Alternate statutory remedy must be exhausted before writ relief where factual record is insufficient for conclusive classification.

Statutory appellate remedies should ordinarily be pursued before invoking writ jurisdiction, especially where the record does not permit a conclusive factual finding. In this matter, the High Court should not have entertained writ petitions challenging liability to agricultural produce cess on export of prawns and shrimps when an appeal lay under the statutory scheme and the record contained no evidence supporting a clear determination that prawns and shrimps were outside the common-parlance meaning of "fish." The Court left the substantive classification issue open and held that the petitioners ought to have been relegated to the alternate remedy.

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Issues: Whether the writ petitions challenging liability to agricultural produce cess on export of prawns and shrimps ought to have been entertained despite the availability of an appellate remedy under the statutory scheme.

Analysis: The Agricultural Produce Cess Act, 1940 levied cess on articles in the Schedule, and its collection was governed by the Customs Act, 1962 and the rules thereunder. The record before the High Court did not contain evidence to support a finding that prawns and shrimps were not covered by the expression "fish" in common parlance. In the absence of such evidence, the High Court ought not to have gone into the merits in writ jurisdiction when a statutory appeal was available under Section 5A of the Act. The Court also made it clear that no opinion was being expressed on the substantive classification issue.

Conclusion: The writ petitioners should have been relegated to the alternate statutory remedy, and the High Court's entertainment of the writ petitions was held to be improper.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statutory appellate remedy is available and the writ record does not furnish evidence enabling a conclusive factual determination, the High Court should ordinarily decline writ relief and require the party to pursue the alternate remedy.

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