JUDGMENT

G S Patel,J. - This Review Petition was adjourned yesterday at Mr Krishnan's request. He appears for the Review Petitioners (" the Agarwals "). I have heard him at some length this afternoon and, briefly, Dr Saraf for the contesting Respondent (" Tata Financial ").

2. In my view, this Review Petition is not only thoroughly misconceived but is also deliberately mischievous, and quite possibly vexatious. I believe it is precisely the kind of proceeding that the Commercial Courts Act 2015 (" the CCA ") deprecates. It has taken an unconscionable amount of the court's time. The CCA uses the expressions "frivolous claim", "vexatious proceeding" and "wasting the time of the Court". This Review Petition is all three; I will return to this part of the CCA towards the end of this judgment. Apropos the last of these, the phrasing in the CCA is not "taking the time of the Court" but "wasting the time of the Court". The difference is significant: every litigant is entitled to the Court's time. After all, the purpose of a court is to make time for a litigant. But no litigant is entitled to squander or waste the time of the court. That is as unfair to a court as it is to other litigants waiting in line. In the Commercial Division, governed by the provisions of the CCA, wasting the time of the Court invites an order of costs. I have, therefore, not only dismissed the Review Petition, but I have done so with costs.

3. The law on the power of review is now far too well-settled to warrant any larger discussion. There are two authorities that Dr Saraf cites that seem to me apposite to this case; I will come to those later. But it is not contentious that the power of substantive review - as opposed to procedural or "purely procedural" review - is, first, one that must be conferred by law, and, second, the exercise of the power of review is narrowly constrained by the law that confers it. This law is not new either. In fact, it is very old. In the 1891 decision in Drew v Willis,1891 1 QB 450. (Cited in Harbhajan Singh, supra.) Lord Esher, M.R., said that no court or authority has the power to set aside an order properly made, unless it (viz., the power) is given by statute.

4. In 1914, in Hession v Jones , 1914 2 KB 421.( Also cited with approval in Harbhajan Singh, supra.) Bankes J held that no court has the power to review an order deliberately made after argument and to entertain a fresh argument upon it with a view to ultimately confirming or reversing it. The decision in Hession - a case about a contract for sale of eggs - is oddly prescient to the facts of this case, as the extract that follows shows.

BANKES J. This is an application on behalf of the plaintiff, the respondent on an appeal to this Court, to restore the appeal to the list. Such an application may be made either (1.) to restore a case which has merely been struck out and has never been heard and decided because the appellant did not attend; or (2.) to restore a case in which the appellant has appeared and argued his appeal in the absence of the respondent and the Court has heard the appeal and come to a decision. In the first case the application is to restore an appeal which has not been heard; in the second case the application is to set aside a decision after a hearing which in the respondent's view is not satisfactory because he was not present. This is an application of the second class, to set aside an order of this Court made by Ridley J. and myself after hearing. The appellant was present and produced a copy of the county court judge's notes and was ready to proceed with his appeal. The respondent was not represented. The appellant was the defendant in the county court. An action had been brought against him for the price of certain cases of eggs ordered by him for delivery at a named station. The plaintiff delivered a larger quantity than that ordered. The defendant had refused to take delivery on the grounds (1.) that there was unreasonable delay in forwarding