KRIBHCO INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITED Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY way of present petition, the petitioner seeks following relief : (a) To issue a writ of mandamus or a writ, direction or order in the nature of writ of mandamus commanding the respondent authorities to re-weigh the rake No.KRIL-05 of the petitioner at any other Railway Weigh Bridge on route to Guwahati except for Viramgam Railway Weight Bridge; Or; (a) To issue a writ of mandamus or a writ, direction or order in the nature of writ of mandamus commanding the respondent Authorities to re-weigh the rake No.KRIL-05 of the petitioner at Godhra Railway Weigh Bridge on route to Guwahati. (b) To issue a writ of mandamus or a writ, direction or order in the nature of writ of mandamus commanding the respondent authorities to release the rake No.KRIL-05 of the petitioner without charging per hour demurrage from the petitioner. (c) Pending admission, hearing and final disposal of the present petition, Your Lordships may be pleased to stay the demurrage charges payable by the petitioner (d) An ex parte ad interim relief in terms of para (C) may kindly be granted.

(2.) THE facts in short are such that the petitioner Kribhco Infrastructure Ltd. (KRIL) is owned subsidiary of Krishak Bharti Cooperative Ltd. (KRIBHCO), registered under the Multi-STate Cooperative Societies (MSCS) Act, 2002. The said KRIBHCO is engaged in the production of fertilizer. Logistics is an important element of KRIBHCO, which is required to be supplied across the country. Therefore, the petitioner KRIL was created in order to commence rail operations for supplying products in the country. As per the case of the petitioner, Rake No. KRIL-05 was weighed and it was given weighment Rake No.107. Said Rake was loaded in Morbi on 2.8.2012 to be sent to New Guwahati with 90 x 20 loaded containers. The said Rake was weighed at Viramgam Railway Station Railway Weighbridge on 4.8.2012. As per the petitioner, the said Rake was overloaded by 83.06 Metric Tonnes (MT) as per weightment. Therefore, the said Rake was withheld by the respondent Railway Authorities. The petitioner made oral representation on 4.8.2012 to the concerned Station Manager of Viramgam Station for re-weighment of the rake at any other Railway weighbridge on the route, but same was not considered. Thereafter, the petitioner approached Assistant Commercial Manager and Sr. Divisional Manager as well as Divisional Railway Manager, Ahmedabad for redressal of the grievance, by way of representation on 4.8.2012, same was also rejected by the Divisional Railway Manager. Therefore, the petitioner was constrained to approach learned Railway Magistrate, Ahmedabad by way of initiating process of re-weighment under Section 79 of the Railways Act, 1989, but later on, the application was withdrawn as the learned Magistrate having no jurisdiction. Therefore, the petitioner filed this petition for seeking direction upon the respondents Authorities.

(3.) LEARNED advocate Mr. Ramnandan Singh for the respondent submitted that the petitioner has no right to raise any demand for reweighment before the Railway Authorities. He further submitted that there is no negligence on the part of the Authority and the Authority has not committed any wrong. He read the Section 79 of the Railway Act, 1989 deals with weightment of consignment or endorsee and this Section gives power to Railway to accept the request or not. He further submitted that the petition itself is not tenable in the eye of law. Therefore, same is required to be dismissed.