- (1.) This writ application was filed by the Eastern India Edible Oil Manufacturer's Association represented by its secretary. Subsequently, some individual manufacturers filed a separate application for being added as co- petitioners on the allegation that they are members of the petitioner No. 1 and that they have similar grievance as that of the petitioner No. 1 and consequently, they are in the same way affected by the illegal action of the respondents. Those applicants agreed to be bound by the averments made in the writ application. This Court with the consent of the original petitioners allowed their prayer and they were added as co-petitioners.
(2.) The facts giving rise to filing of the present application may be summarized thus: a) By virtue of a treaty between India and Nepal, the Government of India, department of revenue, in exercise of power conferred under section 25 of the Customs Act, 1962, issued a notification in the public interest thereby exempting the vegetable fat imported from Nepal from the whole of the duty of customs to the extent indicated therein. b) The Government of India, Ministry of Commerce and Industries prescribed the procedure for duty-free import of vanaspati upto 1,00,000 mt. on annual quota basis and further directed that such import should be made only by the Central Warehousing Corporation (C.W.C.). c) Subsequently by way of issue of further notification, such right was given jointly to the C.W.C. and State Trading Corporation (S.T.C.). Ultimately another notification was issued conferring such right exclusively to the S.T.C. d) The S.T.C., however, instead of importing the commodities by itself, entered into agreements with various private agents authorizing them to import vanaspati on payment of some amount of money to the S.T.C. by way of "service charge". The S.T.C. by the so-called "import contract" sold the commodities to those agents before actual arrival of those goods in India. In those import contracts, the S.T.C. was described as "seller" and the agents were mentioned as "associate distributor". e) The Customs Authorities permitted those agents to import those duty-free goods without charging any amount of excise duty:as if those were imported by the S.T.C. Those agents after procuring such duty-free goods, according to the petitioners, are doing business of selling vanaspati at a lesser price. f) The petitioners complain that by virtue of the notifications issued by the Government of India, the S.T.C. alone is entitled to import the duty-free vanaspati from Nepal. According to them, S.T.C. has no right to transfer such authority to the private individuals in lieu of money thereby enabling those persons to import vanaspati to India at 30% lesser price than the one prevailing in the market. The petitioners further complain that the relevant notification issued by the Union of India having permitted the S.T.C. alone to import those duty-free goods, the Customs Authority illegally permitted those private agents of S.T.C. to get the benefit of free importation. The petitioners allege that both the S.T.C. and the Customs Authority are bound to follow the policy decision taken by the Ministry of Revenue and that of Commerce and Industry. Hence this application, for a direction upon those authorities to strictly implement the policy decision of the Government of India.
(3.) This writ application is opposed by both the S.T.C. and the Customs Authorities by filing two sets of affidavit.;