( 1 ) THE Petitioner has prayed for the issuance of an appropriate writ, Order or direction to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to take a decision on the approval of the completed cost of the subject power project established and commissioned by the Petitioner in Andhra Pradesh. The CEA had commenced proceedings earlier, but with the enforcement of the Electricity Act, 2003 has now adopted the view that its jurisdiction has been taken away. A host of preliminary or technical objections have been raised. PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS

( 2 ) BY way of prefatory remarks, generally speaking, the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution cannot be circumscribed, and the fetters and frontiers are almost entirely judicially self imposed. One of the question that had arisen before the Constitutional bench comprising seven learned Judges of the Supreme Court in landmark precedent titled L. Chandra Kumar vs. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 261 was whether the powers of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution could be curtailed by statutes such as the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. The Court pronounced that the powers of judicial review over legislative action vested, inalienably, in the High Courts under Article 226 and in the Supreme Court under article 32 of the Constitution, and were integral and essential features of the constitution constituting part of its basic structure. Ordinarily, therefore, the power of these Courts to test the constitutional validity of legislations could not be ousted or excluded. It was further held that the power vested in the High Courts to exercise judicial superintendence over the decisions of all courts and Tribunals within their respective jurisdictions was also a concomitant of the basic structure of the Constitution. Divesting the High courts of these powers had therefore to be abjured. It was further held that the provisions of the statute which excluded the jurisdiction of the High Courts and the Supreme Court, such as Section 28 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 were unconstitutional. The Apex Court has on several occasions including harbans Lal Sahni v. Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. , (2003) 2 SCC 107 explained the effect of existence of alternative remedies on the maintainability of a writ petition. In that case the relationship between the parties was contractual and the Dealership agreement contained an arbitration clause. Nevertheless the appeals were allowed by the Supreme Court, which opined thus : 7. So far as the view taken by the High Court that the remedy by way of recourse to arbitration clause was available to the appellants and therefore the writ petition filed by the appellants was liable to be dismissed is concerned, suffice it to observe that the rule of exclusion of writ jurisdiction by availability of an alternative remedy is a rule of discretion and not one of compulsion. In an appropriate case, in spite of availability of the alternative remedy, the High Court may still exercise its writ jurisdiction in at least three contingencies : (i) where the writ petition seeks enforcement of any of the fundamental rights; (ii) where there is failure of principles of natural justice; or (iii) where the orders or proceedings are wholly without jurisdiction or the vires of an Act is challenged. (See Whirlpool Corpn. vs. Registrar of Trade Marks ). The present case attracts applicability of the first two contingencies. Moreover, as noted, the petitioners dealership , which is their bread and butter, came to be terminated for an irrelevant and non-existent cause. In such circumstances, we feel that the appellants should have been allowed relief by the High Court itself instead of driving them to the need of initiating arbitration proceedings. (A) Disputed Questions of Fact

( 3 ) ON behalf of Respondent No. 2 it has been contended that the disputes raised in the petition relates to adjudication of several delicate questio