SANKARANAINARKOIL COMMISSION Vs. COLLECTOR OF TIRUNELVELI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner Sangam had filed this Writ Petition through its Secretary to issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other Writ or direction in the nature of Mandamus forbearing the respondents herein their men, agents, subordinates, representatives and Officials under their control in any manner compelling or insisting or indirectly inducting the petitioner to take out a licence under the Tamil Nadu Essential Trade Articles (Regulation of Trade) Order, 1984 with respect to the business of commission agency carried on by the members of the petitioner association in their respective commission mandies, whose names have been set out in the Annexure to the Writ Petitioner or in any manner interfering with the Commission agency business carried on by the members of the petitioner association under the purported exercise of the powers under the Tamil Nadu Essential Trade Articles (Regulation of Trade) Order, 1984.

(2.) The necessary facts for the disposal of this Writ Petition are these :-The facts can be gathered from the Affidavit filed by one Mr. K. Karuppasamy, who is the Secretary of the petitioner Sangam, which is a registered Association. The said Association was established during the year 1961 with an object of improving and maintaining the status of Commission agents to regulate their trade and for protection to the Commission mandy traders. The members of the petitioner association are commission agents. The farm produce and various other commodities will be brought to the respective commission agents, to whom the agriculturists are familiar. In Sankaranainarkoil town, all the commission agents have located their place of business in the market area consisting of Kalugumalai Road, South Car Street, Swamy Sannathi, Amman Sannathi, North Car Street and the connected bye-lanes.The local market is a daily market where the traders from various places used to come to purchase farm produce. The farmers used to bring their commodities to anyone of the commission agents and exhibit their commodities by sample for sale. The highest bid offered through the commission agent will be announced by the said agent, who run the commission mandy, for the particular lot. It is open to the agriculturist, whose produce were offered for sale in the secret bid, to accept the bid or reject or postpone the sale to next day or to some other day of his choice. Once, the bid is accepted by the agriculturists, necessary note is prepared to which the trader and agriculturist subscribe their consent. After weighing the consignment, the value of the consignment will be arrived at and the trader will directly pay the sale consideration to the agriculturists to whom the produce belongs to.Towards service charges, the commission agent used to collect 4% per rupee which include storage, weighing and unloading and other incidental charges in all. The said 4% commission is the allowance payable to the commission agent on price or value or amount of money involved in the transaction.At no point of time, the commission agent becomes the owner of the goods brought to sale nor he pays sale consideration for the said transaction. The entire sale consideration is being directly paid by the trader to the agriculturists through the commission agent who acts as a middleman. At no point of time, the title in the goods passes on to the commission agent nor the commission agent has any right or lien or hold over the produce brought to sale in his commission mandy. The commission agent neither purchases the produce nor sells the same as he never acquires any interest in the commodity, which is brought to sale to his commission mandy. Hence, the commission agent is not a dealer nor he deals with the produce which is brought to sale by the agriculturists for sale. Except, collecting a token amount of commission as an allowance for services rendered by him, the commission agent has no other interest in the transaction nor the title in the goods ever passes on to the commission agent.

(3.) The system of commission agency is prevalent in Sankaranainarkoil town as well as at various other towns in the District. As and when the agriculturists bring their produce to the respective commission mandy, an entry will be made in the books maintained and the consignment would be allotted a particular number or initials and full name of the owner to denote the ownership of the particular agriculturist.