- (1.) The writ petition seeks for quashing certain clauses in the milling policy issued for the year 2013-2014 by an application of the relevant terms which we shall extract immediately. The petitioner was denied the right of allotment of paddy for milling. The petitioner, therefore, seeks also for quashing of the order denying him his alleged right. There were several other writ petitions filed on similar grounds and they were all heard together. This batch would, therefore, consider the relevant terms of the policy and whether they conflict with any of the provisions of law or arbitrarily laid down to render them invalid as contended by the petitioners. The relevant terms of the policy are took up and the facts as set forth in CWP No.21637 of 2013 are treated as facts in the remaining cases as well. The relevant clauses put to challenge would be taken up one after another. The definition of defaulter is contained in Clause (xv): "Defaulter" means a mill/miller who is yet to clear the entire dues of rice and/or settle the accounts of any procuring agency/agencies of the previous year (s) and as detailed in Clause 11(I)."
(2.) There is an issue which is taken in this case with reference to the allotments as having been made to collection points which are out of jurisdiction that had, according to the petitioner, caused an impossible situation and the allotments so made could not have taken as any valid allotment in the eye of law. This was sought in the context of the petitioners' case that express orders of the Court had been deliberately flouted. The effect of this provision would also require to be considered and therefore, clause 5 defining linkage of mandis and rice mills would require to be extracted: "5. Linkage of Mandis and Rice Mills:- The purchase centers/mandis shall be linked with the nearest milling centre/storage centre (s) keeping in view the availability of milling capacity at the milling/storage centre(s) at which paddy is proposed to be stored/got milled. All the procuring agencies shall make necessary arrangements of linking the proposed purchase centres/mandis with the storage points/milling centres in such a way so as to incur bare minimum expenditure on transportation. The agencies may also indicate at least one alternate storage point where paddy could be stored in case of any exigency. This should be got done by the agencies at the time of allotment of rice mills. Similarly, storage of paddy at a particular milling centre shall depend upon the clear and specific milling capacity available at that centre." The manner of allotment of rice mills and the disqualification arising for a defaulter to the extent to which they are relevant are reproduced hereunder:- "11H a. If a rice mill has to deliver custom milled rice of any agency pertaining to the previous years including 2012- 13. XXX XXX XXX. e. If a police/court case/arbitration case is pending against the miller on account of embezzlement relating to custom milling or levy rice pertaining to any crop year. However, if the miller clear the default of the concerned agency along with penal interest at the rates for the relevant year (s) as decided by the govt from time to time he may be considered for allotment without prejudice to the outcome of the FIR/Court case/arbitration case pending against him.
(3.) The petitioner's case is that he has been construed as defaulter by virtue of the fact that the stocks entrusted to him for the year 2009-10 could not be re-delivered on time on account of the poor quality of variety of paddy that was supplied. Elaborate arguments had been made by the learned Senior Counsel to impress upon a point that there had been no default on his part and the inability to supply within the time was really the outcome of several other factors like lack of adequate space, linkage of the petitioner to the storage points which were out of jurisdiction, poor quality of the paddy supplied etc. so that the default attributed to the petitioner was not justified at all. I merely set this out for the sake of bringing forth the contentions which the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner set out but I will not go into any of those aspects of whether there had been any deliberate default on the part of the petitioner or the respondents' conduct itself had contributed to such a situation of admitted breach that had been occasioned to mill the paddy that had been delivered to the petitioner. All that would be necessary to consider the challenge to the clauses, especially the fact of whether the arbitration awards which have not attained finality that cast the liability on a rice miller could be used as a ground for denying the allotment. This examination becomes necessary in view of the fact that a defaulter so defined shall be denied the right of entitlement to allotment if on account of such default the matter is referred to arbitration for adjudication and there is also an award passed against the miller. The petitioner's case deals with the situation of an award as having been passed against the petitioner which, however, is not become final by the fact that he has challenged the correctness of the order before a Civil Court in an objection under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. The petitioner would refer me to decisions that have dealt with the effect of stay by challenge to an order brought under Section 34 and decisions that have examined the legal effect of the stay order granted by the Court. The learned Senior Counsel referred to the decision of the Supreme Court in Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, 1975 AIR(SC) 2299;