IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 5668 of 1987 Date of Decision: 12.11.2009 Punjab State Agricultural Marketing Board and another ...Petitioners Versus State of Punjab and others ....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASWANT SINGH Present: Mr. R.B. Gupta, Advocate, for the petitioners. Mr. Piyush Kant Jain, Addl. AG, Punjab, for the respondents. 1. To be referred to the Reporter or not? 2. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? M.M. KUMAR, J. Challenge in this petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution is to warrant of attachment dated 13.7.1987 (P-11) and notices dated 2.1.1987 and 22.1.1987 (P-7 & P-8). A further prayer has been made to restrain the respondents from levying and assessing octroi on the petitioners in respect of the earth brought within the municipal limits of Kotkapura for the purposes of development of New Anaj Mandi established under the New Mandi Town Ships (Development & Regulation) Act, 1960 (for brevity, ‘the 1960 Act’). Brief facts of the case are that the Punjab State Agricultural CWP No.5668 of 1987 Marketing Board-petitioner No. 1 and the Market Committee, Kotkapura- petitioner No. 2 are statutory bodies created under the Punjab Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1961. It was decided to establish a New Mandi under the provisions of the 1960 Act and land measuring 115 acres, 3 kanals and 13 marlas was acquired within the municipal limits of Municipal Committee, Kotkapura. After carving out plots over the acquired land the same were sold in open public auction by the Director Colonisation. The land for construction of a pucca platform for the purpose of putting the heaps of agricultural produce and for conducting auction of agricultural produce by the dealers and licensees, and other amenities such as roads and Kissan Ghar etc. within the yard, was handed over to the petitioners. For providing the aforementioned facilities the petitioners needed earth in large quantity for filling up the plotable area. The earth was brought by the petitioners from outside the municipal limits of Municipal Committee, Kotkapura in Trucks and Tractor-trolleys. Vide Notification No.1442 dated 5.2.1986, issued by the Punjab Government, octroi was proposed to be levied at the rate of 0.20 paise per quintal on earth, which was brought from outside into the municipal limits of Municipal Committee, Kotkapura. The Municipal Committee sought to levy octroi on the aforesaid earth brought by the petitioners. They approached the Director Colonization for exemption from levy of octroi. It is claimed that in the schedule attached to the notification dated 15.10.1986, the entire area of the new mandi was included. The Assistant Engineer of petitioner No. 1 was asked to deposit a sum of Rs. 32,000/- by way of octroi on the earth brought in for the new mandi, vide 2 CWP No.5668 of 1987 letter dated 22.1.1987. Another demand of Rs. 48,000/- as octroi was raised for the period from 1.1.1987 to 15.1.1987. In response thereto a reference was made on behalf of petitioner No.1 to the Executive Officer of Municipal Committee, Kotkapura, emphasising that no octroi was leviable. However, respondent No. 3 ordered attachment of saving accounts of the petitioners. The aforesaid order of attachment and the notices issued to the petitioners to recover the amount of octroi are subject matter of challenge in the instant petition. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the paper book with their able assistance. It is conceded position that the dispute in the instant petition is inter se between the petitioners, which are statutory bodies and the respondent State. There is no clearance on record from the High Powered Officers' Committee required to be set up for resolving such dispute in pursuance of the directions issued by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the cases of Oil and Natural Gas Commission v. CCE, 1992 Supp. (2) SCC 432 and Oil and Natural Gas Commission v. CCE, 1995 Supp. (4) SCC 541. Hon'ble the Supreme Court has reminded that the dispute between two public sector undertaking and State has to be cleared by High Powered Officers' Committee. The aforesaid principles were also reiterated in a later judgment in the case of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. v. Chairman, Central Board, Direct Taxes, (2004) 6 SCC 431. The basic object of referring dispute to the High Powered Committee is to avoid frivolous litigation and also to reach an amicable settlement. It further prevents docket explosion to the already over burdened courts. Similar observation has been made by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd's case (supra), which reads thus: 3 CWP No.5668 of 1987 “Undoubtedly, the right to enforce a right in a court of law cannot be effaced. However, it must be remembered that courts are overburdened with a large number of cases. The majority of such cases pertain to government departments and/or public sector undertakings. As is stated in Chief Conservator of Forests case it was not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution or CPC that two departments of a State or the Union of India and /or a department of the Government and a public sector undertaking fight a litigation in a court of law. Such a course is detrimental to public interest as it entails avoidable wastage of public money and time. These are all limbs of the Government and must act in coordination and not confrontation. The mechanism set up by this Court is not, as suggested by Mr. Andhyarujina, only to conciliate between the government departments. It is also set up for purposes of ensuring that frivolous disputes do not come before courts without clearance from the High- powered Committee. If it can, the High Powered Committee will resolve the dispute. If the dispute is not resolved the Committee would undoubtedly give clearance. However, there could also be frivolous litigation proposed by a department of the Government or a public sector undertaking. This could be prevented by the High Powered Committee. In such cases, there is no question of resolving the dispute. The Committee only has to refuse permission to litigate. No right of the department/public sector 4 CWP No.5668 of 1987 undertaking is affected in such a case. The litigation being of a frivolous nature must not be brought to court. To be remembered that in almost all cases one or the other party will not be happy with the decision of the High-Powered Committee. The dissatisfied party will always claim that its rights are affected, when in fact, no right is affected. The Committee is constituted of highly placed officers of the Government, who do not have an interest in the dispute, it is thus expected that their decision will be fair and honest. Even if the department/public sector undertaking finds the decision unpalatable, discipline requires that they abide by it. Otherwise the whole purpose of this exercise will be lost and every party against whom the decision is given will claim that they have been wronged and that their rights are affected. This should not be allowed to be done.” In view of the above, writ petition is disposed of with a direction to the High Powered Committee of the Officers of the petitioners as well as the respondent State to take cognizance of the dispute and resolve the same as per directions of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in cases of Oil and Natural Gas Commissioner's case(supra) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd's case (supra). The writ petition stands disposed of in the above terms. (M.M. KUMAR) JUDGE 5 CWP No.5668 of 1987 (JASWANT SINGH) November 12, 2009 JUDGE Pkapoor 6