Chinnappa Reddy, J. - (1.) It is indeed a great pity and we wish we did not have to say it but we are afraid we will be signally failing in our duty if we do not do so some courts, of late, appear to have developed an unwarranted tendency to grant interim orders with a great potential for public. mischief for the mere asking. We feel greatly disturbed. We find it more distressing that such interim orders, often ex parte and non speaking are made even by the High Courts while entertaining writ petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution, and in the Calcutta High Court, on oral application too. Recently in Samarias Trading Co. Pvt. Ltd v. S. Samuel (Civil Appeal No. 4416 of 1984), we had occasion to condemn and prohibit this practice of entertaining oral applications under Art 226 and passing interim orders thereon. In several other cases, Siliguri Municipality v. Amalendu Das (1984) 2 SCC 436, Titaghur Paper Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Orissa (1983) 2 SCC 433, Union of India v. Oswal Woollen Mills Ltd (1984) 2 SCC 646. Union of India v. Jain Shudh Vanaspati Ltd. C. A. No, 11450 of 1983, this court was forced to point out how wrong it was to make interim orders so soon as an application was but presented when a second thought (or a seconds thought) would expose the impairment of the public interest and often enough the existence of a suitable alternative remedy. Despite the fact that we have set our face. against interfering with interim orders passed by the High Courts and made it practically a rigid rule hot to so interfere we were constrained to interfere in those cases.
(2.) In Siliguri Municipality v. Amalendu Das. (supra) A. P. Sen and M. P. Thakkar, JJ. had to deal with an interlocutory order passed by the Calcutta High Court restraining the Siliguri Municipality from recovering a graduated consolidated rate on the annual value of buildings in terms of the amended provisions of the Bengal Municipal Act. We reiterate the following observations made therein: "We are constrained to make the observations which follow as we do feel dismayed at the tendency on the part of some of the High Courts to grant interlocutory orders for the mere asking. Normally, the High Court should not, as a rule, in proceedings under Art. 226 of the constitution grant any stay of recovery of tax save under very exceptional circumstance. The grant of stay in such matters, should be an exception and not a rule. It. is needless to stress that a levy or impost does not become bad as soon as a writ petition is instituted in order to assail the validity of the levy. So also there is no warrant for presuming the levy to be bad at the very threshold of the proceedings. The only consideration at that juncture is to ensure that no prejudice is occasioned to the rate payers in case they ultimately succeed at the conclusion of the proceedings. This object can be attained by requiring the body or authority levying the impost to give an undertaking to refund or adjust against future dues, the levy of tax or rate or a part thereof, as the case may be in the event of the entire levy or a part thereof being ultimately held to be invalid by the court without obliging the tax- payers by the. court to institute a civil suit in order to claim the amount already recovered from them. On the other hand, the Court cannot be unmindful of the need to protect the authority levying the tax, for, at that stage the Court has to proceed on the hypothesis that the challenge may or may not succeed. The Court has to show awareness of the fact that in a case like the present a municipality cannot function or meet its financial obligations if its source of revenue is blocked by an interim order restraining the municipality from recovering the taxes as per the impugned provision. And that the municipality has to maintain essential civic services like water supply, street lighting and public streets etc, apart from running public institutions like school dispensaries, liabraries etc What is more, supplies have to be purchased and salaries have to be paid The grant of an interlocutory order of this nature would paralyze the administration and dislocate the entire working of the municipality my. It seems that these serious ramifications of the matter were lost sight of while making the impugned order."
(3.) In TitaghurPaper Mills Co. Ltd v. State of Orissa AIR 1983 SC 603) A. P.. Sen,.E S. Venkataramiah and R. B. Misra, JJ. held that where the statute itself provided the petitioners with an efficacious alternative remedy by way of an appeal to the Prescribed 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 Art 226 of the Constitution ignoring as it were, the complete statuory machinery. That it has become necessary, even now, for us to repeat this admonition is indeed a matter of tragic concern to us. Art. 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 Art 226 of the Constitution. But then the Court must have good and sufficient reason to by-pass the alternative remedy provided by statute. Surely matters involving the revenue where statutory remedies are available are not such matters. We can also take judicial notice of the fact that the vast majority of the petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution are filed solely for the purpose of obtaining interim orders and thereafter prolong the proceedings by one device or the other. The practice certainly needs to be strongly discouraged.;