SEASKY EXPORTS PVT.LTD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Government of India, with a view to encourage exports firms, started a scheme termed as External Market Assistance and Internal Market Assistance Scheme which stipulated grant of subsidy to the exporters of specified products including diversified jute products. Vide communication dated 1.4.1991, the Government of India amended the definition of 'diversified jute products' for the purpose of extending benefits under such schemes to mean products containing two or more fibers in which jute remain the dominant fiber, provided that the percentage of jute contents in products containing jute and some other fibers shall not be more than 50% and in fact the products containing three or more fibers including jute percentage of jute, by weight, it should be at least 34%. Vide communication dated 12.1.1995, the Government of India directed that only jute yarn, jute or jute blended union decorative fabrics and jute and jute blended garments would be eligible for EAM Assistance. Vide communication dated 27.3.1997, the Government of India decided that with effect from 1.4.1997 only seven products i.e. (i) jute or jute blended/ covered yarn, single and multiplied provided the weight of the yarn does not exceed 10,000 decitex (ii) jute or jute blended floor covering and mattings (iii) jute of jute blended/ union decorative fabrics provided the FoB value is more than Rs.40,000 per M.T. (iv) jute wall hangings (v) jute handicrafts (vi) jute nad jute blended garments and made-ups and (vii) carpet backing cloth would be eligible for EMA assistance. However, at no stage, the Government altered percentage of jute prescribed vide communication dated 1.4.1991.

(2.) THE petitioner before this Court is an export house which has been exporting jute floorings and coverings to various countries and was duly registered under the EMA Scheme of Government of India. The petitioner submitted a claim amounting to Rs.4886894/- for grant of the said assistance in respect of jute/ wool durry exported between December, 2001 to July, 2004. The claim of the petitioner, however, was refused on the ground that the export documents did not indicate percentage of jute content in the products exported by it. Being aggrieved from refusal of the respondents to release the cash assistance in terms of the aforesaid scheme, the petitioner is before this Court seeking the following reliefs:

(3.) THIS is petitioner's own case that the export, in respect of which assistance has been claimed by it, were made between December, 2001 to July, 2004. The claim for grant of External Market Assistance was submitted by the petitioner on 10.3.2004 to the Jute Manufacturing Development Council and was received by the said Council on the same date. The petitioner had a cause of action to come to the Court after waiting for a reasonable period of say about 3-6 months for the assistance to be disbursed to it. Since neither any disbursal was made nor was any assurance given to the petitioner in this regard, it ought to have come to the Court soon thereafter and in any case within three years after expiry of six months from the submission of the claim. The petitioner, however, chose to wait for more than six years after submitting the claims. The petitioner, therefore, is clearly guilty of delay and laches in approaching the Court and, therefore, the writ petition is liable to be dismissed on this ground alone.