2005 (3) TMI 160

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.... CEGAT dated 9-7-1997. 4.We are surprised that this writ petition was entertained at all. There was a clear alternative remedy against the order of the CEGAT dated 9-7-1997 by means of filing a Reference Application before the CEGAT under Section 35G(1) of the Central Excise Act (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act') and if that application was rejected by the CEGAT there was a second alternative remedy of approaching this Court under Section 35G(3) of the Act seeking a direction to the CEGAT to make a reference to this Court. 5.It is well settled by a series of decisions of the Supreme Court that particularly in tax matters there should be no short circuiting of the statutory remedies, vide Titaghur Paper Mills Co. Ltd. v. St....

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....scribed Authority, a second appeal to the Tribunal and thereafter to have the case stated to the High Court, it was not for the High Court to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution ignoring as it were, the complete statutory machinery. That it has become necessary, even now, for us to repeat this admonition is indeed a matter of tragic concern to us. Article 226 is not meant to short circuit or circumvent statutory procedures. It is only where statutory remedies are entirely ill suited to meet the demands of extraordinary situations, as for instance where the very vires of the statute is in question or where private or public wrongs are so inextricably mixed up and the prevention of public injury and t....

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.... is open to a litigant, he should be required to pursue that remedy and not invoke the special jurisdiction of the High Court to issue a prerogative writ. It will be a sound exercise of discretion to refuse to interfere in a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution unless there are good grounds to do otherwise. 12.In A. Venkatasubbiah Naidu v. S. Chellappan, 2000 (7) SCC 695 (vide para 22) the Supreme Court deprecated the practice of exercising the writ jurisdiction when an efficacious alternative remedy is available. 13.In W.P. No. 981 of 2003 (Tax) (M/s. Khandelwal Soya Industries Ltd. v. State of U.P. and Others) decided on 27-8-2003 a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging the provis....