G MASTAN RAO Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. For the purpose of maintaining supplies of paddy and rice and for securing their distribution and availability at fair prices the Govt of Aadhra Pradesh made certain orders in exercise of its powers under the Essential Commodities Act. One such order is the Andhra Pradesh Paddy Procurement (Levy) Order by which every cultivator cultivating land in excess of five acres with paddy is required to deliver certain number of quintals of paddy per acre to the 'agent'. Another such order is the Andhra Pradesh Rice Procurement (Levy and Restriction on bale, Order 1967. This Order as it stood originally, required every miller to sell to the agent at the notified price a minimum quantity of rice equivalent to 6J days' production at the milling capacity.

(2.) It also required evety person other than a miller who get his paddy milled at a rice-mill to sell at the notified price to the agent such minimum quantity of rice as may be fixed by the Collector. In a batch of Writ Petitions it was held that 'miller' in the context of the order did not include a miller who did not own the paddy milled by him. As the order stood the miller had to supply a certain quantity of rice milled by him if the stock belonged to him. Otherwise the person who got the rice milled by the miller had to deliver a certain quantity ot rice. In 1970, Clause 3 of the Order was amended and it required every miller to sell to the agent at the notihed price such percentage the total quantity of rice (a) owned ana held in stock by him (b) owned and milled by him. It also required every dealer to sell to the agent such percentage of the total quantity of (a) rice owned by him and stocked in the premises of any rice-mill (b) rice owned and got milled by him. It may be seen that while under the 1967 Order as it stood originally every person was obliged to sell to the agent at the notified price such percentage of the quantity of rice owned and got milled by him in a rice-mill, after the 1970 amendment a dealer was obliged to sell to the agent and not other persons. In other words, if a person other than dealer, such as a cultivator or someone who had purchased paddy for his own consumption, got the paddy milled at a rice-trill he was under no obligation to sell any part of it to the agent. In 1972, a proviso was added to clause 3 and it is as follows : "Provided that nothing contained in sub-clauses (1) and (2) shall apply to the rice obtained for personal consumption by a cultivator from the stocks of paddy grown by him or by an agricultural labourer out of the stocks of paddy earned by him as wages subject to the following conditions:- (a) that the cultivator shall not mill more than 3 quintals of paddy and the agricultural labourer not more than 1 quintal of paddy at a time in a month and (b) that he shall produce a certificate from the village Karnam that the paddy so milled is for his personal consumption. Such a certificate shall be handed over to the miller.

(3.) The petitioners are persons who are neither millers nor dealers. Some of them claim to be cultivators. Some of them claim to be agricultural labourers. Some of them claim to be villagers who have purchased stocks of paddy for their own consumption. They seek a declaration that the proviso imposes unreasonable restrictions on their right to get paddy in their possession milled. The learned Government pleader urges that the restrictions are imposed with a view to prevent millers and dealers from putting forward a claim that the paddy milled at the mill did not belong to them, but belonged to persons who are not millers or dealers.