VIJAY ROSIN AND TURPENTINE FACTORY OSHIARPUR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is a partnership firm carrying on the business of manufacturing rosin and turpentine oil at Hoshiarpur, (Punjab). All its partners claim to be displaced persons from West Pakistan who have since the partition of the country in 1947 settled down in India. It has moved this Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution for appropriate writs, orders and/or directions requiring the Government of Himachal Pradesh to desist from giving effect to its decision of with-holding from sale by public auction, the stocks of resin extracted from the forests in the Union, territory of Himachal Pradesh and also to forbear from transferring the same to any one else, to the exclusion of the petitioner. The petition also contains a prayer for quashing all orders made by the respondents in that behalf.

(2.) The main allegations on which the petitioner seeks relief are that in 1948, pursuant to certain assurances and undertaking given by the Government of East Punjab to the effect that in the event of displaced persons from West Punjab installing factories for processing raw resin from the forests, the entire stock of resin available from the Punjab Forests would be made available to them by the Government, the petitioner and other displaced persons connected with the trade in resin (a gummy exudation from matured chir (Plnus lingi folia) trees, set up ten small-scale industries in the District of Hoshiarpur for proceessing resin. In due course, 32 more factories employing 5000 workmen and involving a total capital out-lay of about 2 crores of rupees and an yearly out-turn of over 9000 tonnes of resin and 24 lac litres of turpentine oil were established. The petitioner contends that the undertaking and assurance given by the Government of Punjab having been acted upon on both sides for a continuous period of nearly 20 years, matured into a binding contract. which could not be unilaterly terminated to the detriment of the factory owners.

(3.) According to the petitioner, the total quantity of raw resin processed in the various units in Hoshiarpur District exceeds 6 lac maunds, the supplies of which were being secured by the owners of factories by public auctions of raw resin extracted from forests in the Districts of Kangra, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Simla, Nalagarh, Patiala, Solan, Mandi, Chamba, Kulu, Bilaspur and Nahan.