Chhattisgarh HC Sends Panchayat Revision To Secretary For Merits Decision After Earlier Appeal Was Rejected On Maintainability

The Chief Executive Officer challenged an order dated 29 February 2012 by which the Secretary to the State Government dismissed the petitioner’s revision application, treating it as a second revision after an earlier appeal had been dismissed for want of maintainability.

The parties submitted that the issue had already been decided in WP227 No. 714/2012, where the High Court directed the Secretary to decide the revision on its merits.

In the connected service petition, WPS No. 2269/2022, the petitioner did not appear; the Court considered that disposal of the first petition left nothing to adjudicate in the connected matter.

The Court applied the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Raj Adhiniyam, 1993, read with Rules 3 and 5 of the Chhattisgarh Panchayats (Appeal and Revision) Rules, 1995.

It followed the principle stated in the earlier decision that dismissal of an appeal for want of jurisdiction or maintainability is not a dismissal on the merits and does not, by itself, bar a revision against the original order.

The parties accepted that the issue in the Chief Executive Officer’s petition was identical to the one decided in WP227 No. 714/2012. Following that decision, the Court held that the Secretary should consider and decide the revision application on its own merits, notwithstanding the earlier appeal’s dismissal on maintainability grounds.

As to the connected service petition, the petitioner did not appear, and the Court found that no matter remained for adjudication once the first petition was disposed of; it nevertheless preserved liberty to seek restoration if a cause of action survived.

WP227 No. 709/2012 was disposed of accordingly.

WPS No. 2269/2022 was also disposed of, with liberty to the petitioner to seek restoration if a cause of action still survived.