Writ or statutory appeal
Courts generally expect a party to exhaust an available statutory appeal before approaching them under Article 226, and will decline to entertain a writ petition where an equally efficacious alternative remedy exists and has not been used. That said, the rule is one of discretion, not an absolute bar, and courts have entertained writs despite an alternative remedy where the challenge is to the very jurisdiction of the authority, where there is a breach of natural justice, or where the vires of a statute or rule is in question. Which category a case falls into needs to be argued, not assumed.
Delay defeats a writ more often than merit does
Unlike a suit, a writ petition has no fixed limitation period, but courts apply the doctrine of laches and can decline relief where a petitioner has sat on a right for an unreasonable period without adequate explanation. This is a frequent, and avoidable, reason a strong case fails. A client who believes a government order is wrong should approach counsel promptly rather than waiting to see whether the problem resolves itself, since the same facts argued a year later carry noticeably less weight.
Standing in a public interest petition
Ordinary writ petitions require the petitioner to show a personal legal right that has been affected. Public interest litigation relaxes this requirement of locus standi, allowing a petition to be filed on behalf of a group unable to approach the court itself, typically where the issue concerns a matter of genuine public importance such as environmental harm or the rights of a disadvantaged class. Courts remain alert to petitions that use the public interest label to pursue what is really a private or commercial grievance, and will dismiss them on that basis.
What makes a writ petition succeed
A writ petition succeeds or fails largely on the strength of the record placed before the court: the impugned order, the correspondence preceding it, and any statutory provision said to have been breached must be annexed and clearly indexed. Because writ proceedings are conducted substantially on affidavits rather than oral evidence, disputed questions of fact are generally unsuitable for a writ and are better resolved in a suit or before the appropriate tribunal, a distinction worth raising with a client before the petition is drafted rather than after it is filed.
