AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
Mishra, J.—The petitioner herein has challenged a notice purportedly issued in exercise of the power under S. 25 of the Water (Prevention
and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. He has raised certain jurisdictional facts to show that the alleged effluence is not a trade effluence or discharge
of sewage. He has submitted that in the absence of a preliminary determination of these facts, there cannot exist any cause for a notice under S. 25
of the Act. The scheme of the law however is one under which there is a provision for enquiry, a procedure therefor and appeal against any order
passed under S. 25 of the Act. The alternative remedy in a situation like this may be a ground to hold that the petitioner should be asked first to
exhaust the internal remedy and then come to this Court. Learned counsel for the petitioner has however submitted that before exercise of that
jurisdiction, grounds must be found to exist and if the petitioner is in a position to demonstrate that such facts do not exist, alternative remedy
should not be a bar to the maintainability of the instant writ petition.
Whereas there can be no doubt that an alternative remedy of a bearing in the course of an enquiry or appeal as provided under the Act may not
be an absolute bar to the jurisdiction of this Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India or even to a civil court under S. 9 of the Code of
Civil Procedure, the courts have enshrined discipline and evolved a rule of alternative remedy as a bar to the maintainability of a writ petition or a
suit. It is a general rule that no court or authority of a limited jurisdiction can give itself jurisdiction, but this also is a settled law that if jurisdiction,
depends upon existence of certain preliminary facts, a court or authority of a limited jurisdiction can always decide the jurisdictional facts. A direct
authority to this effect is in a Full Bench judgment of the Patna High Court in Patna Municipal Corporation Vs. Ram Bachan Lal, . In the instant
case, since I am of the opinion that the alternative remedy under the Act is both adequate and efficacious, the petitioner is directed to exhaust the
internal remedy before moving a court of law. This writ petition is accordingly dismissed.