ASSISTANT COLLECTOR OF CENTRAL EXCISE CHANDAN NAGAR WEST BENGAL Vs. DUNLOP INDIA LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(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:

(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.