TAMILNADU ELECTRICITY BOARD Vs. N RAJU REDDIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is a sad spectacle that new practice unbecoming of worthy and conducive to the profession is cropping up. Mr. Mariaputham, Advocate-on-Record had filed vakalatnama for the petitioner-respondent when the special leave petition was filed. After the matter was disposed of, Mr. V. Balachandran, Advocate had filed a petition for review. That was also dismissed by this Court on April 24, 1996. Yet another advocate, Mr. S. U. K. Sugar has now been engaged to file the present application styled as "application for clarification", on the specious plea that the order is not clear and unambiguous. When an appeal/special leave petition is dismissed, except in rare cases where error of law or fact is apparent on the record, no review can be filed; that too by the advocate on record who neither appeared nor was party in the main case. It is salutary to note that Court spends valuable time in deciding a case. Review petition is not, and should not be, an attempt for hearing the matter again on merits. Unfortunately, it has become, in recent time, a practice to file such review petitions as a routine; that too, with change of counsel, without obtaining consent of the advocate on record at earlier stage. This is not conductive to healthy practice of the Bar which has the responsibility to maintain the salutary practice of profession. In Review Petition No. 2670/96 in CA No. 1867/92, A Bench of three Judges to which one of us, K. Ramaswamy. J., was a member, had held as under:

(2.) Once the petition for review is dismissed, no application for clarification should be filed, much less with the change of the advocate-on-record. This practice of changing the advocates and filing repeated petitions should be deprecated with heavy hand for purity of administration of law and salutary and healthy practice.

(3.) The application is dismissed with exemplary costs of Rs. 20,000/- as it is an abuse of the process of Court in derogation of healthy practice. The amount should be paid to the Supreme Court Legal Aid Services Committee within four months from today. If the amount is not paid, it should be recovered treating this direction as decree of the Court by the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee. The Registry is directed to communicate this order to the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee.