HC flags inconsistency as Haryana DGP declines to decide plea

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

Bringing the inconsistency to the fore, Justice Jagmohan Bansal 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 DGP is also adjudicating the same as appeal and not revision. In the instant case, 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 grounds of delay. The court was told that the petitioner 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 the 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 filed a “revision” which was dismissed.

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.

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.