A review petition asks the same court that passed a judgment or order to reconsider its own decision — a narrow remedy intended to correct limited categories of error without requiring a party to exhaust the appellate route. Governed by Section 114 and Order XLVII of the Code of Civil Procedure (for civil matters) and the inherent powers of the court supplemented by specific statutory provisions (for criminal matters), review is deliberately constrained.
The grounds for review, set out in Order XLVII Rule 1 CPC: 1. Discovery of new and important matter or evidence which, after due diligence, was not within the petitioner's knowledge or could not be produced at the time of the original decree. 2. Mistake or error apparent on the face of the record. 3. Any other sufficient reason (interpreted narrowly to be analogous to the above).
The key limitation: review is not a rehearing on merits. Disagreement with the court's reasoning is not a ground. The error must be "apparent on the face of the record" — self-evident on a plain reading, not requiring further argument or evidence to expose.
In Supreme Court practice, review petitions are circulated among the same bench that passed the original judgment, typically decided in chambers (without oral hearing) unless the bench directs otherwise. A further remedy — the "curative petition" — lies in rare cases where even the review has been dismissed but a manifest injustice persists.
Review is filed within a short limitation (30 days under the Limitation Act for most review applications; the Supreme Court's rules have specific periods). Missed limitation is usually fatal.