UDAY RICE PROCESS Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Invocation of the bank guarantee furnished by the Petitioners in connection with the deficit supply of rice pursuant to the custom milling as per the Out Turn Ration (for short 'the OTR') fixed by the Central Government is under challenge in all these petitions seeking for refund of the amount appropriated, with interest at the rate of 18% per annum.

(2.) The main ground of challenge is that the course pursued by the Chhattisgarh State Co-operative Marketing Federation (for short, 'the Federation') for invoking the bank guarantee is without the authority of law and is contrary to the verdicts passed by this Court in Writ Petition (C) No. 3246 of 2016 on 04.05.2017 in respect of the year 2016-2017 and Writ Petition (C) No. 3016 of 2017 in respect of the year 2017-2018.

(3.) The nature of challenge raised in all these writ petitions is exactly similar and hence, Writ Petition (C) No. 2516 of 2018 is treated as the lead case. Reference is made to the parties and proceedings as given therein, except where it is separately mentioned, based on the context.