Writ jurisdiction and remedy hierarchy bar a parallel petition where revision against custody of seized money is pending.

Parallel invocation of Article 226 was held inappropriate where custody of seized money had already been ordered by the Magistrate under Section 451 CrPC read with Section 132 of the Income-tax Act and a criminal revision against that order was pending. The court treated the existence of that pending revision, together with other available remedies including recourse under Section 482 CrPC, as a reason to avoid bypassing the normal appellate and revisional hierarchy. The writ petition was therefore not maintainable, and the requested release and consequential reliefs were declined.

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Issues: Whether the writ petition seeking release of the seized amount and other consequential reliefs was maintainable when the petitioner had already challenged the Magistrate's custody order in a pending criminal revision and other remedies remained available.

Analysis: The custody of the seized amount had already been ordered by the Magistrate on an application under Section 451 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and Section 132 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and the petitioner's revision against that order was pending before the Sessions Court. In that situation, entertaining a parallel writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India would amount to bypassing the normal hierarchy of remedies. The availability of further remedies, including recourse under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, reinforced the view that the extraordinary writ jurisdiction should not be invoked to circumvent the pending proceedings.

Conclusion: The writ petition was not maintainable and the reliefs sought were declined.

Final Conclusion: The Court refused to exercise discretionary writ jurisdiction and left the petitioner to pursue the pending revision and other available remedies.

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