Certiorari relief barred by submission to jurisdiction after arguing on the merits before the tribunal.

Certiorari is a discretionary remedy and will be refused where an applicant knowingly contests proceedings on the merits before a subordinate tribunal without first objecting to jurisdiction, because such conduct amounts to submission to that jurisdiction. The Court held that a party cannot later repudiate the tribunal's authority by seeking certiorari after electing to argue the case substantively, and it accepted no distinction between objections of law and fact for this purpose. Relief was therefore refused on the ground of disentitlement.

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Issues: Whether a writ of certiorari should be granted where the applicant, having failed to object to jurisdiction before the subordinate authority, argued the matter on the merits and thereby submitted to that jurisdiction.

Analysis: The applicant had contested the matter on the merits before the Commissioner and the Chief Judge without taking the jurisdictional point. The Court treated certiorari as a discretionary remedy and held that a person who knowingly elects to argue the case on the merits before the tribunal cannot afterwards repudiate that tribunal's jurisdiction by seeking certiorari. No distinction was accepted between objections of law and fact for this purpose.

Conclusion: Certiorari was refused because the applicant's conduct disentitled him to discretionary relief.

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