COOPERATIVE COMPANY LIMITED Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant herein, which is a limited company, was running a distillery with a bottling plant at Nawabgangj, Saharanpur, since 1910. On 14-7-1980 it made an application to the Commissioner of Excise, State of U. P., stating that its distillery has been operating annual licences for wholesale supply of country-liquor to Delhi Administration for many years continuously. Therefore, it stated that it wanted to establish a bottling warehouse in district Ghaziabad to meet its requirement of supplying country-liquor to Delhi conveniently and economically. It pleaded that due to close proximity to Delhi if it is permitted to start a bottling unit somewhere in the district of Ghaziabad, it will have obvious advantages since bulk of its production of country-liquor was being sold in Delhi. It also stated in the said application that it would help the company to bid competitively in the auctions and consequently, the State would also stand to benefit from the excise revenue. In the said letter, it is stated in clear terms that the State Government would not stand to lose anything by permitting the company to start the bottling warehouse in district Ghaziabad because it would continue to bottle both at Saharanpur as well as at Ghaziabad, hence, the State excise duty from Saharanpur would not suffer. It was also made specific in the said application that it was seeking a licence for an additional bottling warehouse at Ghaziabad.

(2.) Pursuant to the said application, the appellant was informed on 29-7-1980 that it is permitted to bottle country spirit under bond for exports in a bonded warehouse to be licensed for suitable premises to be indicated by the appellant at Ghaziabad along with various other conditions. The said intimation also called upon the appellant to make necessary arrangements after executing counterpart agreement prescribed under the Excise Rules and that the amended CL-I licence will be issued by the Office of the Excise Commissioner as also F.L.-3 licence will be issued by the Collector, Ghaziabad.

(3.) It is stated that for a considerable time the appellant was unable to establish the bottling warehouse as permitted under the letter of the Excise Commissioner, referred to above. But it is an admitted fact that such a warehouse with the permission of the authorities was established at Sahibabad, district Ghaziabad, and has been functioning for a number of years. In the meantime, it is noticed that the appellant faced certain difficulties in running of its distillery and bottling warehouse at Saharanpur because of the dispute in regard to the property in which its distillery plant was situated at Saharanpur as also because of the provisions of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Therefore, sometime in the year 1987 the appellant wrote to the Commissioner of Excise in view of the above-cited difficulty that it be permitted to shift its distillery from Saharanpur to some other suitable place. The Government as per its letter dated 20-7-1998 (1988) informed the appellant that it had no objection to shifting the said distillery from Saharanpur to some other place, other than Sahibabad, district Ghaziabad. Subsequently, by another letter of the Government dated 7-9-1988, the appellant was informed that in superession of its aforesaid letter dated 20-7-1988, the Government had decided to approve the transfer of the distillery of the appellant to a place near the existing site in Saharanpur and that it had no objection to the working of the appellant's bottling plant at a place owned by the appellant in any other district provided this did not result in reduction in the number of workers working in the district of Saharanpur. Consequent to the above order of the Government dated 7-9-1988, the Assistant Commissioner of Excise informed the appellant the sanction of the Government for shifting of the site of the distillery of the appellant. This was done by its letter dated 27-9-1988. In the said letter it was made clear that the permisssion to shift the distillery at Saharanpur was given on a condition that the shifting shall be done to some place near Saharanpur city with installation of necessary pollution control devices. Based on this permission, the appellant contends that it shifted its distillery and the attached bottling plant from Nawabganj, Saharanpur to Yusufpur, Tapari Road, Saharanpur.