Case Digest (G.R. No. 174788)
Facts:
The Special Audit Team, Commission on Audit, vs. Court of Appeals and Government Service Insurance System, G.R. No. 174788, April 11, 2013, the Supreme Court En Banc, Sereno, C.J., writing for the Court.Petitioner is the Special Audit Team (SAT) of the Commission on Audit (COA); respondents are the Court of Appeals (CA) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). The SAT was created by COA under Legal and Adjudication Office (LAO) Order No. 2004-093 to conduct a special audit of selected GSIS transactions for calendar years 2000–2004. The SAT sought documents from GSIS, which initially agreed but later refused cooperation; the SAT then issued a subpoena duces tecum. GSIS objected to the SAT’s composition as biased and challenged the legal basis for its creation.
GSIS filed with COA a Petition/Request to nullify the SAT’s Special Audit Report dated 29 March 2005 on 15 April 2005. GSIS also filed a Petition for Prohibition with the CA on 18 July 2005 seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO), preliminary prohibitory injunction, and a writ of prohibition against the SAT. The CA directed the SAT to comment (22 July 2005), issued a TRO effective sixty days from notice, and after memoranda was filed, granted a writ of preliminary injunction on 23 September 2005 conditioned on posting an injunction bond. The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) filed a motion for reconsideration and comment (10 October 2005); the CA denied reconsideration by Resolution dated 9 August 2006.
Petitioner SAT then filed this Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition under Rule 65 on 10 November 2006 seeking to annul the CA Resolutions of 23 September 2005 and 9 August 2006 and to prohibit the CA from proceeding in CA-G.R. SP No. 90484. The SAT argued the CA acted in grave abuse of discretion, that the CA lacked jurisdiction because of the doctrines of primary jurisdiction and exhaustion of administrative remedies, and that the SAT’s special audit had a legal basis. GSIS countered that the petition for prohibition satisfied requisites, that the CA could enjoin t...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Is prohibition under Rule 65 the correct remedy to enjoin the SAT and the COA action?
- Was the CA’s issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction proper?
- Was the SAT validly constituted under COA authority and a...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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