KAILASH AGRO FOODS Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner who had a contract with Hafed, the 2 nd respondent for custom milling of paddy and for delivery to FCI was served with a notice of rejection of partial quantity of paddy delivered on the ground that they fell beneath the standard specification (BRL limits) and for substitution of rice to conform to the standard specifications. The impugned notice also declined to accept any further supplies till the rejected quantity of rice was made good. The contract related to the Khariff Marketing Season 2012 and admittedly, the parties were governed by the policy considerations spelt out by the circular issued by the Government of Haryana dated 28.09.2012 referred to as Annexure P -2.

(2.) THE petitioner's case is that he had been allowed 65,245.95 quintals of paddy and the outflow by way of rice was to be 67% namely 43,714.79 quintals of rice. Admittedly, the petitioner had supplied between 5.11.2012 to 05.04.2013, 32,118.41 quintals to FCI. They had passed through the inspection by the local officers and when the balance of 11,596.38 was also to be delivered, the petitioner had been served with the impugned notice.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner would bring to the attention of Court's certain orders passed during the pendency of the petition as being relevant for consideration of the case on a plea by the petitioner that the rejection was unjustified and that the petitioner had not been served with any notice of sampling or analysis and that further that the particular Stack No.2/26 rejected by the Food Corporation of India was also of standard quality. The Court passed an order issuing notice on 27.05.2013 directing a fresh analysis to be done at the Food Laboratory Gurgaon within 7 days on receipt of copy of the order. When the report had been made ready on 04.06.2013 rejecting the earlier finding that the sampling drawn for Stack No.2/26 was of BRL quality, the petitioner was aggrieved and contended that at the time when the Court had passed an order in C.M. No.9086 of 2013, they were not aware of the fact that there was a Central Government Laborary called Central Grain Analysis Laboratory (CGAL). The Court passed a further order on 15.07.2014 and again made reference to the observations made by the Court that if the Government of India was to send a sample for analysis to CGAL located at New Delhi why the same could not be adopted by drawing a second sample and directed a detailed affidavit to be given explaining the procedure which was followed in the State of Haryana to be filed by FCI and to clarify how many laboratories of FCI were functioning in the State of Haryana to explain also whether after accepting the rice deposited by the millers, the samples were sent only to the laboratories at Panchkula and Gurgaon or it was also sent to CGAL. The respondent has filed detailed affidavit in response to the same.