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Himachal Pradesh High Court · body

2011 DIGILAW 1543 (HP)

Bhag Singh v. Karan Singh

2011-03-21

DEEPAK GUPTA, V.K.AHUJA

body2011
JUDGMENT Per Deepak Gupta, J. 1. By means of this review petition, the petitioners seek recall of the judgment dated 6.1.2010. The main dispute in the case is, whether the persons who were employed as Patwaris without qualifying the Patwar Circle Examination should be granted any seniority prior to the period when they qualified such an examination or not. This Court after considering the rules and regulations issued certain directions and directed the State to recast the final seniority list in terms of the directions which reads as follows:- “In case of persons appointed on the same date, the persons who had already qualified the patwar circle examination will rank en bloc 'senior' to the candidates who had not qualified the patwar circle examination but were appointed in relaxation of the Rules. Even in case of those candidates who had not qualified the patwar circle examination, the seniority shall be determined on the basis of merit prepared by the Committee which made the appointment and in case no merit was prepared then the elder in age will be treated as senior. Date of passing of the patwar examination will have no relevance to fixation of the seniority. In case of Patwaris appointed on different dates, the Patwaris even if not qualified who were appointed on a prior date will be granted seniority from the date of appointment and they shall not be placed junior to duly qualified Patwaris appointed later but who may have qualified the patwar examination on an earlier date.” 2. The case of the petitioners is that this Court has totally misconstrued Rule 3 of Appendix E and according to the petitioners this rule applied only to those persons who were employed as patwaris prior to the year 1949 when the rules were promulgated. There is no doubt that this Court has not dealt with Rule 3 of the said appendix in this light, but the fact remains that even after the rules were promulgated persons who had not qualified the patwar circle examination were recruited as patwaris. Therefore, we had issued the directions hereinabove. 3. The power of review can be exercised only when there is an error apparent on the face of the record. Our judgment may be right or wrong, but it cannot be said that there is an error apparent on the face of the record. Therefore, we had issued the directions hereinabove. 3. The power of review can be exercised only when there is an error apparent on the face of the record. Our judgment may be right or wrong, but it cannot be said that there is an error apparent on the face of the record. Assuming for the sake of argument that we have mis-interpreted Clause 3 of the appendix, this at best would mean that there is an error of judgment, but cannot be said to be an error apparent on the face of the record. Therefore, the power of review cannot be exercised in such a case. The petition is accordingly dismissed. No costs.