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HIGH COURT OF DELHI
W.P.(C) 7064/2021
ACHYUT SINGH AND ORS. .....Petitioners
Through: Mr Ganesh A Khemka, Mr Shreenath A Khemka, Ms Vidhi Gupta and
Mr Sarthak Sharma, Advs.
Through: Mr. Ruchir Mishrra. Mr. Sanjiv Kr Saxena, Mr. Mukesh Kr Tiwari, Ms. Reba Jena Mishra and Ms. Poonam Shukla, Advs.
Ms. Malvika Trivedi, Sr. Adv, with Mr. Himanshu Gautam and Mr. Kumar Mihir, Advs.
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY DIGPAUL
JUDGMENT
31.07.2026 C. HARI SHANKAR, J.
(condonation of delay)
1. We have heard Mr. Ganesh A Khemka, learned Counsel for the review petitioners, at some length.
2. We are constrained to observe that this review petition is an apparent abuse of the legal process.
3. Not only is the manner in which it has been filed completely lacking in bona fides; the grounds on which review has been sought by learned Counsel are equally lacking in substance.
4. Before we advert to the grounds on which Mr. Khemka seeks review of our judgment, we may note that the judgment under review was carried to the Supreme Court by the Union of India and the other respondents in appeal by way of SLP (C) 14175-14176/2026[1] in which the Supreme Court specifically held as under: “1. Delay condoned.
2. We have heard learned senior counsel for the petitioners and learned Additional Solicitor General appearing for Union of India. We have heard learned counsel for the respondentcaveator(s) at length.
3. We do not find any reason to interfere with the impugned order passed by the Division Bench of the High Court.
4. The Special Leave Petitions are hence dismissed.
5. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.”
5. Mr. Khemka submits that the dismissal of SLP by the Supreme Court would not act as a fetter to this review petition as the dismissal was in limine and was not after granting leave or by a reasoned and speaking order. As such, there was no merger of the judgment rendered by us with the order passed by the Supreme Court, rendering this review petition maintainable.
6. On this, we only deem it appropriate to note that the Supreme Parkash Chand Baswal v. Brijesh Kumar Rai Court has dismissed the SLP specifically observing that the learned Counsel for the petitioners before the Supreme Court were heard at length, after which the Supreme Court found no cause to interfere with the judgment of this Court. It is not as though, therefore, the order was upheld without a detailed hearing of the matter.
7. Nonetheless, we have also considered the submission of Mr. Khemka on the merits of the review petition.
8. With great respect, we find the submission to be truly astounding.
9. The ground on which Mr. Khemka seeks review of our judgment relates to the extracts following paras 25.[1] and 25.[2] of our judgment, which read thus: “25.[1] There is a significant difference in the supersession clause as contained in the preamble to the 2010 RRs, vis-à-vis the 2003 RRs, and in the 2012 RRs, vis-à-vis the 2010 RRs. At the cost of repetition, we may reproduce these preambular clauses thus: Preamble to 2010 RRs “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub- section (1) read with clauses (a) and (c) of sub- section 2 of Section 155 of the Sahastra Seema Bal Act, 2007 (53 of 2007) and in supersession of the Special Service Bureau Assistant Commandant Group ‘A’ (General Duty) post Recruitment Rules 2003 except as respects things done or omitted to be done before such supersession, the Central Government hereby makes the following rules to regulate the method of recruitment to the post of Assistant Commandant (General Duty) Group ‘A’ posts in the Sahastra Seema Bal under the Ministry of Home Affairs, namely:” Preamble to 2012 RRs “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub- section (1) read with clauses (a) and (c) of sub- section 2 of Section 155 of the Sahastra Seema Bal Act, 2007 (53 of 2007) and in supersession of Sahastra Seema Bal Group ‘A’ Combatised (General Duty) Officers Recruitment Rules 2004 in so far as it relates to the posts of 2nd- In-Command and Deputy Commandant and Sahastra Seema Bal Asst Commandant Group ‘A’ (General Duty) Combatised post Recruitment Rules, 2010, in so far as it relates to the post of Asst Commandant to regulate the method of recruitment to the Group ‘A’ Combatised (General Duty) posts in the Sahastra Seema Bal under the Ministry of Home Affairs, namely:-” Thus, while the 2010 RRs supersede the 2003 RRs with no further caveat, the 2012 RRs supersede the 2010 RRs only “insofar as it relates to the post of Asst Commandant to regulate the method of recruitment to the Group ‘A’ Combatised (General Duty) posts in the Sashastra Seema Bal”. 25.[2] We are guided, in thus understanding the preamble to the 2012 RRs, by the fact that there is no comma after the words “insofar it relates to the post of Assistant Commandant”. The words “to regulate the method of recruitment to the Group ‘A’ Combatised (General Duty) posts in the Sashastra Seema Bal”, therefore, have to be read along with the words “insofar it relates to the post of Assistant Commandant” as additionally clarifying the extent to which the 2012 RRs supersede the 2010 RRs. The importance of a comma, in understanding a statute, stands underscored by the judgment of the Supreme Court in Colour-Chem Ltd v. A.L. Alaspurkar[2], in which the positioning of a comma was made the basis to interpret the concerned statutory provision.
10. In para 25.2, we have relied on the fact that there is no comma after the words “insofar it relates to the post of Assistant Commandant” as used in the preamble to the 2012 Recruitment Rules, to fortify our conclusion regarding the manner in which the Rules were to be interpreted. Mr. Khemka’s submission is that undue emphasis ought not to have been placed on the fact that there is no comma after the words “insofar it relates to the post of Assistant Commandant” in the preamble to the 2012 RRs, as the preamble has been very inaccurately worded and punctuations have been employed in a haphazard manner, thereby rendering the presence or absence of a comma, as he would submit, completely irrelevant.
11. We may reproduce the preamble to the 2012 RRs thus: “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub section (1) read with clauses (a) and (c) of sub-section 2 of Section 155 of the Sahastra Seema Bal Act, 2007 (53 of 2007) the Central Government hereby makes the following rules, in supersession of Sashastra Seema Bal Group ‘A’ Combatised (General Duty) Officers Recruitment Rules 2004 in so far it relates to the posts of Second-In-Command and Deputy Commandant and Sahastra Seema Bal Assistant Commandant Group ‘A’ (General Duty) Combatised post recruitment rules, 2010, in so far it relates to the post of Assistant Commandant to regulate the method of recruitment to the Group ‘A’ Combatised (General Duty) posts in the Sahastra Seema Bal under the Ministry of Home Affairs, namely:-”
12. To emphasize how clumsily the preamble to the 2012 Rules employs punctuation, Mr. Khemka points out that
(i) there is no hyphen between “sub” and “section” in “sub section (1)” whereas there is a hyphen between “sub and section in “sub-section 2”, (ii) “1”, in “sub section (1)” is in parentheses whereas “2”, in “sub-section 2” is not in parentheses, (iii) “section”, in “Section 155” is not capitalised,
(iv) there is no comma between “Recruitment Rules” and “2004” in the expression “Sashastra Seema Bal Group ‘A’ Combatised (General Duty) Officers Recruitment Rules 2004”, whereas there is a comma between “Act” and “2007” in “Sahastra Seema Bal Act, 2007” and
(v) the word “as” is missing in the expression “insofar it relates” which, according to him, should read “insofar as it relates”.
13. We are flabbergasted as to how these minor aberrations in the preamble to the 2012 Rules can at all be cited as a ground to urge that this Court ought not to have relied on the fact that there was no comma, after the word “insofar it relates to the post of Assistant Commandant”, in the preamble.
14. The aberrations pointed out are essentially in the nature of presence or absence of hyphenations, parentheses, commas between “rules” and the “year” and the like, which cannot even be remotely compared to the absence of a comma after the words “insofar as it relates to the post of Assistant Commandant”. There is a difference between routine punctuations, hyphenations, and employment of parentheses, and punctuations which act as an aid to statutory construction, which Mr Khema’s submissions overlook.
15. We do not, therefore, find the submissions advanced by Mr. Khemka as justifying even issuance of notice in the present review petition.
16. Mr. Khemka has sought to place reliance on para 16 of the judgment of the Supreme Court in State of Gujarat v. Reliance Industries Ltd[3], which deals with punctuation and reads thus:
17. He particularly emphasises the extract, in the said paragraph, from the judgment of the Supreme Court in Ashwini Kumar Ghosh, which reads: “57. … Punctuation is after all a minor element in the construction of a statute, and very little attention is paid to it by English courts. … When a statute is carefully punctuated and there is doubt about its meaning, a weight should undoubtedly be given to the punctuation.”
18. Mr. Khemka’s submission is that weight is to be given to punctuation only where a statute is carefully punctuated. Where a statute is not carefully punctuated – as is the case, in his submission, with the preamble to the 2012 RRs – the court should overlook the presence or absence of commas and other punctuation marks in the clause while interpreting it. AIR 1952 SC 369
19. The extract from Ashwini Kumar Ghosh, too, does not support the submission that Mr. Khemka seeks to advance. In fact, the Supreme Court has, in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal[7] emphasised the importance of punctuation marks while interpreting clauses in statutory instruments.
20. To our mind, this review petition has been moved belatedly, with a delay of 276 days, with absolutely no sustainable cause to explain the delay, only when the petitioners found that, consequent to the order passed by the Supreme Court, the judgment of this Court was being implemented by the respondents Union of India.
21. The review petition is therefore completely lacking in bona fides.
22. It is, accordingly, dismissed with costs of ₹ 25,000/-, to be paid to the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee (DHCLSC) within a period of four weeks from today.
C. HARI SHANKAR, J.
AJAY DIGPAUL, J. JULY 31, 2026 dsn