Scope of Review Jurisdiction Prohibits Re-argument of Merits Absent an Error Apparent

The Petitioner, Coimbatore Municipal Corporation, filed three review applications seeking to review common orders passed by the Madras High Court in Writ Petition Nos. 19731 of 2021, 18506 of 2022, and 20574 of 2021 dated 02.12.2025.

The original writ proceedings involved various private respondents and the Kalapatti Periyar Nagar Residents Welfare Association.

In the present applications, the petitioner’s counsel attempted to re-argue the merits of the case, contending that the court’s previous findings were contrary to established legal principles.

1. Whether a review application is maintainable for the purpose of re-agitating the merits of a case or challenging findings on the ground that they are contrary to legal principles.

2. Whether there exists any error apparent on the face of the record to warrant the exercise of review jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

The Court applied the principles governing review jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, emphasizing that the scope of review is strictly limited.

The court relied on the doctrine that a review is not an "appeal in disguise" and is maintainable only in the event of an "error apparent on the face of the record".

The court applied the principle that grounds already raised or merits already considered in the original proceedings cannot be re-litigated in a review petition.

The Court analyzed the petitioner's submissions and found that the counsel was essentially attempting to re-argue the substantive merits of the original writ petitions.

The petitioner’s contention—that the court's earlier findings ran contrary to established principles—was deemed a challenge to the correctness of the judgment rather than an identification of a clerical or patent error.

The Bench reasoned that all grounds available in an appeal are not admissible in a review application, as the review process is not a tool for a second merits-based hearing.

Since the petitioner failed to demonstrate any "error apparent" and merely sought to re-agitate decided issues, the court found the applications to be outside the narrow scope of review jurisdiction.

The Court held that the applications lacked the necessary prerequisite of an error apparent on the face of the record.

The Madras High Court dismissed all three review applications (Nos. 83, 84 85 of 2026) with no order as to costs.