MANDI SAMITI Vs. LAL PRATAP SINGH AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Sec. 5 of the U.P. Krishi Utpadan Mandi Adhiniyam, 1964, authorised the State Govt. to declare an area, wherein transactions of sale and purchase of any agricultural produce were carried on, as market areas, if it was of the opinion that it was necessary or expedient in the public interest to regulate the sale and purchase thereof in those areas. Sec. 12 of the Act contemplated the constitution of a Committee called Market Committee as a body corporate. Sec. 16 laid down the functions and the duties of the Committee while Sec. 17 conferred certain powers on that Committee. Clause (b) of Sub -section (3) authorised the Committee to levy and collect market fees in the market yards.

(2.) In these four connected appeals the State Govt. declared certain areas to be market areas and market yards and constituted the requisite Market Committees. In due course the Market Committees framed bye laws specifying the rate of the market fee that will be leviable by the Market Committee. The various dealers carrying on trade in the respective market yards came to this Court Under Article 226 of the Constitution and challenged the constitution of the Market Committees as well as the power of the Committees to levy market fee by their bye laws. A learned Single Judge of this Court repelled the various submissions raised in support of the writ petitions, but accepted one of them. He held that in view of the provisions of the Act, the Market Committee had no power to lay down the rate of the market fee by its bye laws. Such bye laws were illegal. On this view the writ petitions were partly allowed and the Market Committees were directed not to insist upon the collection and deposit of the market fee on the strength of the bye laws framed by it and not to prosecute the Petitioners for their failure to deposit the market fee fixed by the bye laws. Aggrieved, the Mandi Committee has come up in appeal in each of these cases.

(3.) Sec. 17 of the Adhiniyam provides: