BRAHMA STEYR TRACTORS LTD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner which is a private limited company having its registered office at Chandigarh seeks a writ of mandamus directing the Director General of Foreign Trade (,,DGFT) to pay the Mumbai Port Trust (,,MPT) (Respondent No.3 herein) the demurrage charges claimed by MPT in respect of Lot No. 6747 belonging to the Petitioner. An alternate prayer is for a direction to the DGFT to reimburse the Petitioner the demurrage charges. The Petitioner also seeks the quashing of the auction held by the MPT on 7th November 2002 and for a direction to the MPT to decide the Petitioners representation dated 14th March 2002 regarding the levy of the accumulated demurrage/port charges.

(2.) The Petitioner, a public limited company having its registered office at Chandigarh, is stated to have been incorporated with the main object of implementing a state of art technology project for manufacture of tractors of 48 HP. It is stated that on 5th November 1997, it entered into certain supply agreements with a company in Austria whereby the items to be imported by the Petitioner included two new machines and three second-hand machines. The Petitioner claims to have obtained permissions from the government for the import. The Petitioner imported 80% of the plant and machinery. However, the DGFT declined to grant the Petitioner an EPCG licence for two of the second-hand machines on the ground that under the new EXIM policy effective from 1st April 1999, ECPG licence could be issued only for new machines. The Petitioner was asked to submit an application for the grant of a special import licence (,,SIL).

(3.) The case of the Petitioner is that it had entered into the supply agreement in 1997 itself and, therefore, the imports were not covered under the new EXIM policy, which became effective only from 1st April 1999.