HC flags inconsistency as DGP declines to decide plea

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken exception to Haryana Director-General of Police not deciding a service-related plea solely on the ground that it was titled an ‘appeal’ instead of a ‘revision’ — despite the police department’s consistent practice of adjudicating similarly mis-captioned representations.

Bringing the inconsistency to the fore, Justice Jagmohan Bansal of the high court observed: “This court has noticed in many cases that police officials, instead of giving title to their petition as ‘revision’, casually title it as ‘appeal’, and the DGP is also adjudicating the same as appeal and not revision. In the instant case, the DGP did not decide representation of the petitioner on the ground that his petition is titled as appeal whereas it should be revision.”

The matter was brought to Justice Bansal’s notice after the petitioner filed a plea seeking the setting aside of order dated March 7, 2023, whereby the Haryana DGP dismissed his “revision” on the ground of delay. The court was told that the petitioner actually filed an appeal before the DGP on July 14, 2017, against an order passed in June 2017 by an appellate authority. The respondent-State did not dispute receipt of the appeal.

Appearing before the Bench, Haryana Additional Advocate-General submitted that the petitioner’s initial “appeal” filed in July 2017 before the DGP was not adjudicated because “its title was appeal instead of revision”. The petitioner later on filed a “revision”, which was dismissed on the ground of delay. Observing that procedural technicalities should not obstruct justice, the Court stated: “In case the DGP was of the opinion that nomenclature of the petition should be revision, he was duty bound to intimate the petitioner that he should file revision instead of appeal.”

Setting aside the impugned order, Justice Bansal directed the DGP to decide the July 2017 plea as a revision within three months. The court also ordered that the petitioner should be granted an opportunity of hearing before the final decision was taken.

An appeal and a revision often used interchangeably in administrative parlance are distinct legal remedies with different scopes. An appeal is a substantive right that allows a higher authority to re-examine both facts and law in a contested order. A revision, on the other hand, is a discretionary supervisory remedy primarily confined to correcting jurisdictional errors or patent legal infirmities in the impugned order.

The distinction is significant because an appeal entails a more exhaustive review of the matter, while a revision is narrowly focused and does not permit a full rehearing.

Haryana Tribune