MAKHTESHIM-AGAN INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CO-OPERATION, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner filed this Writ Petition for a Certiorari to quash notice, dated 09.01.2013, of the Under Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Agriculture and Co-Operation, Ministry of Agriculture (hereinafter referred to as respondent No.1).

(2.) I have heard Sri P.Sri Raghu Ram, the learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner and Sri Ponnam Ashok Goud, the learned Assistant Solicitor General of India appearing for the respondents.

(3.) In pursuance of an understanding reached between the Indofil Industries Limited from which the petitioner has taken over the product, and the then Chairman, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyala, West Bengal (BCKV), the manufacturer has supplied insecticides and BCKV is stated to have conducted trials in 2009-10. The petitioner pleaded that BCKV completed tests and handed over the results to the Indofil Industries Limited. On 02.03.2011, the petitioner made an application to respondent No.2 for registration under Section 9 of the Insecticides Act, 1968 (for short 'the Act'). It is the pleaded case of the petitioner that while sending its report, BCKV has wrongly mentioned 2008-09 as the period during which trials were conducted and that realising its mistake, on 07.05.2012, BCKV sent a corrigendum to its report stating that the trial period was wrongly mentioned as "2008-09" due to typographical error instead of "2009-10". It is in this background that respondent No.1 exercised its revisional power under Section 11 of the Act and issued the impugned show cause notice.