The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that a petition under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 against a Sessions Court’s revisional order operates within an extraordinarily constricted domain and can amount to a disguised second revision, dismissing a challenge to an order directing delivery of about 514 kanals of land in Kaithal to a samadh.
Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that when a petitioner invokes the High Court’s inherent powers under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) against an order that a Sessions Court has already tested in revision, the petition can virtually become a second revision, and the petitioner carries a heavier burden to show an egregious failure of justice or a glaring jurisdictional defect [Rampal and Others v. State of Haryana and Others].
Justice Sumeet Goel dismissed the petition, which challenged an order of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Kaithal, directing a receiver to hand over possession of the disputed land to a samadh, and the Additional Sessions Judge’s order of July 26, 2024 refusing to interfere with it in revision. The Court clarified that its observations are not an opinion on any substantive right or claim pending before a civil, revenue or appellate forum.
The case
The dispute concerns about 514 kanals 6 marlas of land in Village Gohana, District Kaithal. The petitioners claim rights in it under a registered lease-deed dated June 6, 1970, said to have been executed by the Mohatmim of Samadh Baba Nihal Gir for 99 years, from 1971 to 2070, for Rs 60,000. They said that possession was delivered to the lessees, and relied on a mutation of 1972 and later revenue entries, including jamabandis and khasra girdawaris, to show continuous possession.
According to the petitioners, they learned in 2008 that the girdawari entries had been changed in favour of the samadh. The Assistant Collector, 1st Grade, later corrected the entries in their favour, but the matter was remanded on appeal and is stated to be pending. They alleged that an attempt was made to take forcible possession on May 18, 2015, and they filed a civil suit for an injunction. The private respondents started proceedings under Sections 145 and 146 of the CrPC, and on June 1, 2015 the SDM attached the land and appointed the Naib Tehsildar as receiver. On December 11, 2017, the Additional Sessions Judge set that order aside because the requisite satisfaction under Section 145 had not been recorded.
On a fresh application by the private respondents, the SDM directed on January 4, 2018 that the receiver deliver possession to Samadh Baba Nihal Gir through its alleged Mahant. The Additional Sessions Judge, Kaithal, dismissed the petitioners’ revision on July 26, 2024, noting that their civil suit had been dismissed on August 29, 2015, that their appeal had been dismissed on January 10, 2023, and that a regular second appeal was pending in the High Court. The petitioners then moved the High Court under Section 528 BNSS.
What the parties argued
The petitioners argued that the SDM had failed to properly consider the lease-deed, the revenue entries and the revenue authorities’ reports showing their continuous possession, and that they could not be dispossessed except in accordance with law. They said that, because the 2015 attachment order had been set aside, the later order directing delivery of possession was untenable, and that rights under a subsisting lease running to 2070 could not be defeated through proceedings under Sections 145 and 146 of the CrPC.
The State submitted that the dispute was essentially private in nature. Senior counsel for the private respondents argued that there was no illegality or jurisdictional error in the SDM’s order, that the controversy rested on competing claims of title, lease, possession and revenue entries, and that the civil court had already decided the dispute against the petitioners. He added that the revisional court had considered the entire revenue record and the civil court’s judgment before upholding the order.
The scope of Section 528 BNSS
Justice Goel said that the inherent power under Section 528 is undeniably expansive but must be exercised sparingly, with utmost circumspection, and only to prevent an abuse of the process of any court or to secure the ends of justice. The threshold becomes exceptionally narrow, he said, when the order challenged has not come from a court of first instance but has been affirmed or passed by a Court of Sessions in its revisional jurisdiction.
The Court drew a distinction between two situations. Where the High Court is approached directly against an original proceeding or a first-instance order, it retains a broader canvas to examine perversity or illegality. Where the challenge is to a Sessions Court’s revisional order, the scope of revisional scrutiny is itself confined to patent illegality, jurisdictional error or manifest perversity, so that a later challenge under Section 528 operates within an “extraordinarily constricted domain.” In such a case, the Court held, the petition “virtually morphs into a disguised second revision,” which is barred in letter and spirit, and the petitioner shoulders a heavily accentuated burden to show an egregious failure of justice or a glaring jurisdictional defect.
The Court added that this restraint assumes heightened significance where the dispute turns on intricate and disputed questions of fact, such as possession, title and the legal construction or effect of a lease-deed, which it described as alien to summary proceedings.
Why the petition failed
Applying these principles, the Court noted that the dispute had not remained confined to the revenue record. The petitioners’ civil suit and their appeal had both been dismissed, and a regular second appeal was pending, so they could not seek a complete re-adjudication of the parties’ rights through a petition for quashing.
The Court held that the Additional Sessions Judge’s order of December 11, 2017 did not help the petitioners, because it was passed on the material and circumstances prevailing at that time. It also held that the registered lease-deed could not, at this stage, be treated as conclusive of possession. It found that the revisional court had not dismissed the revision mechanically and had considered the later developments, including the civil litigation and the revenue proceedings.
The petitioners had not shown that this reasoning was perverse, or that the revisional court had ignored any material document or statutory provision amounting to a gross abuse of process. The Court said the petitioners had essentially sought a fresh examination of the merits, which would not be justified, found no exceptional circumstance warranting interference, and dismissed the petition.
Why it matters
The ruling gives a clear statement of how far the High Court will go under Section 528 BNSS, the successor to the inherent power under the old Code, when a Sessions Court has already reviewed a lower order in revision. A petitioner who has been through revision cannot expect a second look on the same ground, and must point to a glaring defect rather than a different view of the record.
The decision also keeps the substantive dispute open. The Court expressly said its observations do not affect any right or claim pending before a civil, revenue or appellate forum, and the petitioners’ regular second appeal and the revenue proceedings remain to be decided on their own merits.
Case Title: Rampal and Others v. State of Haryana and Others [CRM-M-56291-2024 (O&M)]
Bench: Justice Sumeet Goel, Punjab and Haryana High Court
Date of Judgment: September 25, 2026
Appearances: Advocate P.S. Dhaliwal appeared for the petitioners, Gurmeet Singh, AAG Haryana, appeared for the State, and Senior Advocate S.K. Garg Narwana with Advocate Nitin Sachdeva appeared for the private respondents.