Why Patna High Court imposed Rs 100 costs on litigant who sought review of its decade-old order on land dispute

What was the case?

• The dispute concerns a piece of land in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district.
• The petitioner had earlier filed a title suit, which was decided in his favour by the trial court in 1997.
• The decision was upheld on appeal in 1999.
• However, the high court, in its judgment dated September 27, 2013, set aside the concurrent findings of the courts below and dismissed the plaintiff’s suit.
• The court had then observed that the lower courts had approached the matter from the wrong angle and failed to consider settled principles of law relating to title and adverse possession.
• The 2013 judgment was challenged before the Supreme Court which came to be dismissed on February 7, 2014, and the order read: “The special leave petition is dismissed”.

• The petitioner, thereafter, filed a plea against the construction of a boundary wall. The writ petition was disposed of, allowing the petitioner to file a civil review.
• The counsel for the petitioner argued that the order passed by the apex court was not a reasoned one and that the doctrine of merger will not apply.
• The doctrine of merger is a legal principle where a lower court’s judgment, upon appeal, is absorbed into the superior court’s final decision. This ensures that only one operative, binding order governs a specific subject matter, maintaining judicial hierarchy and legal certainty.
• The counsel for the petitioner relied on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kunhayammed and Others v State of Kerala and another, contending that the dismissal of a special leave petition (SLP) without reasons does not attract the doctrine of merger and therefore would not bar a review before the high court.

What the court held

• Admittedly, a reasoned order was passed by a bench of this court in 2013.
• The petitioner has not challenged the same on the ground of any perversity or error of record.
• He challenged the said order before the apex court, which was also dismissed. No liberty was given to file any review.
• With the passing of the aforesaid order by the apex court, the case should have attained finality.
• However, suppressing the aforesaid facts, the petitioner sent a letter to the office of the Prime Minister, Government of India which was forwarded to the state government for appropriate action.
• It has to be recorded that in the communication to the Prime Minister, the petitioner knowingly suppressed the legal battles that he fought but ultimately lost.
• The counsel for the petitioner has not pointed out any perversity in the order and/or error of record warranting filing of the present civil review petition.

• So far as the order passed by the apex court in the case of Kunhayammed is concerned, state counsel has rightly pointed out that as per the Supreme Court, when the petition is dismissed without any reasoned order, it shows that the said order is not the law of the Supreme Court and parties are not prevented from litigating any further case between them.
• However, this certainly does not allow the parties to re-open the same issue again and again once the order passed by the high court was not interfered with by the Supreme Court.
• Though the earlier bench of this court chose not to impose any costs, taking into account that the petitioner belongs to a Scheduled Caste community, this court does not deem it fit and proper to let him escape, once again, for such misuse.
• However, the counsel for the petitioner submits that he genuinely belongs to the lowest strata of society and as such, a lenient view may be taken in imposing the cost.
• Considering the aforesaid submission, the petition stands dismissed with a token cost of Rs 100 to be deposited with the Patna High Court Legal Services Committee within a week.