ORIGINAL JURISDICTION - Orissa High Court

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and (c) on account of some mistake or error apparent on the face
of record or any other sufficient reason.”
While coming to such a finding, the Hon’ble Supreme Court also referred to
some of the cases referred in this judgment earlier.
K. CHANDRA MOHANTY -V- UNION OF INDIA [L.MOHAPATRA,J.]
4. On analysis of all these decisions, one would find that power of review
is available to a court only when there is a mistake or an error apparent on
the face of the record and the power of review cannot be exercised to
correct an erroneous decision. The reasons for the Hon’ble Supreme Court
to lay down this law is that an erroneous decision is to be challenged in
appeal and the review power under Order 47, Rule 1, CPC can only be
exercised for correction of a mistake or an error which is apparent on the
face of the record. An illegal and erroneous finding whether on fact or law
cannot also be a ground for review. The power of review cannot be
exercised for rehearing on fact and law to correct an erroneous decision. If
there has been an erroneous decision, the only remedy available to the
party is to assail such decision in appeal. The scope of review is only to
correct a mistake which has crept in to the judgment and apparent on the
face of the record or in cases where some materials though available on
record, escaped the notice of the Court for some reason or other affecting in
merits of the case. In the light of the scope of review as stated above, we
now proceed to examine the grounds taken in the review petition and find
out as to whether the impugned judgment can be reviewed.
5. The review petitioner after serving as Inspector of Income Tax for more
than three years appeared in the Departmental Examination held during
June/July 1995 but the results were published on 12.2.1996. During the
period from June/July 1995 and 12.6.1996 that is the date of publication of
result, five posts of Income Tax Officer (Group-B) were sanctioned for
Orissa Region and a DPC was convened on 13.10.1995 to select Officers
for promotion to the above five posts. The Departmental Examination result
having not been published, the case of the review petitioner was not
considered. It is the case of the review petitioner that he having already
appeared in the Departmental Examination by the time the DPC was
convened, his case should have been considered by the DPC and kept in
sealed cover till publication of results of the Departmental Examination. It is
also the case of the review petitioner that on earlier occasions also
whenever any DPC had been convened in between the last date of
examination and publication of results thereof, the Department used to
convene review DPC to consider the cases of those Inspectors of Income
Tax who clear the examination and allow them promotion on
recommendation of DPC with retrospective effect, i.e., from the date on