HKRNL Contract Workers Short Of Haryana’s 5-Year Service Cut-Off Lose Review Bid To Add Omitted Grounds: P&H HC

In brief

The question

1. Whether the petitioners’ failure to raise additional grounds and factual matters during the original proceedings constituted a ground for review or recall under Order 47 Rule 1 CPC.

The court held

The Court held that no ground for review or recall of the order dated 13 July 2026 had been established.

It also directed

The review application was dismissed, and the request to withdraw the original writ petition with liberty to file a fresh petition was rejected.

The 63-day delay in filing the review application had earlier been condoned.

01Facts

The petitioners’ contractual Group-D services, deployed through Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam Limited, were dispensed with by a speaking order dated 27 May 2026.

p. 2 · ¶ 2

Their writ petition, which principally sought protection under the Haryana Contractual Employees (Security of Service) Act, 2024, was dismissed on 13 July 2026; they admittedly lacked the five years’ continuous service required under that Act.

p. 3 · ¶ 3

They sought review, asserting that other grounds—including alleged arbitrariness, breach of “First In, First Out” principles, vacancies, and interim protection granted in similar cases—had not been raised earlier.

pp. 3–4 · ¶ 4–7

Alternatively, they sought permission to withdraw the writ petition with liberty to file a fresh one.

pp. 3–4 · ¶ 4–7

The Court first condoned a 63-day delay in filing the review application.

p. 1 · ¶ 3

02Issues

i.1. Whether the petitioners’ failure to raise additional grounds and factual matters during the original proceedings constituted a ground for review or recall under Order 47 Rule 1 CPC.

pp. 4–5 · ¶ 11–12

ii.2. Whether the petitioners could obtain review by re-agitating the matter, claim parity with parties granted interim protection in other cases, or withdraw the disposed-of writ petition with liberty to file afresh.

pp. 7–9 · ¶ 14–17

03Law Applied

Section 114 read with Order 47 Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, permits review on limited grounds, including an error apparent on the face of the record; it does not permit rehearing or correction of an allegedly erroneous decision as though on appeal.

pp. 5–6 · ¶ 13

An error requiring a process of reasoning is not an error apparent, and review cannot be used as an “appeal in disguise,” as stated in Parsion Devi v. Sumitri Devi, (1997) 8 SCC 715.

pp. 5–6 · ¶ 13

The Court also relied on Malleeswari v. K. Suguna and Another, SLP(C) No. 12787 of 2025, decided 8 September 2025, which reiterates that review is confined to statutory limits, cannot substitute one view for another, and is exercised to correct grave or palpable errors.

pp. 8–9 · ¶ 16

Lekh Ram v. Ami Lal was also cited in support of the restricted scope of review.

p. 5 · ¶ 13

Provisions in the judgment · 3 · Linked ones open on LawLens

Limitation Act, 1963 Section 5

Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 Section 114 Section 47

04Reasoning

The Court found that the petitioners’ explanation—that they had inadvertently omitted grounds and lacked knowledge of relevant facts—did not identify any patent error in the judgment under review.

p. 5 · ¶ 12

The proposed grounds were available when the writ petition was heard, and raising them in review would amount to re-arguing the case, which the review jurisdiction does not permit.

pp. 7–8 · ¶ 14–15

The Court further held that interim protection granted in other cases did not, by itself, establish entitlement to parity because those orders depended on the circumstances of those cases; nor was withdrawal of the disposed-of writ petition with liberty to file afresh permissible.

p. 9 · ¶ 17