FOOD CORPORATION OF INDIA Vs. BIHAR STATE AGRICULTURAL MARKETING BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application has been filed on behalf of the Food Corporation of India for a writ of mandamus directing the Bihar State Agricultural Marketing Board (hereinafter referred to as 'the Board') and the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (hereinafter referred to as 'the Committee') not to realise market fee over purchase and sale of sugar and wheat by the petitioner because the provisions of the Bihar Agricultural Produce Markets Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Markets Act') and the Rules framed thereunder are not applicable to the purchase and sale made by the petitioner.

(2.) The petitioner-Corporation has been established under the Food Corporation of India Act, 1964. According; to the petitioner, it is an agency to implement the national food policy for protecting the interest of the producers and the consumers and with that object in view it has to procure, store, distribute sugar and wheat within the State of Bihar, as per direction of the Central Government, so that the primary producers obtain the price fixed by the Government of India from time to time and the consumers are protected from the vagaries of speculative trade. While discharging the aforesaid duties of procuring foodgrains and distributing the same to the consumers, there is no element of profit, the primary object being to protect the interest of the producers and the consumers of such articles. The business of the petitioner is virtually under the control of the Central Government, who, from time to time, issues directions in respect of sale and purchase of different articles. The petitioner has no independent volition in respect of those transactions. It was pointed out that the petitioner has been incurring losses which are compensated by the Government of India. In other words, as the petitioner is not doing the business of purchase and sale in its strict sense, it is not a trader within the meaning of the Markets Act,

(3.) In view of the definition of "agricultural produce" given in the Markets Act and sugar wheat having been specifically mentioned in the Schedule of the Act, in the present case, there is no controversy that sugar and wheat shall be deemed to be Agricultural produce. The dispute is primarily as to whether the provisions of the Markets Act are applicable to the transctions of purchase and sale of wheat and sugar within the market areas in question.