Chandigarh, April 18: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has criticised the Haryana Director General of Police (DGP) for rejecting a service-related plea solely because it was labeled an ‘appeal’ instead of a ‘revision,’ despite a history of similar representations being entertained.
Justice Jagmohan Bansal, while hearing a petition challenging a March 7, 2023, dismissal order, noted that the police department had routinely adjudicated mis-captioned petitions without issue. “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,” Justice Bansal observed. “In the instant case, the DGP did not decide the representation on the ground that the petition was titled as an appeal.”
The petitioner initially submitted an appeal before the DGP on July 14, 2017, challenging an earlier order issued by an appellate authority in June 2017. The state confirmed that the DGP received the appeal but did not act on it due to the labeling error.
Later, the petitioner submitted a second representation, this time titled a revision, which the DGP dismissed on grounds of delay. Defending the decision, Haryana’s Additional Advocate-General told the court the DGP chose not to consider the earlier representation as a revision because of its title.
Rejecting this line of reasoning, the court noted, “If the DGP was of the opinion that the nomenclature of the petition should be revision, he was duty bound to intimate the petitioner.”
Justice Bansal set aside the DGP’s dismissal and ordered that the 2017 plea be treated as a revision, directing the DGP to decide it within three months. The court also instructed that the petitioner be given a hearing before a final decision is taken.
The judgment drew attention to the legal distinction between an appeal and a revision. An appeal is a substantive right permitting full review of facts and law, while a revision is a discretionary remedy limited to correcting legal or jurisdictional errors. Though often used interchangeably in administrative settings, the court noted, the two have distinct legal implications.
Justice Bansal’s order underscored that procedural irregularities should not become grounds to deny justice.
