Technocrat Enterprises Vs Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs and others (Orissa High Court)
Orissa High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed by Technocrat Enterprises, delivering a firm message against litigants adopting inconsistent legal positions. The court invoked the legal doctrine of ‘approbate and reprobate,’ stating that a party cannot be permitted to take one stance in a proceeding and then adopt a contradictory one later to suit its convenience.
The decision was delivered while hearing a challenge to an Order-in-Original dated August 31, 2023, issued by the GST authorities. The case marked the second round of litigation by the same petitioner concerning the same matter, a fact that proved central to the court’s dismissal.
The matter first came before the High Court when the petitioner challenged a recovery notice dated March 14, 2025. In that initial writ petition, the company’s primary argument was that it could not pursue the statutory remedy of an appeal because the fundamental Order-in-Original, which formed the basis of the recovery, had never been served upon it.
Accepting this contention, the High Court, in an order dated April 29, 2025, had provided relief to the petitioner. The court returned a “categorical finding” that the order was indeed never served until April 24, 2025, when it was sent via e-mail. Consequently, the court granted the petitioner specific liberty to challenge the said order before the “appropriate forum available under the statute” within a period of two weeks. This direction was explicitly meant to allow the petitioner to now file a statutory appeal, the path for which was cleared by the formal service of the order.
However, instead of availing the statutory remedy of an appeal as per the liberty granted, the petitioner filed a fresh writ petition before the High Court, this time directly challenging the Order-in-Original. The counsel for the petitioner argued that there was a “glaring infirmity” in the order and that the alternative remedy of an appeal was not a “complete efficacious remedy.”
The High Court was “not impressed” with these submissions. The Senior Standing Counsel for the Central GST raised a preliminary objection, arguing that the petition should be dismissed in light of the court’s previous order.
The court heavily criticized the petitioner’s change of stance. It held that the petitioner could not be allowed to “approbate and reprobate at the same time.”
“Once a specific stand was taken in the earlier round of litigation that the alternative remedy provided in the statute could not be exhausted and/ or availed of because of the non-service of the order…, it is not open to the said litigant to approach the High Court challenging the selfsame order instead of exhausting the statutory remedy,” the court observed.
While acknowledging its discretionary powers under Article 226 of the Constitution to entertain a writ petition despite the existence of an alternative remedy, the court emphasized the need for judicial discipline. It reasoned that since the liberty to challenge the order before the statutory forum was specifically granted in the earlier petition based on the petitioner’s own submissions, it would be inappropriate for the court to entertain a new writ petition that bypasses that very direction.
The court concluded that it was not a “fit case” for its intervention and accordingly dismissed the writ petition, thereby directing the petitioner back to the path of statutory appeal as provided for under the GST Act.
FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF ORISSA HIGH COURT
