KRISHNA UDYOG Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has approached this Court by filing the present writ petition seeking issuance of a writ of certiorari praying for quashing of public notice No. 17 (RE-2006)/2004-09 dated 2.6.2006, issued by the Director General of Foreign Trade in exercise of powers conferred on him under paragraph 2.4 of Foreign Trade Policy, 2004-2009.

(2.) The petitioner, in the present case, has not challenged the terms of the amended policy as such. The only challenge is that amended terms of the policy cannot be made applicable to the transactions, which have already been completed before the amendment took place by giving the same retrospective effect.

(3.) Briefly, the facts, as pleaded in the petition, are that the petitioner is a proprietorship concern carrying on its business of importing and trading of vanaspati oil falling under Chapter Heading 15 of the Customs Tariff Act. The petitioner entered into an agreement with the foreign supplier on May 16, 2006 for supply of vanaspati oil. In pursuance of the agreement, advance payment was sent on May 26, 2006 through banking channel. Later, the goods were shipped on June 9, 2006, as is evident from the certificate of origin and bill of lading (Annexure P.2). The material reached CFS, Ludhiana in the third week of June, 2006. The clearance of goods has not been sought by the petitioner because, on enquiry, he came to know that he will be made liable to pay duty at the rate of 80% as against 'Nil' duty. This was for the reason that by way of impugned public notice dated June 2, 2006, the import of vanaspati oil from Sri Lanka, as per Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement, has been exclusively permitted to National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED).