BELA RANI BHATTCHARYYA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS intra -court appeal impugns the orders dated 07.11.2013 and 10.01.2014 of the learned Single Judge in W.P.(C) No.5079/2013 preferred by the appellant and inter alia holding the writ petition preferred by the appellant impugning the order dated 20.10.2011 of the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) to be not maintainable owing to the remedy of appeal under Section 53T of the Competition Act, 2002 being available thereagainst. The learned Single Judge having not gone into the merits of the writ petition, need is not felt to set out the same. The only question for consideration is of the maintainability of a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India against the order of the COMPAT and which order admittedly is appealable to the Supreme Court under Section 53T (supra). The counsel for the appellant merely stated that he has set out the judgments relied upon by him in support of the proposition of maintainability of the writ petition in the memorandum of appeal before us.

(2.) THE appellant / writ petitioner, in the memorandum of appeal has referred to L. Chandra Kumar Vs. Union of India (1997) 3 SCC 261, Timbak Vs. Ram Chandra AIR 1977 SC 1222, Competition Commission of India Vs. Steel Authority of India Ltd. (2010) 10 SCC 744, State of U.P. Vs. Mohd. Nooh AIR 1958 SC 86, Seth Chand Ratan Vs. Pandit Durga Prasad AIR 2003 SC 2736, Shri Ambica Mills Vs. S.B. Bhatt AIR 1961 SC 970, R.K. Jain Vs. Union of India 1993 AIR 1769, Dulal Chandra Hazarika Vs. Assam Board of Revenue AIR 1971 Gauhati 123, Madurantakam Coop. Sugar Mills Ltd. Vs. S. Viswanathan 2005 (3) SCC 193, B.E. Supply Co. Vs. The Workmen AIR 1972 SC 303, S. Parthasarathi Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh AIR 1973 SC 2701, Syed Yakoob Vs. Radhakrishnan AIR 1964 SC 477 and Ouseph Mathai Vs. M. Abdul Khalid (2002) 1 SCC 319.

(3.) RELIANCE was placed by the Division Bench inter alia on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Nivedita Sharma Vs. Cellular Operators Association of India (2011) 14 SCC 337. The Supreme Court in the said judgment was directly concerned with the question, whether this Court was justified in entertaining the writ petitions against the order passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, ignoring the statutory remedy of appeal to the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission available under Section 19 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. The Supreme Court in the said judgment inter alia held as under: