RAM LUBHAYA KAPUR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent is directed against the judgment of a learned Single Judge, dated November 25, 1970, dismissing the appellants' Civil Writ No. 2721 of 1970.

(2.) Appellant No. 1 is the sole proprietor of New Pearl Textile Industries, Kashmir Road, Amritsar, who installed mine handlooms in the beginning of 1968 and started production as from April 13, 1968. Appellants No. 2 and 3 are partnership firms which installed eight and twelve handlooms and started production and manufacture of woollen shoddy blankets as from April 13, 1968 and April 1, 1968, respectively. The appellants are registered as small scale industrial units in the decentralised sector with the Director of Small Scale Industries at Amritsar after due verification as working units actually engaged in the production of shoddy woollen blankets and goods. The raw material to produce the shoddy blankets consists of the yarn spun from imported shoddy wool and woollen rags and the indigenous wool. The shoddy wool and woollen rags are now imported from foreign countries by the State Trading Corporation alone as a result of the policy of canalisation announced by the Government of India on November 25, 1967. Prior thereto, the said material was imported by the spinning mills only which, after turning shoddy wool and woollen rags into yarn, used to distribute the same to the actual users. The appellants have set out in detail the history of the import of the shoddy wool and woollen rags in their writ petition with which we are now concerned.

(3.) On February 17, 1968, the Government of India issued a letter to the Director of Industries of each State, copies of which were endorsed to the Regional Textile Commissioner, the State Trading Corporation, and the Secretary, Handlooms Shoddy Weavers and Processors Association, Amritsar (respondent 5), to collect the requisite data to enable the Government of India to decide about the quantum of shoddy wool and woollen rags to be allocated to each particular unit falling in the basic period from October, 1959, to September, 1963. Since the collection of the data took time, respondent 5 made a representation to the Minister for Foreign Trade, Government of India, New Delhi, on March 19, 1970, that the basic period should be altered to include the period from October, 1959 to September 1967, in order to enable all small scale units, who had established themselves with hard labour after the year 1963 to the date of the announcement of the new shoddy policy, to share in the quota of imported shoddy wool and woollen rags so that they should not be uprooted and thrown out of the trade. A request was made that -