- (1.) THESE two mandamus appeals were heard together as these appeals are preferred against the self-same order dated 13th february, 2007 passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court thereby allowing a writ application filed by the common respondent No. 1 herein, namely, the west Bengal Dairy and Poultry Development Corporation Ltd.
(2.) IN the writ application filed by the respondent No. 1 in these two appeals, it prayed for mandamus commanding the Food Corporation of India (in short "fci"), to receive the bank draft of Rs. 6,64,000/- bearing No. 612001 of Punjab national Bank, N. S. Road Branch dated 12th August, 2005 towards the earnest money being 10% of total costs of the quantity of the damaged rice sought to be purchased by it which were lying at the depot under FCI, Siliguri and to allot the said stocks of damaged rice in favour of the writ petitioner. In the said writ application, further prayer was made for commanding the FCI to recall the allotment order in favour of the West Bengal State Consumers' Co-operative federation Ltd. , who was the respondent No. 5 in the writ application. Other consequential interim prayers were also made.
(3.) THE grievance of the respondent No. 1 was inter alia as follows: (a) The writ petitioner is a West Bengal State Government Undertaking under the Department of Animal Resources Development and the principal activity of the Corporation is the production and sale of animal-feed and running of several dairy firms, goat firms etc. According to the writ petitioner, it is a user of damaged food-grains, which are unfit for human consumption, and it has several manufacturing units of cattle-feed, poultry-feed and fish-feed in different districts in the State of West Bengal. (b) For manufacturing of poultry-feed, cattle-feed and fish-feed, the main raw materials are the damaged rice and wheat, which are not fit for human consumption and accordingly, the writ petitioner entered into rate-running contract with the FCI for purchase of such damaged food-grains from FCI. In pursuance of such rate-running contract, the writ petitioner usually purchased damaged rice and wheat direct from the FCI on formula-rate and the said food-grains are being used for manufacturing of cattle/poultry/ fish feed. (c) The Managing Director of the writ petitioner was served with a Memo dated 6th August, 2005 issued by the Senior Regional Manager, FCI for the disposal of the category of the damaged rice stocks lying at depot of the FCI, siliguri, whereby the writ petitioner was informed that a quantity of 4454. 8 mt of rice, unfit for human consumption, would be available under the disposal and accordingly, those were offered to the writ petitioner for sale on formula-rate basis. Accordingly, the writ petitioner was requested to communicate its willingness of purchasing the damaged food-grains along with 10% of the total costs of the offered quantity to the Senior Regional manager, FCI, West Bengal Region within 12th August, 2005. (d) Pursuant to such Memo dated 6th August, 2005, the writ petitioner was very much willing to purchase such damaged stock and accordingly, purchased a bank draft of Rs. 6,64,000/-on August 12, 2007 and on the self-same date, at about 2. 30 p. m. the Assistant Administrative Officer of the writ petitioner was present at the office of the FCI and wanted to deposit the said bank draft i. e. the 10% of the total costs of the quantity intended to purchase when the concerned officer asked the representative of the writ petitioner to wait for sometime. However, surprisingly enough, as per instruction of the authority, the concerned officer gave out that the time to deposit such bank draft was over and the draft would not be taken in any circumstances. (e) The refusal to receive the said bank draft was illegal, mala fide and without any valid reason and as there was no delay or laches on the part of w. B. State Consumer's Co-op. Federation vs. W. B. Dairy and Poultry Dev. Corpn. (B. Bhattacharya, JJ.) (DB) 179 the writ petitioner, the decision of the FCI to refuse to accept the said bank draft was liable to be set aside. (f) The writ petitioner came to learn that such refusal was made for specific purpose and/or oblique motive inasmuch as the FCI authorities were very much interested to allot the entire quantity in favour of a particular party for illegal gain and as such, by the illegal refusal, the writ petitioner being the actual user of such damaged stocks, was going to be debarred from purchasing those stocks. (g) The FCI authority allotted the entire damaged stocks in favour of the west Bengal State Consumers' Co-operative Federation Ltd. but the fact remained that the said West Bengal State Consumers' Co-operative federation Ltd. was not a bona fide party or actual user of such damaged food-grains and in fact, the respondent No. 5 was dealing with consumer goods and in anyway, could not purchase such damaged food-grains for selling it in open market and such being the position, the allotment in favour of the respondent No. 5 was liable to be set aside. ;