ORDER
1. We have been informed that the Respondent No. 3 has passed the order on the stay application of the petitioner.
2. The Respondent No. 4 is present in person pursuant to our order dated 21-12-2001. He has also filed his affidavit.
3. What was in issue which led us to summon the Respondent No. 4 were certain uncalled for and unwarranted observations made by him in the course of his order dated 7-11-2001. He had made some scathing observations regarding the jurisdiction of Calcutta High Court in entertaining a writ application under Article 226 of the Constitution (apparently on the premises that Section 35L of the Central Excise Act did not permit an aggrieved person in approaching the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution). Not only that, he went on to observe that the interim order dated 14-1-1998 passed by Calcutta High Court was not an order passed by a competent Court and that it did not have a binding effect on the Revenue, apparently because he thought that the judgment of the Supreme Court had said so.
4. It is indeed very unfortunate that a statutory functionery takes upon himself the task of deciding whether a High Court while exercising writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution is competent to pass an order or not. If some one thinks that a Court has no jurisdiction to pass a particular type of order, he is always at liberty to approach that Court and bring to its notice the jurisdictional error and request the Court to rectify the order on the ground of lack of jurisdiction. It is not open to any one, instead, to conclude that the High Court did not have jurisdiction. This is more so in case of an Executive Officer, who while discharging his statutory functions performs duties which are quasi-judicial in nature. We disapprove the conduct of Respondent No. 4 in making aforesaid uncalled for observations about the competence and jurisdiction of a High Court exercising extraordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution. The Respondent No. 4 is warned to be careful in future.
5. With the aforesaid observations, we dispose of the writ application but without any order as to costs.