Hon’ble Dr. Devendra Kumar Arora, J.—By means of present writ petition, the petitioner has questioned the correctness and validity of the judgment and order dated 16.2.2015 passed by the Armed Forces Tribunal, Regional Bench, Lucknow, (in short referred to as ‘Tribunal’) in O.A. No. 274 of 2015 as also the order dated 13.3.2015 passed in Review Application No. 1 of 2015.

2. The petitioner, who was granted commission in Military Nursing Service was served with a show-cause notice dated 30.9.2014 by the competent authority which was assailed by the petitoner before the Tribunal by filing Original Application No. 274 of 2014. The said Original Application was dismissed by the Tribunal vide its judgment and order dated 16.2.2015 being premature.

3. Hence this writ petition.

4 A preliminary objection has been raised by Shri S.B. Pandey, Assistant Solicitor General of India regarding maintainability of the writ petition. According to him, the instant writ petition has been filed challenging the order of the Tribunal, which is not maintainable in view of the recent judgment of the Apex Court rendered in Civil Appeal No. 7400 of 2013; Union of India and others v. Major General Srikant Sharma and another, decided on 11.3.2015.

5. Elaborating his argument, learned counsel for the respondents submitted that when an alternative and equally efficacious remedy is open to a litigant, he should be required to pursue that remedy and cannot be permitted to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of the High Court to issue a prerogative writ as the writ jurisdiction is meant for doing justice between the parties where it cannot be done in any other forum.

6. It has further been argued on behalf of Union of India that the High Court cannot entertain writ petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India contrary to the law enacted by the Parliament being the Armed Forces Tribunal 2007 which is a special enactment exclusively provided for an appellate remedy by way of leave before the Court.

7. Refuting the allegation of the respondents, learned counsel for the petitioner on the strength of Full Bench Judgement of this Court in Mahesh Chandra Ex-LNK/CI v. Union of India and others, (2004) 3 UPLBEC 2389, vehemently argued that the instant writ petition cannot be thrown away on the ground of availability of alternative remedy. In an attempt to substantiate his assertions, Learned counsel for the petitioner has drawn attention of the Court towards conclusion Nos. iv, v, vi and vii drawn in the aforesaid judgement, which read as under:

“(iv) Having said this, it needs to be emphasised that the existence of jurisdiction and the nature of its exercise have distinct connotations in constitutional law. The Armed Forces Tribunal is constituted by legislation which provides for a specialized and efficacious administration of justice in matters falling within its jurisdiction under the provisions of the Act. This is coupled with the need to maintain discipline in the Armed Forces;

(v) The Armed Forces Tribunal is a Court of first instance and ordinarily, matters which fall within the purview of its jurisdiction have to proceed for adjudication before the Tribunal and the Tribunal alone. Against the decision of the Tribunal, there is a statutory remedy of an appeal which is provided under Sections 30 and 31 to the Supreme Court;

(vi) Since a statutory remedy of an appeal is provided, the principles which are well established for the exercise of the jurisdiction under Article 226, would warrant that the High Court should be circumspect and careful while determining as to whether any case for the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution is made out;

(vii) The jurisdiction under Article 226 has not been abrogated as it could not have been, being a basic and essential feature of the Constitution.”

Thus this Court is required to first answer the question regarding maintainability of the writ petition against the order passed by the Armed Fo