LAHORE: Review plea must have new legal points: SC
By Our Correspondent
LAHORE, Jan 3: A full bench of the Supreme Court has held that re-agitating the same issue as raised in an appeal does not formulate a review petition which must have new legal points that the court has not discussed or adjudicated earlier.
Comprising justices Mian Mohammad Ajmal, Khalilur Rehman Ramday and Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, the bench reiterated the principles laid down for a review petition holding that every Supreme Court judgment was presumed to be final and binding on all points raised in a case and, if the court had taken a conscious and deliberate decision on a point of law, a review petition would not be filed.
Citing the PLD 1998 SC 363, the bench pointed out that the plea that the view canvassed in the review petition was more reasonable than the view finding favour with the court in its judgment, was not sufficient to sustain a review petition.
The judgment, which dismissed the review petition that requested for a second thought from the apex court on its decision in the issue pertaining to the award of compensation for the land appropriated for the Allama Iqbal Town, has been reported as the Mohammad Aslam Sukhera vs the Collector, Land Acquisition (PLD 2005 Supreme Court 45).
The judgment given on Oct 15 last but was reserved. According to the case facts, the defunct Lahore Improvement Trust appropriated 15 kanals and 15 marlas of land at Bhekewal village belonging to Aslam Sukhera and others for the development of Allama Iqbal Town. The land acquisition collector gave compensation in March 1975 on a petition by the owners.
The owners filed an appeal and a tribunal of the LDA, which succeeded the LIT, enhanced the amount of compensation. Another petition for further enhancement was rejected by the tribunal in May, 1977.
They moved the Lahore High Court which dismissed the petition in October, 1995. The land owners filed a leave to appeal which the Supreme Court dismissed in 1996. They filed a review petition which has now been dismissed because it did not raise new legal points and reiterated the points which were agitated in the leave to appeal.
Petitioners' counsel Talib Razvi submitted that the bar on intra-court appeals as provided by Section 3(2) of the Land Reforms Act, 1972, was not attracted. He submitted that the review petition would be admissible where the court decision was wrong because some points had been overlooked.
Assistant Advocate-General Raja Abdur Rehman submitted that the review petition had raised the issues already agitated in the leave to appeal. Citing the case of Haji Saifullah (PLD 1990 SC 79), he submitted that the petitioners were not entitled to re-agitate the same points.
Taking up the vires of the legality of the tribunal award and decree under the Land Reforms Act, the bench held that the word "original" was susceptible to different meanings in the context of a particular statute.
It did not always mean "first in order". The expression "original order" in the context of Section 3(2) of the act, wan used in a generic sense in contradiction to orders passed in appeal, revision or review.
Referring to Haji Saifullah's case, the court observed that the mere interpretation of the petitioners that the earlier order suffered from error and the decision was not founded on ground raised in the appeal, could not be considered as a ground for a review petition.
