HC rejects pleas by corporates against excise penalty

Madras High Court has disallowed a batch of writ petitions by industrial and corporate houses challenging levy of excise penalty by the government, saying they cannot move the high court directly instead of filing an appeal before the Excise Commissioner.
A division bench of Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice K Ravidhandrabaabu, dismissing a large batch of petitions referred to it by a single Judge, said, "Before availing themselves of remedy under Article 226 (High Court jurisdiction) of the Constitution, a person must exhaust the remedies available under the statute."
The matters raised in the petitions pertained to penalty orders passed against the industrial entities by the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTA).

Perhaps to escape from the pre-deposit norm which required these entitles to deposit the demand amount 'pending appeal' as precondition to file the appeal; they filed the present writ petitions, the court observed.
Counsel for revenue authorities, however, submitted that right of appeal against any order was conferred under the enactment itself and therefore filing of petitions against interim orders cannot be entertained.
"When an alternative remedy is available, no writ would lie," he argued.
Rejecting the companies' claim that they were not debarred from approaching the high court against interim orders, the Judges said that when the provisions of the Act are "very clear without any ambiguity to show that an appeal is maintainable against any order passed by the tribunal, this court cannot interpret the provisions as claimed by the companies that such provision is not intended against interim orders.