Definition
Re-examination by same court.
Court reviews its own judgment to correct error.
Statutory Definition
Section 114 CPC.
Etymology & Origin
To view again. The legal process where the exact same judge or bench looks at their own judgment a second time to spot an obvious mistake.
Full Legal Analysis
A Review Petition is an application filed by an aggrieved party asking the very same court (and ideally the same judge) that passed a judgment or order to reconsider it. Unlike an appeal (which goes to a higher court), a review stays in the court that made the original decision.
Because a judge has already spent time deciding the case, a review is not allowed just because the losing party wants to re-argue their points. It is strictly limited to curing glaring, obvious mistakes.
An 'error apparent on the face of the record' means a mistake so obvious that it doesn't require a long, complex argument to prove it—for example, if the judge applied an old law that had been repealed, or completely ignored a binding Supreme Court precedent cited during arguments.
The Supreme Court strongly asserted that review proceedings have a highly restricted jurisdiction. A review is by no means an 'appeal in disguise' where an erroneous decision can be reheard and corrected.
Advocates file review petitions sparingly. The most common success is when pointing out a typographical error in the decree (like writing the wrong property schedule) that would make the judgment impossible to execute.
This Term in Indian Statutes
Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, 1908
"Application for review of judgment... on account of some mistake or error apparent on the face of the record..."
The strict criteria required to force a judge to reconsider their own ruling.
