MEIRS PHARMA INDIA PVT. LTD REP. BY ITS DIRECTOR Vs. UNION OF INDIA (UOI) REP. BY ITS SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF COMMERCE, NEW DELHI,

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONER is a company, registered under the Companies Act. It took advantage of the scheme framed by the Government of India, known as "Export Promotion Capital Good Scheme" under which, the capital goods for manufacturing purposes were allowed to be imported with a concessional rate of duty. There was an export obligation attached to the said concession to the effect that the importer would be liable to export goods worth three times the value of the machinery within four years from the date of first clearance of the machinery.

(2.) A licence was obtained by the petitioner for import of some machinery, the details of which are given in paragraph 3 of the affidavit filed in support of the petition. The value of the said machinery was DM.5,12,126 whereas the export obligation attached to the said licence was US$906262 which was to be fulfilled within four years of the first date of clearance of the consignment which was on 2 -12 -1991. For the purpose of this, the company also had to furnish a bank guarantee to the Director General of Foreign Trade, Udyog Bhavan, New Delhi (3rd respondent herein) and in this case, the bank guarantee was of Rs.63,00,000/ -. This guarantee was given for a period of five years from 9 -11 -1991.

(3.) THE petitioner company thereafter complains that in spite of the extension application having been filed originally on 26 -3 -1995 and thereafter in proper proforma on 25 -8 -1995, there was no response from the 2nd respondent on this extension application at all. The 2nd respondent, however, invoked the bank guarantee given in favour of it by the petitioner company through the 3rd respondent bank by letter dated 29 -9 -1995. The petitioner company pleads that though the period of export obligation was to come to an end by 1 -12 -1995, it had made an application well in advance, i.e. on 26 -3 -1995 to begin with and thereafter in proper proforma on 25 -8 -1995 yet the 2nd respondent remained under coma for the reasons best known to it without deciding the extension application one way or the other. In that view, the company filed this writ petition whereby it sought the quashing of the order dated 29 -9 -1995 by which the 2nd respondent had sought the invoking the bank guarantee.