Review Petition Under Order XLVII CPC — Grounds and Procedure for Civil Review

This article is for educational and legal awareness purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice or solicitation. Please consult a qualified advocate for advice on specific legal matters.

Overview

A review petition is a request to the very court that passed a decree or order, asking it to reconsider its own decision — not because the decision is thought wrong on the merits, but because one of a narrow, defined set of things has gone wrong. In civil matters, this power is found in Section 114 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC), read with the procedural provisions of Order XLVII CPC. Because review disturbs the finality of a judicial decision, courts treat it as an exception, confined to the grounds Order XLVII itself spells out. This article sets out those grounds, what falls outside them, the court with jurisdiction, the limitation period, the procedure, and how review differs from an appeal or a revision.

Statutory Basis: Section 114 Read With Order XLVII CPC

Section 114 CPC provides that any person considering himself aggrieved —

by a decree or order from which an appeal is allowed by the Code, but from which no appeal has been preferred;
by a decree or order from which no appeal is allowed by the Code; or
by a decision on a reference from a Court of Small Causes,

may apply for a review of judgment to the court which passed the decree or made the order, and that court may make such order on the application as it thinks fit.

Section 114 itself is an enabling provision — it confers the power but does not lay down when it may be exercised. That is done by Order XLVII Rule 1 CPC, which confines an application for review to three specific grounds. Any person considering himself aggrieved by a decree or order may apply for review where —

there has been the discovery of new and important matter or evidence which, after the exercise of due diligence, was not within the applicant’s knowledge or could not be produced by the applicant at the time the decree was passed or the order made;
there is a mistake or error apparent on the face of the record; or
there is any other sufficient reason.

The Three Grounds Explained

1. Discovery of New and Important Matter or Evidence

Two conditions must both be satisfied: the matter or evidence must be new and important — capable of materially affecting the outcome — and its absence at the original hearing must not be attributable to a lack of due diligence on the applicant’s part. Evidence that existed and was available, but was not produced because a party did not look for it or chose not to rely on it, does not qualify. The rule protects matter that genuinely surfaces later despite reasonable diligence, not a second opportunity to build a better case.

2. Mistake or Error Apparent on the Face of the Record

This is the ground most frequently invoked, and also the one courts scrutinise most closely. In State of West Bengal v. Kamal Sengupta, (2008) 8 SCC 612, the Supreme Court, examining Order XLVII Rule 1, reiterated the settled position that an error apparent on the face of the record must be self-evident — apparent on a mere look at the record, without any process of reasoning or long-drawn argument needed to discover it. If establishing the “error” requires weighing competing interpretations or extended legal reasoning, it is not an error apparent on the face of the record. The same formulation was applied in Parsion Devi and others v. Sumitri Devi and others, (1997) 8 SCC 715, where the Court held that an error which is not self-evident, and has to be detected by a process of reasoning, can hardly be said to be an error apparent on the face of the record.

3. Any Other Sufficient Reason

In Kamal Sengupta, the Supreme Court explained that “any other sufficient reason” must be interpreted in light of the two specified grounds preceding it — the reason relied upon must be sufficient on grounds at least analogous to discovery of new evidence or an error apparent on the face of the record. A generalised grievance that the court “got it wrong,” without more, does not amount to sufficient reason within the meaning of the rule.

What Does NOT Qualify: Review Is Not an Appeal in Disguise

The single most important limiting principle here is that a review is not a rehearing of the case on its merits. In Parsion Devi, the Supreme Court held: “A review is by no means an appeal in disguise whereby an erroneous decision is reheard and corrected, but lies only for patent error.” Kamal Sengupta reaffirmed the same limitation, holding that a review petition “has a limited purpose and cannot be allowed to be ‘an appeal in disguise,’” and that a court cannot sit in appeal over its own judgment while exercising review power.

The following do not qualify as grounds for review, however genuinely felt:

A belief that the court misapplied settled law to the facts, without a self-evident error on the face of the record.
Re-arguing points already argued and considered at the original hearing, or raising fresh arguments or case law that could have been raised then.
General dissatisfaction with the reasoning or outcome, absent one of the three specified grounds.
Evidence available at the time of the original hearing but simply not produced.

A litigant aggrieved on these broader grounds has a remedy — but it is an appeal (where one lies), not a review before the same court.

Which Court Reviews the Order

Section 114 CPC is explicit: the application lies to “the Court which passed the decree or made the order.” Review is not a hierarchical remedy moving from a subordinate court to a superior one — it stays within the same court, ordinarily before the same judge. This is a defining structural difference from both appeal and revision, discussed below.

Limitation: 30 Days Under Article 124 of the Limitation Act, 1963

Article 124 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, 1963 prescribes a limitation period of 30 days for “a review of judgment by a court other than the Supreme Court,” running from the date of the decree or order sought to be reviewed. This is markedly shorter than the limitation ordinarily available for a first appeal, underscoring that review is meant to be invoked promptly against a specific, identifiable defect — not used as a fallback once the time to appeal has lapsed. An application filed beyond 30 days requires a separate application for condonation of delay under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963, supported by sufficient cause, before the review itself can be entertained on merits.

Procedure for Filing a Review Petition

Where to file: The application is presented to the same court that passed the decree or order, ordinarily before the same judge, where available, on the reasoning that this judge is best placed to assess whether the rule’s grounds are made out.
Contents of the application: It must specifically identify the decree or order under challenge and state precisely which Order XLVII Rule 1 ground is relied upon and how the facts fit it. An application that merely restates the case argued at the original hearing, without a specific error apparent on the record or new evidence meeting the due-diligence test, is liable to be rejected at the threshold.
Disposal: An application disclosing no sufficient ground is rejected. If a case is made out, the review is granted and the decree or order is reopened for reconsideration on the specific point covered by that ground — not for a fresh hearing on all issues.
Appeal from the order on review: Under Order XLVII Rule 7 CPC, an order rejecting a review application is not appealable; an order granting review may be objected to by an appeal from that order, or in an appeal from the decree or order finally passed after the review is heard.
No second review on the same ground: Successive review applications on the same point, after an earlier review has been rejected, are not permitted.

Review, Appeal, and Revision — How They Differ

These three remedies are often confused, but they operate on different logic:

	Review	Appeal	Revision
Forum	Same court that passed the order	Superior/appellate court	Sessions Court or High Court (criminal), supervisory jurisdiction
Scope	The three Order XLVII Rule 1 grounds only	Full reconsideration of facts, evidence, and law	Legality, propriety, regularity — not re-appreciation of evidence
Object	Correct a specific, patent defect	Correct any error of fact or law via substantive rehearing	Correct jurisdictional error or gross illegality
Limitation	30 days (Article 124, Limitation Act, 1963)	Separate articles depending on forum and decree	Governed by the applicable procedural code

This civil review petition should not be confused with a criminal revision petition — a distinct remedy under Section 438 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (erstwhile Section 397 CrPC), invoked before the Sessions Judge or High Court against orders of subordinate criminal courts, governed by an entirely separate statutory scheme.

Review in Writ Jurisdiction

Order XLVII Rule 1 CPC applies, in terms, to decrees and orders passed by civil courts in suits. Whether a High Court can review its own orders passed in writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution — where the CPC does not directly govern the proceeding — was settled by the Supreme Court in Shivdeo Singh and others v. State of Punjab and others, AIR 1963 SC 1909, which held that nothing in Article 226 precludes a High Court from exercising the power of review — a power that “inheres in every court of plenary jurisdiction,” to prevent a miscarriage of justice or correct a grave and palpable error it has itself committed.

In practice, High Courts — including the Allahabad High Court — entertain review applications against their own writ-jurisdiction orders on principles analogous to Order XLVII CPC, even though a writ proceeding is not a “suit” governed directly by the Code: review remains confined to a patent error, diligently unavailable new material, or an analogous sufficient reason, not a fresh hearing on merits. A litigant considering review of a writ order before the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench or otherwise, should consult the applicable Rules of the Court and current practice directions.

Practical Points

File within 30 days of the decree or order (Article 124, Limitation Act, 1963) — considerably shorter than the time ordinarily available for a first appeal; delay needs a separate condonation application under Section 5 of that Act.
State the specific Order XLVII Rule 1 ground relied upon and how the facts fit it — an application that merely restates the original arguments is liable to be rejected at the threshold.
An order rejecting a review application is not itself appealable under Order XLVII Rule 7 CPC; an order granting review may be challenged in appeal.

Useful Resources

Disclaimer: The information provided on this website is for general legal awareness and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, advertisement, or solicitation. No reader should act or refrain from acting based on this information without seeking professional legal counsel. Advocate Akhil Singh and this website are not liable for any actions taken based on the content provided herein.