The Delhi High Court imposed costs of ₹5 lakh on the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation for misusing a provision meant solely for correcting clerical or arithmetical errors in judgments. DMRC had filed an application under this provision but used it to reargue substantive merits already decided, which the court termed a sham plea. The ruling reaffirms that procedural provisions cannot be weaponised to reopen concluded disputes, and courts will impose exemplary costs to deter such abuse.

At the heart of this ruling is the distinction between a slip or clerical error and a substantive challenge to a judgment. Courts have inherent power — and specific procedural rules — to correct accidental mistakes in their own orders: wrong dates, typographical errors, arithmetic mistakes. This is sometimes called the 'slip rule.' The provision exists to serve justice by tidying genuine inadvertent errors; it is emphatically not a second avenue to relitigate what was argued and decided.

When a litigant — particularly a public-sector undertaking with legal resources — files an application under the slip rule but actually argues that the court reached the wrong conclusion on the merits, it commits two distinct wrongs. First, it misrepresents the nature of its grievance to access a procedural shortcut. Second, it wastes judicial time that could serve genuine litigants, undermining the right of access to justice protected under Article 21.

The imposition of exemplary costs is the court's primary deterrent tool against procedural abuse. In PIL and public law litigation, courts have repeatedly held that costs serve not just a compensatory function but a disciplinary one — signalling that courts will not be instrumentalised. For CLAT PG, the examiner will test whether you understand the boundary between correcting a clerical error and reopening a merits dispute, and whether you can identify when a court's cost imposition is judicially appropriate versus punitive overreach.