Chattisgarh High Court
Pacl India Ltd vs State Of Chhattisgarh on 11 August, 2008
HIGH COURT OF CHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR
Writ Petition (C) No. 4414 of 2008
PACL India Ltd.
...Petitioners
VERSUS
1. State of Chhattisgarh
2. Collector
3. Sub Divisional Officer
4. Naib Tehsildar Raigarh
...Respondents
! Shri AmritoDas, Advocate for the petitioner.
^ Shri Alok Bakhshi, Govt. Advocate for the State.
SB: Hon'ble Mr. Satish K. Agnihotri, J Dated:11/08/2008 : Judgement (WRIT PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA) ORAL ORDER (Passed on 11th day of August, 2008)
1. With the consent of the parties, the matter is taken up for hearing finally.
2. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner seeks to impugn the order dated 30.12.2006 (Annexure P/1), passed by the Collector and District Magistrate (Land Records Branch), Raigarh (CG). He further submits that the process of mutation in the village Natwarpur has been stayed by the Collector, Raipur, i.e. respondent No. 2. Thereafter applications were moved for vacating the stay order dated 30.12.2006 (Annexure P/1), but no action has been taken as on date. He further requests to direct the Collector, Raigarh, to consider and decide the applications of the petitioner, in accordance with law.
3. Be that as it may, the C.G. Land Revenue Code, 1959 (for short 'the Code, 1959') provides for appeal, revision and review under Chapter-V, Section 44. If any order has been passed, which affects the rights of the petitioner, as the case of the petitioner is, the petitioner can very well approach either to the Commissioner or to the Board of Revenue, under the provisions of Section 44 of the Code, 1959.
4. There is nothing exceptional to invoke discretion in favour of the petitioner when the effective and expeditious remedy is available under the provisions of the Code, 1959.
5. The Supreme Court in the matter of State of H.P. and others v. Gujrat Ambuja Cement and another1 observed as under:
"17. We shall first deal with the plea regarding alternative remedy as raised by the appellant State. Except for a period when Article 226 was amended by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, the power relating to alternative remedy has been considered to be a rule of self-imposed limitation. It is essentially a rule of policy, convenience and discretion and never a rule of law. Despite the existence of alternative remedy, it is within the jurisdiction of description of the High Court to grant relief under Article 226 of the Constitution. At the same time, it cannot be lost sight of that though the matter relating to an alternative remedy has nothing to do with the jurisdiction of the case, normally the High Court should not interfere if there is an adequate efficacious alternative remedy. If somebody approaches the High Court without availing the alternative remedy provided the High Court should not ensure that he has made out a strong case or that there exists good grounds to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction.
21. In G.Verappa Pillai v. Raman & Raman Ltd., CCE v. Dunlop India Ltd., Ramendra Kishore Biswas v. State of Tripura, Shiv Gonda Anna Patil v. State of Maharashtra, C.A. Abraham v. I.T.O, Titaghur Paper Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Orissa, H.B.Gandhi v. Gopinath & Sons, Whirlpool Corpn. V. Registrar of Trademarks, Tin Plate Co. of India Ltd. v. State of Bihar, Sheela Devi v. Jaspal Singh, and Punjab National Bank v. O.C.Krishnan, this Court had held that where hierarchy of appeals is provided by the statute, party must exhaust the statutory remedy before resorting to writ jurisdiction."
6. Further applying the said ratio in the matter of U.P. State Spinning Co. Ltd. v. R.S.Pandey and another2, the Hon'ble Supreme Court observed as under:
"21. In U.P.State Bridge Corpn. Ltd. v. U.P. Rajya Setu Nigam S. Karmachari Sangh, it was held that when the dispute relates to enforcement of a right or obligation under the statute and specific remedy is, therefore, provided under the statute, the High Court should not deviate from the general view and interfere under Article 226 except when a very strong case is made out for making a departure. The person who insists upon such remedy can avail of the process as provided under the statute. To the same effect or the decisions in Premier Automobiles Ltd. v. Kamlekar Shantaram Wadke, Rajasthan SRTC v. Krishna Kant, Chandrakant Tukaram Nikam v. Municipal Corpn. Of Ahmedabad and in Scooters India v. Vijai E. V. Eldred."
7. In another latest decision on the concept of maintainability of writ petition vis--vis availability of alternative remedy, the Supreme Court in the matter of Sec.
U.P. High School & Intermediate Education, Allahabad & another v. H.K. Lal3, observed as under :
"4. From the records it is borne out that the question as to whether the respondent has a legal right to alter his date of birth recorded in the certificate granted by the Board was pending consideration before the appellate Court. The writ petition filed by the respondent should, therefore, not have been entertained particularly in view of the fact that the appeal thereagainst was pending. Writ jurisdiction is discretionary jurisdiction and should not ordinarily be exercised if there is an alternative remedy."
8. Applying the well settled dicta laid down by the Supreme Court on the issue of availability of alternative remedy to the facts of the case, no case is made out for making out a departure from normal rule. Thus, this petition is dismissed as not maintainable, in view of the availability of statutory alternative remedy. In the event, the petitioner takes recourse to statutory alternative forum available to him, if any, the same shall be considered in accordance with law, without being influenced by observations, if any, made hereinabove.
JUDGE