A review cannot reopen a judgment to introduce evidence never pleaded or led.

R.H. Ramanna sued Nanjundappa and others for declaration of title and permanent injunction over agricultural land.

The trial court decreed the suit; the First Appellate Court set aside the injunction but upheld the declaration of title and directed Nanjundappa to deliver possession.

The High Court dismissed Nanjundappa’s second appeal on 20 February 2026.

In review, Nanjundappa relied on a registered gift deed allegedly executed in his favour in 1964 and a related mutation entry, which he said he had discovered after the second appeal was dismissed.

He sought to introduce those documents as additional evidence, asserting that they were previously unknown to him despite due diligence.

He had not pleaded the gift deed in his written statement; his defence had relied on a Will.

1. Whether the alleged discovery of the 1964 gift deed and mutation entry justified review as new and important evidence that could not, despite due diligence, have been produced earlier

2. Whether the second-appeal judgment disclosed an error apparent on the face of the record warranting review

3. Whether the gift deed and mutation entry should be received as additional evidence in the review proceedings

Section 114 and Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 permit review on specified grounds, including discovery of new and important matter or evidence which, despite due diligence, was not within the applicant’s knowledge or could not have been produced earlier, or an error apparent on the face of the record.

Review is limited in scope: it is not an appeal in disguise and cannot be used to rehear a matter, correct an allegedly erroneous decision, or substitute a different view.

The judgment also notes that the earlier second appeal addressed the alleged Will and relied on Bharpur Singh v. Shamsher Singh, (2009) 3 SCC 687, concerning suspicious circumstances surrounding a Will.

The Court held that the gift deed did not furnish a basis for review because Nanjundappa had not pleaded its execution in his written statement, led no evidence about it, and had relied instead on the alleged Will in the original proceedings.

The documents’ later discovery did not, in the Court’s view, permit the review jurisdiction to be used to reopen the case; their absence from the earlier proceedings did not establish an error apparent in the judgment under review.

Accordingly, the application to produce additional evidence was rejected.

It dismissed the application for production of additional evidence, but allowed the application to condone the 88-day delay in filing the review petition.