STATE OF RAJAS THAN Vs. CHHAGANMAL BASTIMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under sec. 15 of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act filed by the Sales Tax Officer, Special Circle, Jaipur, arises out of the orders passed by the Hon'ble Shri S. D. Ujwal, Ex-Chairman of the Board of Revenue in revision No. 270/1963/ Ajmer (M/s. Chaganmal Bastimal of Beawar vs. State of Rajasthan) dated 19-3-1964 under sec. 14 of the aforesaid Act.

(2.) A preliminary objection was raised in that case by the learned Government Advocate that since the order impugned before the learned Member was appealable under sec. 13 of the aforesaid Act, the petitioner should have appealed to the Deputy Commissioner instead of evoking the revisional powers of this court and that this court should not exercise its revisional jurisdiction lightly when the other party has failed to take advantage of the legal remedy open to it.

(3.) IT was observed by the learned Judges that the expression "case" could not be interpreted to mean an entire proceeding only. Not to include a part of proceeding in this expression would be to impose a restriction upon the exercise of the powers of superintendence to which the jurisdiction to issue writs, and the supervisory jurisdiction are not subject, and may result in certain cases in denying relief to an aggrieved litigant where it is most needed, and may result in the perpetration of gross injustice. Their Lordships proceeded to observe that once it was granted that the expression "case" included a part of a case, there was no escape from the conclusion that revisional jurisdiction of the High Court might be exercised irrespective of the question whether an appeal lay from the ultimate decree or order passed in the suit. Any other view would impute to the Legislature an intention to restrict the exercise of this salutary jurisdiction to those comparatively unimportant suits and proceedings in which the appellate jurisdiction of the High Courts is excluded for reasons of public policy. IT was, further, observed that he expression in which no appeal lies thereto" is not susceptible of the interpretation that it excludes the exercise of the revisional jurisdiction when an appeal may be competent to the final order. IT was held that if an appeal lies against the adjudication directly to the High Court or to another court from the decision of which an appeal lies to High Court, it has no power to exercise its revisional jurisdiction, but where the decision itself is not appealable to the High Court directly or indirectly, exercise of the revisional jurisdiction by the High Court would not be deemed excluded. In view of these authorities referred to earlier, I came to the conclusion that, in suitable cases, where the orders of the subordinate courts suffer from lack of jurisdiction, supervisory courts cannot be debarred from interfering at an earlier stage, even if an appeal lies in such cases, so as to avoid prolonged litigation and harassment to the subjects. I held the view that the extra-ordinary powers of revision are vested in a supervisory court to administer speedy justice and to protect an aggrieved litigant from the perpetration of uncalled for and avoidable mischief.