- (1.) The Central Government, in order to fulfill its constitutional commitment of ensuring equitable distribution of material resources, eliminating inequalities and preventing exploitation of farmers and the poor, at the hands of rich and the affluent, has been purchasing food-grain from farmers at a price called "minimum support price". The food-grain so purchased is harnessed into the central pool for distribution through Public Distribution System (PDS) and other welfare schemes. For achieving the aforesaid avowed objective, the Government has framed various Control Orders, under the provisions of Essential Commodities Act, 1955 and also issues notifications/ executive instructions, from time to time.
(2.) In case of paddy, it is purchased from farmers at minimum support price, notified every year. Thereafter, it is given for milling to licensed rice-millers (for short, "miller"). In the process, the husk and bran layers are removed from paddy, resulting in the production of rice. The miller has to return the rice, of the specified quality and quantity to the Government. The miller is paid predetermined sum as hulling charges. This is called "Custom Milling of Rice" (hereinafter, for short, such 'rice' will be referred as ''CMR'). The other source of procuring rice for central pool is by compelling the millers and dealers to sell a specified quantity of the same to the Government at a specified price. This is done under the statutory levy system. Rice so procured is called 'levy rice'.
(3.) The dispute in this bunch of writ petitions is between the Government and the millers on account of alleged non-delivery of CMR by the millers. The stand of the Government is that the millers have failed to carry out their statutory and contractual obligations, by either not delivering the CMR within the specified time or making available CMR which was of inferior quality, not according to the prescribed specifications, thus, compelling the Government to recover the value of the deficit CMR from the millers by coercive measures and further debar/ blacklist them from carrying milling operations, in future.;