Debangsu Basak, J. - (1.) A Notification dated February 27, 2019 issued by the Agricultural Marketing Department, Government of West Bengal is under challenge in this writ petition.
(2.) Learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioners submits that, the impugned Notification travels beyond the provisions of the West Bengal Cold Storage (Licensing and Regulations) Act, 1966 when the Notification requires the cold storage to procure potatoes at the given price and in the modalities as stipulated therein. He submits that, the Act of 1966 cannot be read to empower the Licensing Authority to direct carriage of business by a cold storage in any manner. The contents of the impugned notification dated February 27, 2019 so far it purports to do so is beyond the scope of the Act of 1966 and is, therefore, without any basis.
(3.) Referring to the impugned notification, learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioners submits that, Clause 3 of the notification requires 15% of the total cold storage capacity to be utilized for storage of potatoes. Clause 4 prescribes the Procurement, Operating Agency and Monitoring. It requires a cold storage to keep 20% of the cold storage space reserved for storing of procured potatoes under the Scheme. The Scheme stipulates that, the reserved space that remains unutilised after March 17, 2019 in the South Bengal districts and after March 24, 2019 in the North Bengal districts, would be released. In the event the storage space remains unutilized, no rent for the unutilized space will be borne by the Government. He then refers various other Clauses of the Scheme, such as Clause 7 onwards and submits that, the Scheme requires the cold storage owner to procure Jyoti variety of graded potato of uniform size of the prescribed quantity from prescribed persons at prescribed rates. He submits that, the same tantamounts to interfering with the business of a cold storage owner, which the Act of 1966 does not permit. Moreover, there is no mechanism provided in the Scheme to compensate a cold storage owner in the event the cold storage owner does not receive the procurement price at the time of sale, or suffers a loss due to fall in price. In any event, the cold storage owner cannot be asked to carry on a particular kind of business as sought to be done by the impugned notification.;