SC: WRIT UNDER ARTICLE 226 NOT MAINTAINABLE WHEN EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE REMEDY EXISTS IN ANOTHER HC JURISDICTION:

The Supreme Court recently reiterated that a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution should ordinarily not be entertained when an effective and adequate statutory alternative remedy is available to the litigant, especially when that alternative remedy lies before the very same High Court but under a different jurisdiction. A Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Aravind Kumar affirmed the Rajasthan High Court’s decision dismissing a writ petition as non-maintainable because the statute in question, the Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal Act, 1962, had expressly provided a specific forum for challenging the relevant order. The Supreme Court explained that the guiding principle in such situations is straightforward: if a party has an avenue for redress before the High Court through a mechanism created by statute, the High Court should not ordinarily exercise its writ jurisdiction to bypass that process.

The Court further clarified that when determining whether to entertain a petition under Article 226, a writ court must not only consider general precedent on alternative remedies but must also pay close attention to the statutory forum specifically designated for the litigant. This, the Court said, is essential because the statutory remedy must be evaluated in terms of whether it is capable of providing speedy and effective relief. If such an alternative remedy exists, the High Court is justified in declining to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction.

The case arose from a dispute dating back to 1992, involving the confiscation of a quantity of silver. After the confiscation, the appellant challenged the action before the Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal (CEGAT). In June 2000, the Tribunal partly allowed his appeal by reducing the monetary penalty imposed on him, but it upheld the confiscation. Instead of promptly pursuing the statutory remedy of seeking a reference before the High Court as permitted under the Act, the appellant waited until 2003 and then chose to file a writ petition under Article 226 before the Rajasthan High Court. The High Court refused to entertain the writ petition on the ground that the appellant had bypassed the statutorily prescribed forum even though an adequate alternative remedy existed.

When the matter reached the Supreme Court, the bench agreed with the High Court’s approach. The Court observed that the appellant clearly had the option of pursuing a reference before the High Court against the Tribunal’s 2000 order, and therefore the High Court’s refusal to exercise discretionary powers under Article 226 could not be regarded as unreasonable or legally flawed. The Supreme Court noted that the appellant had, by his own conduct, disabled himself from availing the statutory remedy and had instead chosen the “misadventure” of invoking the writ jurisdiction, an option rightly denied to him.

The Supreme Court also drew support from two earlier Constitution Bench judgments: Thansingh Nathmal v. A. Mazid (1964) and A.V. Venkateswaran v. Ramchand Sobhraj Wadhwani (1961). Those decisions established that when a litigant, through his own fault or neglect, fails to pursue the statutory remedy available to him, he cannot expect the discretionary jurisdiction under Article 226 to rescue him. Relying on these principles, the Court concluded that the High Court had acted correctly and that no interference was warranted.