THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V. ESWARAIAH AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR W.P.NO. 8974 OF 2009 AND WPMP NO. 393 OF 2010 Date of disposal: 4.2.2010 Between: Md. Saaduddin (died represented by Mrs. Rahmathunissa Begum …Petitioner and The Government of A.P., and another …Respondents. THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V. ESWARAIAH AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR W.P.NO. 8974 OF 2009 AND WPMP NO. 393 OF 2010 ORDER: (Per Hon’ble Sri Justice V. Eswaraiah) WPMP NO. 393 OF 2010 1. The petitioner’s husband filed OA No. 2342 of 2008 before the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal, Hyderabad (for short “the Tribunal”) seeking payment of retiral benefits such as full pension, gratuity, leave salary and it was dismissed by the Tribunal by the order dated 23.3.2009. It is stated that after the OA was reserved for orders and before the delivery of the order in OA, the petitioner’s husband died and therefore, this writ petition is filed by his wife challenging the order of the Tribunal. 2. During the pendency of the writ petition, the petitioner has filed WPMP No. 393 of 2010 seeking to amend the prayer in the writ petition questioning the clause (7) of Rule 9 (6) of the Revised Pension Rules, 1980, as amended by G.O. Rt. No. 3213, Finance (Admn. I.Vig) Department, dated 26.8.2009. The relief claimed before the Tribunal was only for payment of full pension, gratuity, leave salary and other benefits. It is the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that unless the amended rule is declared as illegal and set aside, the petitioner will not be able to get retiral benefits and therefore she wants to question the said amended rule. We are of the opinion that it will not be open to the petitioner to directly approach this Court without availing the alternative remedy available to her before the Tribunal which is empowered to decide the legality, validity or otherwise of the amended rule in view of the law laid down by the Supreme Court reported in L. Chandra Kumar Vs. Union of India [1]. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that as per the judgment of the Supreme Court reported in T.K. Rangarajan Vs. Government of Tamil Nadu and others [2] availability of alternative remedy is no bar for the High Court to exercise the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. We have perused the said judgment and it relates dismissal of two lakh employees who were going on strike and 2211 employees were detained, out of which 74 were ladies. The Supreme Court also held that at the particular time the Administrative Tribunal in Tamil Nadu State was functioning with one member and in those extraordinary circumstances, if the thousands of employees were directed to approach the Tribunal, the Tribunal would not be in a position to render justice to the cause and in those very very exceptional circumstances, the High Court was justified in entertaining the petitions overlooking the ground of alternative remedy provided under the statute. In the instant case, we do not find those very very exceptional circumstances so as to entertain the petition seeking to challenge the vires of the amended rule and overlook the alternative remedy provided under the statute. Therefore, we are of the opinion that since the petitioner has an alternative, effective, efficacious remedy available under the law before the Tribunal to challenge the vires of the amended rule, WPMP No. 393 of 2010 is dismissed. W.P.NO. 8974 OF 2009 3. The learned counsel for the petitioner seeks to withdraw the main writ petition with liberty to question the clause (7) of Rule 9 (6) of the Revised Pension Rules, 1980, as amended by G.O. Rt. No. 3213, Finance (Admn. I.Vig) Department, dated 26.8.2009. Liberty is granted. The writ petition is dismissed as withdrawn. No costs. _______________________ JUSTICE V. ESWARAIAH ________________________________ JUSTICE VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR Dt. 4.2.2010 KR [1] (1997) 3 SCC 261 : 1997 SCC (L & S) 577 [2] (2003) 6 Supreme Court Cases 581