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REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

Special Leave Petition (Civil) NO.4616 of 2010  

Municipal Corporation of Delhi   .. Petitioner

Versus

Yashwant Singh Negi .. Respondent  

 J U D G M E N T  

K. S. Radhakrishnan, J

1. This special  leave petition has been preferred against  the  

order  dated  11.09.2009  passed  by  the  High  Court  of  Delhi  in  

Review Petition   No.79 of  2009  in  LPA  No.1233  of  2006.   Mr.  

Nidhesh  Gupta,  learned  senior  counsel  appearing  for  the  

respondent raised a preliminary objection that the special leave  

petition is not maintainable  since the main judgment rendered by  

the  High  Court  on 5.11.2008 in  LPA  No.1233 of  2006 was not  

challenged.

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2. Mr. Sanjiv Sen, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner  

placed  considerable  reliance  on  the  judgment  of  this  Court  in  

Eastern Coalfields Limited v. Dugal Kumar (2008) 14 SCC 295  

and submitted that the said judgment would apply to the facts of  

this case and the SLP is perfectly maintainable, even though the  

petitioner  had not  challenged the  original  order  passed by the  

High  Court  on  5.11.2008.   Learned  counsel  submitted  that  on  

dismissal of the review petition, the earlier order stood merged, in  

the order passed in the review petition, consequently, the SLP is  

perfectly  maintainable.   Considerable  reliance  was  placed  on  

paragraphs  21  and  22  of  the  above  Judgment,  which  read  as  

under:

“21. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties,  in our opinion, the appeal deserves to be partly allowed.  So far as the technical objection raised by the Company  with regard to territorial jurisdiction of the High Court of  Calcutta is concerned, in our opinion, it  would not be  appropriate to set aside the order passed in favour of  the writ petitioner on that ground. It is clear from the  record  that  the  writ  petition  came  up  for  admission  hearing on 6-9-1999 and the counsel for the appellant  Company was present. Not only that he did not raise  any objection as to territorial jurisdiction of the court, he  expressly made a statement before the court to pass  “usual  order”.  Accordingly,  an  order  was  passed  directing  the  Company  to  allot  “balance  quantity  of  1008  MT”  of  coal  to  the  writ  petitioner.  We  are,  therefore,  unable  to  uphold  the  contention  of  the

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learned  counsel  for  the  appellant  Company  that  the  High Court of Calcutta had no territorial jurisdiction to  entertain the writ petition.

22. But we are also unable to uphold the contention of  the writ petitioner that the appeal is not maintainable  since the Company had challenged the order passed in  review petition dated 28-1-2002 and not the main order  dated 17-2-2000 dismissing intra-court appeal.”

3. We find ourselves unable to agree with the views expressed  

by this Court in Eastern Coalfields Limited (supra).  In our view,  

once the High Court has refused to entertain the review petition  

and the same was dismissed confirming the main order, there is  

no  question  of  any  merger  and  the  aggrieved  person  has  to  

challenge the main order and not the order dismissing the review  

petition  because  on  the  dismissal  of  the  review  petition  the  

principle of merger does not apply.  In this connection reference  

may  be  made  to  the  Judgment  of  this  Court  in  Manohar S/o  

Shankar  Nale  and  others v.  Jaipalsing  S/o  Shivlalsing  

Rajput and others (2008)  1  SCC 520 wherein  this  Court  has  

taken  the  view that  once  the  review petition  is  dismissed  the  

doctrine  of  merger  will  have  no  application  whatsoever.   This  

Court in  DSR Steel (Private) Limited v.  State of Rajasthan  

and  others (2012)  6  SCC  782  also  examined  the  various

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situations which might arise in relation to the orders passed in  

review petitions.  Reference to paragraphs 25, 25.1, 25.2 and 25.3  

is made, which are extracted below for ready reference:

“25. Different situations may arise in relation to review  petitions filed before a court or tribunal.

25.1. One of the situations could be where the review  application is allowed, the decree or order passed by the  court  or  tribunal  is  vacated  and  the   appeal/proceedings  in  which  the  same  is  made  are  reheard and a fresh decree or order passed in the same.  It  is  manifest  that  in  such  a  situation the  subsequent  decree alone is appealable not because it is an order in  review but  because it  is  a  decree that  is  passed in  a  proceeding after the earlier decree passed in the very  same  proceedings  has  been  vacated  by  the  court  hearing the review petition.

25.2. The second situation that one can conceive of is  where a  court  or  tribunal  makes an order  in  a  review  petition by which the review petition is allowed and the  decree/order under review is reversed or modified. Such  an order shall  then be a composite order whereby the  court not only vacates the earlier  decree or order but  simultaneous with such vacation of the earlier decree or  order,  passes another  decree or  order  or  modifies the  one made  earlier.  The decree  so  vacated  reversed  or  modified  is  then  the  decree  that  is  effective  for  the  purposes of a further appeal, if any, maintainable under  law.

25.3. The third situation with which we are concerned in  the  instant  case  is  where  the  revision petition is  filed  before the Tribunal but the Tribunal refuses to interfere  with the decree or order earlier made. It simply dismisses  the review petition. The decree in  such a case suffers

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neither any reversal nor an alteration or modification. It  is  an  order  by  which  the  review petition  is  dismissed  thereby  affirming  the  decree  or  order.  In  such  a  contingency  there  is  no  question  of  any  merger  and  anyone aggrieved by the decree or order of the Tribunal  or  court  shall  have  to  challenge  within  the  time  stipulated by law, the original decree and not the order  dismissing the review petition. Time taken by a party in  diligently pursing the remedy by way of review may in  appropriate cases be excluded from consideration while  condoning the delay in the filing of the appeal, but such  exclusion or condonation would not imply that there is a  merger of the original decree and the order dismissing  the review petition.”   

4. We are in complete agreement with the principle laid down  

by  this  Court  in  DSR  Steel  (Private)  Limited (supra)  and  

applying the 3rd situation referred to therein in paragraph 25.3, we  

are inclined to dismiss this special leave petition.  We find force in  

the contention made by the learned senior counsel appearing for  

the respondent that this SLP is not maintainable, since the main  

order was not challenged but only the order passed in the review  

petition  alone  was  challenged  in  this  SLP.   Hence,  the  SLP  is,  

therefore, not maintainable and the same is dismissed.      

……………………………..J. (K.S. Radhakrishnan)

……………………………..J.

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(Dipak Misra) New Delhi, April 08, 2013