JAYASWALS NECO LIMITED Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Barring Writ Petition (Civil) No. 19958 of 2005 where the facts are slightly different, the facts in the other eight writ petitions are more or less similar. All the writ petitions, however, involve similar questions of law, and are accordingly being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) The Petitioner, a public limited company having its corporate office in New Delhi, owns an integrated steel plant in Raipur in the State of Chhattisgarh where, inter alia, it produces pig iron. For this purpose, the Petitioner procures iron ore from Tata Iron & Steel Company ('TISCO') at Noamundi. There is a railway siding inside the Petitioner's steel plant called the Nacast/Mandhar siding. Two staff members of the Commercial Department of the Railways, Respondent No. 1 herein, are posted at the said siding. An office has been constructed with an FAS terminal facility that has a computerized all India wagon tracking system.

(3.) According to the Petitioner, the iron ore excavated from the mines is stored by TISCO in hoppers called SILO which are situated at a height above the wagon level. The wagons, one after another are placed below the SILO and loaded through a computer-controlled electronic system. There is a control cabin and the quantity of iron ore to be loaded in a wagon, according to the advance payment made by the customer, is fed into the computer by the loading operator at the control cabin and the exact quantity of iron ore is discharged through the chutes into the wagon concerned by a system called 'Electronic Weight-o-meter'. The Petitioner states that since the carrying capacity of a wagon is prescribed and printed on every wagon, the Petitioner has advised its staff and loaders not to load iron ore in any wagon in excess of its carrying capacity. It is stated that this is also the practice followed by TISCO. It is stated that there is a wagon tippler at the said siding inside the Petitioner's steel plant. Each loaded wagon is weighed electronically and thereafter the wagon is tippled (overturned) by a hydraulic system and thereafter empty wagon is again weighed automatically and the entire weighment is recorded in the computer. It is stated that by this process the gross weight and tare weight of a wagon are ascertained. The difference between the two weights gives the weight of the discharged iron ore. The weighing system of the wagon tippler is certified as true and correct by the Railway authorities.