NAKUL KISHOR MERLI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition is admitted, notice taken for the Union of India - opposite party No. 1 by the learned Standing Counsel (Central), for opposite party Nos. 2, 3 , 8 and 9 by the learned Additional Government Advocate assisting the learned Advocate General, and for opposite party Nos. 4 to 7 by Mr. S.K. Nayak (I). The petitioners to serve additional copies of the writ petition on the respective counsel.

(2.) This writ petition was heard along with O.J.C. No. 17037 of 2001 which projected the same problem in wider canvass and which relates to procurement of paddy and/or rice from agriculturalists in the entire State of Orissa. This present writ petition subsequently filed by the farmers of Balangir district relates to procurement of paddy and/or in Balangir district. O.J.C. No. 17037 of 2001 was heard after the pleadings were completed and the judgment is to be delivered therein. But meanwhile, considering the submission that this year the farmers of Balangir district have had reasonably good harvest compared to the previous disastrous years and that they need immediate protection in the matter of sale of their harvested paddy, this interim judgment is being rendered in this writ petition, notwithstanding the fact that the opposite parties are yet to file their counter-affidavits, and we are granting them time of one month for filing such counter-affidavits. We believe that the problems if any that may arise out of our interim judgment or the advantages that might be gained by implementing this interim judgment, can also be projected in the counter affidavits to be filed so that this Court can judge the impact, the efficacy and the usefulness of the interim judgment that is now being rendered.

(3.) To help the farmers to sell their paddy economically, the Union Government has fixed a floor-price or a Minimum Support Price. The paddy has to be purchased at that price. It is a support price. Food Corporation of India has come into existence under the Food Corporations Act, 1964 and under Section 13 of that Act, it shall be the primary duty of the Corporation to undertake the purchase, storage, movement, transport, distribution and sale of food-grains, and other foodstuffs. The Corporation is also expected to promote, by such mens as it thinks fit, the production of food-grains and other foodstuffs. But procurement of food-grains would necessarily involve the ensuring of the Minimum Support Price to the growers in view of the policy of the Government. The admitted pleadings in O.J.C. No. 17037 of 2001 which we have heard in detail along with this writ petition which came up only for admission, clearly indicate that the farmers of Orissa a good percentage of them being illiterate, are an exploited lot. The State Government in conjunction with the Food Corporation of India authorised the private mill owners of procure paddy from the cultivators and then deliver rice to the Food Corporation of India hulled out of the paddy so procured. For procuring paddy, the Minimum Support Price was fixed by the Central Government and the miller are expected to procure paddy from the farmers only at that price or above but certainly not below that price. The complaint in O.J.C. No. 17037 of 2001 and in this writ petition is that this arrangement has led to the mill owners supplying rice to the Food Corporation of India not procured out of the paddy hulled after procurement of the freshly harvested paddy but from quantities of rice diverted from the rice distributed under various relief programmers undertaken by the State in the wake of the natural calamities faced by the State and the fall in production of paddy. After thus improperly meeting their quota obligations, the Millers compelled the farmers to sell the paddy at prices below the Minimum Support price. The conditions were so manipulated by the Millers with the support of unscrupulous officers of the State Government and of the Food Corporation of India that the farmers were forced to sell their paddy in distress and at a price below the Minimum Support Price thus defeating the entire scheme evolved to help the farmers. In other words, the Millers in connivance with the officers of the Civil Supplies Department of the State and the Food Corporation of India satisfied their quota requirements by diverting rice intended for distribution under various alleviation schemes and selling that rice in discharge of their obligation to supply rice to the Food Corporation of India and by not procuring the paddy from the cultivators by paying them the Minimum Support Price. That is a fact which is clear from the pleadings and some steps have been taken by the State Government to meet the situation arising out of the scandal.