MILAP CHORARIA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A Public Interest Litigation was filed in this Court by the petitioner praying to declare Section 5 (1) (c) read with Section 5 (2) of the Citizens Act, 1955 ultra vires of the Constitution as it permitted the authorities to grant and confirm citizenship of India to respondent no.6, Smt. Sonia Gandhi contrary to the fact that her allegiance to the Constitution of Italy is irrevocable, unequivocal and undoubtedly acknowledged. He further prayed that both respondents no.6 and 7 should be disqualified to be members of either House of Parliament in terms of Article 102 of the Constitution of India, besides praying for other reliefs. This writ petition came up for hearing before a Division Bench (consisting of Acting Chief Justice and Justice S.N. Aggarwal) which by a reasoned order dated 9.5.2006, dismissed the said petition with costs of Rs. 10,000/- to be paid to the Legal Services Authority.

(2.) The petitioner did not challenge the order of the Division Bench before the Supreme Court. However, he filed a miscellaneous petition CM NO. 3312/2007 stating that there could have been some linguistic communication gap between the petitioner and the Court; he might have failed to place the correct pleadings in relation to his petition and, therefore, the order dated 9.5.2006 inclusive of imposition of costs be recalled. The petitioner filed some documents on 6.12.2006 in the Registry of this Court. He also filed a copy of the judgment in the case of Rashtriya Mukti Morcha vs. Union of India and Anr. WPC NO. 2960/1999 and CM NO. 9837/2005 decided on 24.11.2006. On 8.1.2007, he filed a CM No.948/2007 seeking permission to place written submissions on record and thereafter filed the present application on 20.2.2007. In this application, he has made certain misrepresentations in regard to basic facts. Vide order dated 8.12.2006, CM Nos. 11951/2006 and 11950/2006 which were listed on that date, were adjourned to another date. Both the applications were filed after the order of dismissal. The written submissions which the petitioner claims to have filed, were directed to be placed on record vide order dated 12.1.2007. The Court had, at no point of time, issued notice on any of these applications, as is evident from the order dated 9.2.2007, still, the respondents/non-applicants referred to the judgment which had been filed by the petitioner himself i.e. in the case of Rashtriya Mukti Morcha and stated that no controversy in any case would survive after the pronouncement of the judgment whereby the same very question was answered by the Court and the writ petition was also dismissed.

(3.) The application which has been filed by the petitioner in the garb of provisions of Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure is in fact an application for review and recalling of the order dated 9.5.2006 vide which the writ petition was dismissed in limine by the Court. The correctness and legality of this order has not been questioned by the petitioner before the appropriate Court. On the basis of the averments made in the application, the same is neither maintainable in law nor would call for interference even on merits of the case. The provisions of Order 47 Rule 1 are not intended to have a rehearing of the matter on merits merely because according to the petitioner, the Court has not appreciated contentions of the petitioner in accordance with law. The application for review essentially must fall within the ambit of Order 47 Rule 1 CPC and satisfy the ingredients of a review application in consonance with the settled cannons of law. At this stage, we may also refer to a recent judgment of the Division Bench of this Court in the case of Nb. Sub. Raj Pal Singh vs. UOI and Others RP No. 307/2006 and CM Nos. 10708-10709/2006 in WP(C) No. 2745/2003 where while discussing the scope of the review, the court held as under:-