Goodearth Steels Pvt. Ltd. vs C.E.G.A.T.

This writ petition has been filed against the impugned order of CEGAT dated 23-12-2002, copy of which is Annexure-A to the writ petition.

In our opinion, the petitioner has an alternative remedy of filing a reference application u/s 35H of the Central Excise Act and hence we are not inclined to entertain this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution.

It has been repeatedly held by the Supreme Court that in tax matters, there should not be any short-circuiting of the alternative remedy under the statute.

It is well settled that when there is an alternative remedy ordinarily writ jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution should not be invoked. This principle applies with greater force regarding tax proceedings. As observed by the "Supreme Court in Titaghur Paper Mills Co. Ltd. and Another Vs. State of Orissa and Others, "Where a right or liability is created by a statute which gives a special remedy for enforcing it, the remedy provided by that statute only must be availed of".

A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Veerappa Pillai Vs. Raman and Raman Ltd. and Others, held that as the Motor Vehicles Act is a self contained code and itself provides for a forum for appeal/revision, the writ jurisdiction should not be invoked in matters relating to its provisions. A similar view was taken in Assistant Collector of Central Excise, Chandan Nagar, West Bengal Vs. Dunlop India Ltd. and Others, .

6 In Asst. Collector of Central Excise v. Dunlop India Ltd. (supra) the Supreme Court observed:

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 the vindication of public justice require it that recourse may be had to Article 226 of the Constitution. But then the Court must have good and sufficient reason to bypass the alternative remedy provided by statute. Surely matters involving the revenue where statutory remedies are available are not such matters.

In C.A. Abraham, Uppoottil, Kottayam Vs. The Income Tax Officer, Kottayam and Another, , H.B. Gandhi v. Gopinath & Sons 1992 2 SCC 312 and in Karnataka Chemical Industries and Others Vs. Union of India and Others, the Supreme Court held that where there is a hierarchy of appeals provided by the statute the party must exhaust the statutory remedies before resorting to writ jurisdiction. All these decisions are related to taxing statutes, and are hence apposite to the present context.

In Sheela Devi Vs. Jaspal Singh, and Punjab National Bank Vs. O.C. Krishnan and Others, , the Supreme Court held that if the statute provides for remedy of revision or appeal writ jurisdiction should not be invoked,

In Union of India (UOI) Vs. T.R. Varma, the Supreme Court held that it is well settled that when an alternative and equally efficacious remedy is open to a litigant, he should be required to pursue that remedy and 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.

In A. Venkatasubbiah Naidu Vs. S. Challappan and Others, the Supreme Court deprecated the practice of exercising the writ jurisdiction when an efficacious alternative remedy is available.

In view of the above, this writ petition is dismissed on the ground of alternative remedy.