filed a review petition before the High Court itself.

Surprisingly, a different bench of the High Court agreed to review the case. This review bench not only recalled the earlier dismissal but also ordered a drastic remedy: exclude ineligible candidates, recalculate the cut-off, and conduct a fresh main examination.

This decision threw the entire recruitment process into disarray and prompted the High Court's own administration to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's analysis was unequivocal. It held that the High Court had grossly exceeded its review jurisdiction.

The Court clarified that a review is not a disguised appeal; it is an exceptional remedy reserved for correcting glaring, obvious errors that are apparent on the face of the record.

It cannot be used to re-examine issues that were already argued and decided, which is precisely what the review bench had done.

By re-evaluating the same factual contention about the cut-off marks which the first bench had already rejected the review bench had effectively sat in appeal over its own colleague's judgment, an act that was legally impermissible.

The Supreme Court's intervention in this case was necessary to prevent the recruitment process from descending into endless litigation and to reaffirm the distinct and limited scope of a court's power to review its own decisions.