IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No 6241 of 2009 1 M/S Sarab Shree Balaji Enterprises, a proprietorship firm through its proprietor Sri Ram Shobhit Singh, son of late Baikuntha Singh, resident of At & PO – MIC, Bela, P S – Bela, District – Muzaffarpur 2 M/s Shankar Enterprises, a proprietorship firm through its proprietor Ram Kishore Singh, son of Gaurishankar Singh, resident of Akhara Ghat Road, Muzaffarpur, P S – Akhara Ghat, District – Muzaffarpur -Petitioner Versus 1 Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Koyla Bhawan, Koyla Nagar, Dhanbad through its Chairman-cum-Managing Director 2 The Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Koyla Bhawan, Koyla Nagar, Dhanbad 3 The General Manager (Sales & Marketing), Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Koyla Bhawan, Koyla Nagar, Dhanbad 4 The Director, Technical, Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Koyla Bhawan, Koyla Nagar, Dhanbad 5 The Coal Controller, Lala Lajpat Rai Sarani, A J C Bose Road, Kolkata 6 The General Manager, Block-2 Area, Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Dhabad -Respondents ----------- 2 19.05.2009 Heard the parties and in my view, there is no need of counter affidavit to be filed and the writ petition can be disposed of at this stage itself in view of the order that I propose to pass hereunder: The petitioner is a coal consumer and is aggrieved by the grading of coal as done by the Bharat Coking Coal Limited in respect of coal that is to be supplied to the petitioner from collieries of BCCL at Block-2 Area in Dhanbad. Petitioner contends that earlier from the same colliery, the coal, which was supplied, was graded by BCCL itself at a lower grade thereby the price payable was less. Now, on an ex parte assessment, they have decided to upgrade the quality of coal and, thus, are demanding much higher price though the coal, as supplied, is the same. The petitioner, for this purpose, relies on a chemical analysis got done by them. Mr V M K Sinha, learned counsel 2 appearing for the BCCL states that the samples taken by the petitioner were similarly ex parte as their own sample. From where petitioner got the sample is not known. The report cannot be relied upon. Thus, before the Court are two sets of reports purporting to be from the same source which are in contradiction to each other. Sampling, testing are all done by parties themselves. The dispute is material and has to be resolved. The only proper and legitimate way of resolving the said dispute is by a third party independent assessment. I, therefore, direct that Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, which has the requisite technical expertise in the matter, would be the competent authority to decide this particular dispute. This Court, therefore, requests the Management of the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad to make arrangements for testing of the quality of coal from the area concerned after due notice to both the parties and taking samples in their presence and then submitting the report and grading it as per the grading provided by the Coal Controller of India. The report must be made available to both parties as well as the Coal Controller of India who would accordingly act as per the report aforesaid. The said exercise must be done within a period of one month from the time a copy of this order is produced by either of the parties before the Director Incharge/Person Incharge of the Management of the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. Any payment, as made by the petitioner in the meantime, would abide by the final finding of the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad and the respondent-BCCL would be bound to refund in 3 case the coal is found to be wrongly graded by them. This disposes of the writ petition. It is expected that both parties would cooperate in early resolution of the matter. M.E.H./ (Navaniti Prasad Singh)