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Cloud 9 Projects Private Limited vs. Anubhav Gupta and Ors.

Letters Patent Appeal · 2026:DHC:8087-DBDecided 15 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
LPA 727/2026CNR: DLHC010435212026
Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya · Justice Tejas Karia

Background

A real estate developer, facing an adverse order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) directing payment to home buyers, tried to challenge that order in the Delhi High Court via a writ petition, arguing the NCDRC bench that heard the case was improperly constituted ("coram non judice"). A Single Judge dismissed the writ petition, reasoning that the very same legal question was already pending before the Supreme Court in statutory appeals, and that the developer had an alternative appellate remedy directly to the Supreme Court under the Consumer Protection Act.

Decision Breakdown

The Division Bench agreed that while a High Court's writ jurisdiction is not automatically barred just because a similar issue is pending elsewhere, it is a matter of discretion, and here it was appropriate for the Single Judge to decline to rule on an identical question already before the Supreme Court, especially where a specific statutory appeal route to the Supreme Court existed. It rejected the developer's argument that its case fell under recognised exceptions to using that remedy, noting those exceptions did not apply where the identical issue was already pending before the higher court. The appeal was dismissed, leaving the developer free to pursue its statutory appeal to the Supreme Court.

Lesson Learnt

Where a specialised law provides a specific appeal route to a higher court (like the Supreme Court for NCDRC orders), and the very issue at stake is already pending there, litigants generally cannot bypass that route by filing a separate writ petition in the High Court.

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