INDRA NARAYAN BERA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Rule was obtained by the petitioner calling upon the opposite parties to show cause why a permit under the West Bengal Food Grains (Movement Control) Order, 1951, should not be granted to the petitioner or why the order complained of in the petition should not be set aside or why a writ in the nature of Mandamus or Prohibition or Certiorari should not issue or why such other or further order or orders should not be made as to this' Court may seem fit and proper.

(2.) In the petition on which the Rule was issued the petitioner stated that he had a large family-consisting of 60 members and that the paddy of the lands referred to in the petition is entirely consumed by the members of the family and in the payment of the labourers employed by the petitioner for the purposes of cultivation and for incidental expenses. The petitioner stated that he had applied for a permit for moving his paddy about 350 maunds from a cordoned area in the Sunderbans to a, place outside the cordoned area. The petitioner further alleged that the permit was refused by the Director and that the action of the officers entrusted to make the enquiry was mala fide The petitioner also alleged that the Bengal Food Grains (Movement Control) Order 1951 is ultra vires of the Constitution. The petitioner also alleged that the Bengal food Grains (Disposal and Aquisition) Order is also void of the Constitution. The petitioner therefore prayed for a direction on the opposite parties to grant a permit as prayed for by him. He also prayed for a direction that the directive served on him to sell 25 maunds of paddy was illegal and that the opposite parties might be restrained from giving effect to a statement recorded by his nephew on the back of the directive that in case the petitioner does not get a permit as prayed for the entire remaining stock of paddy in the sunderbans would have to be sold to the local D. P. A. Agent.

(3.) Two affidavits have been filed on behalf of the opposite parties, one sworn to by the Assistant Regional Controller of Procurement and another by the Junior Assessor, Beneswarpur Union. The petition on which the Rule was issued was sworn to on behalf of the petitioner by his nephew. The further affidavit which has been put in has also been sworn to by the petitioner's nephew Bhupati Charan Bera.