RAMESHCHANDRA KACHARDAS PORWAL NARAYANDAS GOVINDDAS SHA MOTEEJEE VIRCHANDJI PRAVINCHANDRA KESHAVLAL M V MANJUNATH APPASAHEB BHARAMAPPA VANKUNDRE BASUDEO PRASAD BHAGWAN DAS G Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Reluctant traders, un-willing to move their places of business into the markets or market yards as they are differently called in the States of Maharashtra, Bihar and Karnataka, set up by respective Market Committees under various State Agricultural Produce Marketing Acts, offer their resistance through these Writ Petitions and Civil Appeals. We will first recite the facts in one of the cases (Writ Petition No. 692 of 1980) and thereafter consider the questions raised in that as well as the other cases. The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 692 of 1980 is a trader presently carrying on business in 'Gur' and other commodities at 1221, Bhavani Peth, Pune. In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 4A (2) of the Bombay Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1939, by a notification dated July 6, 1961, the locality known as Bhavanipeth and Nanapeth of the Pune City was declared as one of the principal market yards for the market area consisting of Pune City and Haveli Talukas. The market area had been so declared by a notification dated May 1, 1957, pursuant to a declaration that it was intended to regulate the purchase and sale of 'gur' in the market area. The Bombay Agricultural Produce Markets A 1939, was repealed and replaced by the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act, 1963. By Section 64 of the Act the notifications previously issued etc., under the provisions of the repealed Act were kept alive for the purposes of the new Act. On March 23, 1971, the present Market Committee known as Krishi Utpanna Bazar Samiti, Pune, was constituted under Sec. 4 (1) of the 1963 Act. On April 21, 1971, the Director of Agricultural Marketing published a notification declaring his intention to regulate marketing of a larger number of commodities in the market area of Haveli and Pune City Taluka. On October 4, 1975, the Director of Agricultural Marketing, Maharashtra State, exercing his powers under Section 5 (2), of the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act, 1963, declared the locality known as Market Yard Gultekadi as the principal market for the market area for the marketing of various commodities specified in the notification. Thereafter on October 8, 1975, a Circular was issued to all Adatis, merchants, and licence holders, particularly wholesale dealers dealing in Gur, Halad, Dhania, etc., in the vicinity of Bhavanipeth-Nanapeth informing them that Bhavanipeth-Nanapeth will cease to be a market from the midnight of Oct. 13, 1975 and that the market yard Gultekadi had been declared as the principal market for the market area. The circular went on to say that anyone carrying on business anywhere except Gultekadi was liable to be prosecuted. The result of the notification dated October 4, 1975, and the Circular, dated October 8, 1975, was that it was not permissible for anyone to carry on trade in any of the notified agricultural commodities outside the Gultekadi market yard on and after October 14, 1975. It meant that traders like the petitioner who had for generations been carrying on business in those commodities in Bhavanipeth-Nanapeth had perforce to move into Gultekadi market yard if they wanted to stay in the business. Consequent upon representations made by the Pune Merchants Chamber and the interim order in a Writ Petition filed in the Bombay High Court by the Chamber the date notified for the commencement of the functioning of the Principal Market in Gultekadi was postponed from time to time. Finally, by a public notice dated March 6, 1980, all wholesale traders, commission agents and others dealing in agricultural produce in Bhavanipeth-Nanapeth and surrounding areas were informed that with effect from March 17, 1980, wholesale trade in the regulated agricultural produce could be carried on in the Gultekadi market yard only. The petitioner seeks to resist the situation thus sought to be forced upon him and challenges the notification dated October 4, 1975, and the consequential notices requiring him to carry on business in regulated agricultural produce in the Gultekadi market yard and at no other place. Similarly, in Writ Petitions Nos. 937 to 1063 of 1980 and Writ Petns. Nos. 1111 to 1115 of 1980, 132, other traders who are presently carrying on business in the existing market of Bhavanipeth-Nanapeth question the notification and the notices following the notification.

(2.) In Writ Petitions Nos. 1558 of 1980 and 5441 to 5462 of 1980, the petitioners are wholesale traders in onions and potatoes who carry on their business in the Maulana Azad Road Market in Bombay. They complain against a notification dated December 5, 1978 by which it was declared that after January 26, 1979, marketing of potatoes and onions shall be carried on at the Principal Market at Turbhe and at no other place. It appears that initially, for the market area comprising Greater Bombay and Turbhe Village in Thane Taluka, the newly established market at Turbhe was declared as the Principal Market and the existing markets at Maulana Azad Road and Mahatma Phule Mandai were declared subsidiary markets. This was by a notification dated January 15, 1977. Later by the impugned notification dated December 5, 1978, the subsidiary markets were abolished and the market at Turbhe alone was declared as the Principal Market for the area comprising Greater Bombay, and Turbhe village.

(3.) It was argued on behalf of the petitioners that the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act 1963 did not invest the Director of Marketing or the Market Committee with any power to compel a trader to transfer his activity from a previously existing market to a principal or subsidiary market. established under S. 5 of the Act. There was no provision in the Act by which a trader could be compelled to market declared agricultural produce in the principal or subsidiary market established under Section 5 and in no other place. This was a feature which distinguished it from the Bombay Act of 1939 and the Agricultural Produce Marketing Acts of so many other States. Rule 5 of the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Rules, 1967, which purported to provide that no person shall market any declared agricultural produce in any place in a market area other than the Principal Market or subsidiary market established therein was ultra vires. It was also submitted that once a principal or subsidiary market was established at one place there was no provision in the Act which enabled the principal or subsidiary market to be transferred to another place. In any event it was urged that the notification was an unreasonable restriction on the right of the petitioners to carry on their trade. It was also submitted, and this appeared to be the main thrust of the argument of most of the counsel for the various petitioners that the Act did not cover transactions between trader and trader and transactions by which the agricultural produce was imported into the market area from outside the market area. Sections 5 and 6 and Rules 5 and 6 had to be so read - the language permitted such a construction - as to make a distinction between a sale of agricultural produce by a producer to a trader which had to be within a market and a subsequent sale by a trader to a trader which could be anywhere in the market area. It was submitted that if Ss. 5 and 6 and Rr. 5 and 6 were to be construed as compelling transactions between trader and trader also to take place within a market they were invalid. In the petitions of the Bombay merchants it was further urged that Section 13 (1A) which was a special provision declaring Greater Bombay and Turbhe village a Market Area was unreasonable and invalid.