Writ Jurisdiction Cannot Be 'Weaponised' To Bypass Statutory Appeals, Clog Constitutional Courts: Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court has frowned upon the growing tendency of litigants using writ jurisdiction to bypass alternative statutory appellate frameworks.

The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay K. Agrawal and Justice Sameer Jain observed,

“…we cannot remain mute spectators to the growing propensity of litigants to weaponize the extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court to bypass robust statutory appellate frameworks, and therefore, we cannot permit the writ jurisdiction to be routinely invoked as a substitute for statutory appeals, clogging the constitutional courts and rendering the statutory appellate tribunals redundant, especially in taxation matters where the revenue of the State is at stake.”

The Court was hearing a petition challenging the order of confiscation passed in FORM GST MOV-11, as well as the letter demanding bank guarantee.

For context, the petitioner was proprietor of a business of edible oils and had allegedly purchased oil from someone, labelled as “Soyabean Refined Oil”. While conveyance, the truck was intercepted by the State Trax Authorities in Alwar, suspecting evasion due to stark route deviation and lack of Toll records.

Upon physical inspection, discrepancy was found in which the goods found were actually mustard oil, instead of the documented soyabean oil. Moreover, at the time of such inspection, the driver of the vehicle eloped from the scene after locking the steering. Hence, show cause notice for confiscation was issued.

This was challenged by petitioner wherein the coordinate bench directed release of the vehicle subject to the petitioner furnishing a bank guarantee. When the same was not furnished the competent authority passed the final order of confiscation, which was challenged by the petitioner before the Court.

In this regard, preliminary objection was raised by the authorities that the petitioner had failed to avail the statutory efficacious remedy of appeal under Section 107 of the CGST/RGST Act, 2017.

Further, it was contended that the matter included highly complex questions of facts, regarding chemical nature of oil, bypassing tolls, creating multiple E-way bills etc. which could not be adjudicated in a writ jurisdiction.

After hearing the contentions, the Court agreed with the arguments put forth by the authorities and highlighted that CGST/RGST Act, 2017 was a self-contained, comprehensive code that laid down a robust statutory mechanism for redressal of grievances.

“…writ jurisdiction enshrined under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is not meant to short-circuit or circumvent the statutory appellate hierarchy created by the legislature… A writ court, operating under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, cannot conduct a roving inquiry or act as an appellate fact-finding forum to re-appreciate such intricate, disputed evidence, and the Appellate Authority as prescribed under Section 107 is statutorily equipped to sift through this evidence.”

Accordingly, the petition was dismissed.