Point of Law: Section 114 of Code of Civil Procedure reads as review.

JUDGMENT :

SATYEN VAIDYA, J.

1. Petitioners by way of instant review petition have prayed for reviewing the common judgment dated 22.3.2023, passed by this Court in LPA No. 168 of 2022, LPA No. 154 of 2022 and CWP No. 6930 of 2022.

2. Review petitioners were not party to any of the aforesaid proceedings.

3. By two separate writ petitions i.e. CWP No. 2765 of 2019 titled as Intzar and Others vs. State of H.P. and Others and CWP No. 3077 of 2020 titled as Sandeep Kumar and Others vs. State of H.P. and Others, challenge was laid to communication dated 8.8.2019, issued by Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, H.P. on the ground that the communication/instructions dated 8.8.2019 were against statutory Recruitment and Promotion Rules. Both the writ petitions were dismissed by the learned Single Judge by a common judgment dated 22.8.2022. The communication dated 8.8.2019 was held to be valid.

4. Aggrieved against the judgment passed by learned Single Judge, petitioners in CWP No. 2765 of 2019 had preferred LPA No. 154 of 2022 and petitioners in CWP No. 3077 of 2020 had preferred LPA No. 168 of 2022 before this Court.

5. During the pendency of CWP No. 2765 of 2019 and CWP No. 3077 of 2020, impugned communication dated 8.8.2019 was implemented in some of the Forest Circles of H.P. Aggrieved against such implementation, CWP No. 6930 of 2022 was preferred.

6. This Court allowed both LPA No. 168 of 2022 and LPA No. 154 of 2022 vide common judgment dated 22.3.2023 by holding that the communication dated 8.8.2019 issued by PCCF was de-hors the rules and accordingly the said communication was quashed and set aside. CWP No. 6930 of 2022, as a consequence of judgment passed in aforesaid appeals, also was allowed by same judgment.

7. The grievance of the review petitioners is that they were not impleaded as parties either in CWP No. 2765 of 2019, CWP No. 3077 of 2020 or CWP No. 6930 of 2022. They were not impleaded as parties even in LPA No. 168 of 2022 and LPA No. 154 of 2022, notwithstanding the fact that they had been promoted as Deputy Forest Rangers vide office order dated 5.9.2022 immediately after the dismissal of CWP No. 2765 of 2019 and CWP No. 3077 of 2020 by learned Single Judge on 22.8.2022.

8. Keeping in view the restrictive jurisdiction vested in this Court to review its judgment, we proposed and asked Sh. Ashok Sharma, learned Senior Counsel for the review petitioners to satisfy the Court as to maintainability of the review petition, keeping in view the fact that the review petitioners had omitted to come forward either before the writ Court or the appellate Bench to raise any grievance.

9. As we proposed to decide said issue in the first instance, we have heard the learned counsel for the parties on the above issue only. We have also gone through the record carefully.

10. The first question arises whether the review petitioners were necessary parties before the writ Court or the Appellate Court?

11. Vide office communication dated 8.8.2019, PCCF, H.P. had issued directions to all concerned to recast the seniority list of Forest Guards, as per merit gained in direct recruitment/limited direct recruitment. Petitioners in CWP No. 2765 of 2019 and CWP No. 3077 of 2020, assailed the aforesaid communication dated 8.8.2019, primarily on the ground that it was not in consonance with the prevalent R&P Rules and hence, the administrative instructions would not supersede the statutory rules.

12. Noticeably, in CWP No. 2765 of 2019, petitioners therein had originally impleaded four official respondents and no private person was arrayed as respondent. During the pendency of the writ petition, private respondents No. 5 to 8 and 9 to 15 were ordered to be impleaded as party respondents on their separate applications. They had sought impleadment on the ground that they were Forest Guards, appointed in the year 2003 and the result of writ petition was likely to affect their interest. In CWP No. 3077 of 2020, only four official respondents were impleaded an