SARASWATI FERTILIZER, KARMALICHAK Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is aggrieved by order of cancellation of his certificate of registration to deal in fertilizer as communicated to him by the District Agriculture Officer, Patna under his Memo No. 634 dated 18.4.2009 (Annexure -2). A mere perusal of Anexure -2, the impugned order, clearly shows that though the District Agriculture Officer is the registering authority so far as petitioner is concerned but he has passed the order pursuant to directions of the Director of Agriculture, Bihar, Patna. I am afraid such an order cannot be sustained. Under the Fertilizer Control Order 1985, the Director of Agriculture is the registering authority so far as licences for the entire State of Bihar are concerned. He is not the registering authority where licences are for distircts. Petitioner 's registering authority was the District agriculture Officer. If any action was to be taken, the jurisdiction squarely lies wholly and exclusively on the District Agriculture Officer and the Director of Agriculture had no business to interfere in the matter. It is then submitted by the learned State Counsel that there is a provision of appeal against the said order. The writ Court should, accordingly, not interfere. In my view, the submission is equally miconceived. The appellate authority from the order of the District Agirculture Officer is the Joint Director, Agriculture. Joint Director, Agriculture is admittedly, an officer much subordiante to the Director, Agriculture. Once orders have been issued by the Director, Agriculture to cancel the licence, the Joint Director, Agriculture who is much junior and an appellate authority cannot exercise his statutory power freely. In that view of the matter, the appeal itself would have been an empty formality. Thus, the impugned order cannot be sustained. Another reason is that before issuance of the impugned order, no show cause notice was issued to the petitioner in this regard. Issuance of show cause notice serves two purposes. Firstly, it is the issuance of the show cause notice by a competent authority which is the beginning of assumption of jurisdiction to proceed in the matter. Once the jurisdiction is assumed by a competent authority then the rest follows. The second purpose is to inform the person who is to be proceeded against of the grounds on which proceedings are to be taken up so that he can defend himself. Here, the order is clearly in violation of the statutory provisions as contained in the Fertilizer Control Order and is also in gross violation of principles of nature justice.

(2.) THUS , on all these grounds aforesaid, the impugned order cannot be sustained and is set aside as such. The Director of Agriculture is restrained from interfering in the statutory exercise of powers of other authorities. With the above observation and direction, the writ application is allowed.

(3.) HOWEVER , I make it clear that I have not expressed any opinion on the merits of the allegation one way or the other.