The review jurisdiction under Order 47 Rule 1 CPC cannot be used to correct an erroneous decision.

SUSANTA CHATTERJI, J.

( 1 ) A short point of law, although apparent having far-reaching importance, is argued at the Bar in the present Civil Review applications.

( 2 ) BY judgment dated 30th of October, 1991, a writ application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India being numbered as O. J. C. 2508 of 1985 was disposed of by a Division Bench of this Court constituting Hon'ble B. C. Patnaik, J. (as His Lordship then was) and Hon'ble D. M. Patnaik, J. The Division Bench held inter alia that the Commissioner of Consolidation made an error in holding that opposite party No. 5 had acquired title over plot No. 1181 by way of adverse possession. Accordingly, the judgment of the Commissioner of Consolidation in Revision Case Nos. 583 and 584 of 1984 was set aside as regards plot No. 1181 with direction to record the said plot in the name of the petitioner in Civil Review No. 77/91. The judgment of the Commissioner in regard to plot No. 1185 was however sustained.

( 3 ) IT appears from the materials on record that L. R. plot Nos. 1181 and 1185 comprise areas of 10 dec. and 25 dec. respectively, corresponding to Sabik plot Nos. 899 and 903 respectively under Sabik Khata No. 690 of village Banpur. The Commissioner on perusal of the evidence held that opposite party No. 5 and his predecessor had acquired title to the said two plots by adverse possession. This finding of the Commissioner was the subject-matter of challenge in the writ application.

( 4 ) IT was recorded in the judgment of this Court in the writ application that twenty-five years back there was a house standing over plot No. 1181 and when it collapsed, Govinda admittedly left the place. So the land was lying fallow. As admittedly opposite party No. 5 or his predecessor had not originally any title to the property, but could succeed only on establishing acquisition of title by adverse possession, the Division Bench found that the burden was on him. No evidence of any acts of possession had been adduced. On the other hand it was seen that L. R. plot No. 1181 was lying fallow since last twenty-five years, i. e. since 1960, and at least until 1960 Govinda, the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioner was in occupation of the plot by residing in the house standing thereon. Hence, opposite party No. 5 whose burden was to establish acquisition of title by adverse possession had failed to do so. Merely because the owner had abandoned possession, title was not lost to him. Title is acquired by another by being in possession openly and peacefully with hostile animus.

( 5 ) TWO Civil Review applications were listed before us today for disposal. Civil Review No. 77/91 is at the instance of Nilakantha Dash, who was opposite party No. 6 in the writ application. The other Civil Review application No. 15 of 1992 has been filed by the original writ petitioner Dhruba Charan Sahu. Nilakantha Dash is interested so far as plot No. 1181 is concerned as the judgment so far as plot No. 1185 is sustained by the writ Court. Dhruba Charan Sahu is aggrieved against the decision relating to plot No. 1185.

( 6 ) MR. Ashok Mukherjee appears for the petitioner in Civil Review No. 77 of 1991, i. e. Nilakantha Das and Mr. S. Pal appears for the petitioner in Civil Review No. 15 of 1992, i. e. Dhruba Charan Sahu.

( 7 ) MR. Mukherjee in support of the Civil Review application No. 77/91 has eruditely argued at length that the decision of the Writ Court suffers from such error apparent on the face of the record and there are such mistakes that the only course available to remedy the wrong is by way of effective review of the judgment as envisaged under Order 47 Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure as the spirit and principles of the said provision are available even to the Writ Court to review its own judgment.

( 8 ) IN support of the review application, Mr. Mukherjee has catalogued the grounds in the review application elaborating in details that the Writ Court in exercise of the juri