CENTURY PLYBOARDS I LTD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Dr. A. Saraf, learned senior counsel for the petitioners. Also heard Mr. B. Sarma, learned standing counsel for the Customs Department of the Govt. of India for the respondents and Mr. A. Roy, learned counsel for the intervener Gujarat State Fertilizer Corporation as well as Mr. Rajiv Arora, Additional Director General, Foreign Trade, Government of India.

(2.) The petitioner No.1 is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 and carries on the business of, inter alia, facture of plywood, ply boards, block boards, laminated boards and other products and has a factory at village Kokrajhar in the Kamrup district of Assam, functioning under the name of Cent Ply, which is the petitioner No.2.

(3.) One of the raw materials used by the petitioners for facturing the aforesaid products is melamine. According to the petitioners, the total demand for consumption of melamine in India is approximately 60000 MT per annum, whereas, the installed production capacity of melamine is limited approximately to 15000 MT per annum. In order to bridge the gap between the production capacity and the demand, melamine is required to be imported and it is so imported from various countries included in the European Union, Indonesia, Iran, Japan and People's Republic of China (in short China) amongst others.