SIMBHAOLI SUGAR MILLS LTD Vs. APPELLATE AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There is a spate of writ petitions every year involving and concerning the provisions of U.P. Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply and Purchase) Act, 1953 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") and U.P. Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply and Purchase) Rules, 1954 (for short "the Rules") framed in exercise of powers conferred by Section 28 of the Act, in one form or the other. The present two writ petitions belong to the same category.

(2.) Writ Petition No. 53340 of 1999 has been filed by Simbhaoli Sugar Mills against six respondents, but the main contest is between the petitioner and respondent No. 3-Agauta Sugar and Chemicals. By means of this petition the petitioner has challenged the validity and legality of the order dated 10-12-1999 passed by the appellate authority (respondent No. 1) under Section 15(4) of the Act (Annexure 1 to the writ petition) read with Rule 23 of the Rules, dismissing the petitioner's appeal against the reservation order dated 25-10-1999 passed by respondent No. 2-Cane Commissioner (Annexure 5 to the writ petition). The case of the petitioner is that it is engaged in the manufacture and sale of sugar. Its case is that its present crushing capacity is 7500 T.C.D. (Tonnes crushed per day). The petitioner has been granted an expansion licence to enhance its capacity to 10,000 T.C.D. and the expansion programme is under progress. The cultivable area of the petitioner's reserved area is 52,000 hectares. The factory was established in 1933 and huge investment of crores of rupees has been invested by it for intensive cane development and rural development. It has also raised huge loans from financial institutions. Any shortage in cane supply to the petitioner's factory is likely to involve financial crisis. Respondent No. 3-Sugar factory came to be established in the neighborhood of the petitioner-factory in 1994 and from crushing season 1993-94 to 1998-1999 the Cane Commissioner reserved 12 centres for purchase of sugarcane in favour of respondent No. 3. The same are detailed in paragraph 11 of the writ petition. These 12 centres have already been bifurcated in 23 centres detailed in paragraph No. 13 of the petition. The petitioner has been bringing to the notice of the Cane Commissioner every year that it was not getting sugarcane as per its requirements. For the crushing season 1999-2000 the petitioner submitted its reservation application under Section 12 of the Act read with Rule 25 of the Rules that its sugarcane requirement would be 125 Lac quintals for a period of 180 days. The petitioner requested the Cane Commissioner for allotment of 23 centres wrongfully diverted to respondent No. 3 and for further allotment of 5 centres from Maliyana Sugar Factory which is closed down and is not functioning. The details of these five centres are given in paragraph 17 of the writ petition. The said five centres of Maliyana Sugar Factory were assigned in favour of the petitioner for the crushing season 1990-99 also. The Cane Commissioner erroneously assessed the petitioner's requirement at 103.10 Lac quintals by his order dated 29-4-1999. The sugarcane requirement for respondent No. 3 was assessed at 40.60 Lac quintals. As per the estimate prepared by the Cane Commissioner, the cane available to the petitioner from his reserved area was to be 85 Lac quintals with a shortfall of 18.10 Lac quintals. For respondent No. 3, the cane availability was to the tune of 23 Lac quintals. As per the chart prepared by the Cane Commissioner the petitioner was crushing 231.34 quintals of sugarcane per hectare whereas respondent No. 3 was crushing only 147.24 quintals per hectare. The drawal percentage of the petitioner was 35.38 and that of respondent No. 3 was 24.98. Without giving any effective hearing, the Cane Commissioner passed the reservation order dated 25-10-1999 (Annexure 5 to the writ petition) denying the allotment of 23 centres (detailed in paragraph 13 of the writ petition) to the petitioner. Instead they were reserved for respondent No.

(3.) Five centres of Maliyana Sugar Factory (detailed in paragraph No. 17 of the writ petition) were also not given to the petitioner erroneously. Not only this, the Cane Commissioner assigned 10 more centres in favour of respondent No. 3 out of the centres reserved for the petitioner. Details of the same have been given in paragraph 30 of the writ petition. The contention of the petitioner is that the same area cannot be reserved for the petitioner and assigned as well to respondent No. 3. The petitioner filed appeal under Section 15(4) of the Act before respondent No. 1 which dismissed it by order dated 10-12-1999 under challenge in the said writ petition.3. To be brief, the petitioner had ventilated its grievance through the instant writ petition in three respondents viz. non-reservation of 23 purchase centres to it mentioned in paragraph 13 of the writ petition and reserving the same for respondent No. 3; non-assigning of 5 reserved centres of Maliyana Sugar Factory in favour of the petitioner which had been assigned to it during the crushing season 1998-1999 (detailed in paragraph 17 of the writ petition) and assigning 10 centres in favour of respondent No. 3 out of the reserved centres of the petitioner (as detailed in paragraph 30 of the writ petition).