IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE TWENTY FIRST DAY OF OCTOBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO:4041 of 2003 Between: 1 Mohan Agarwal s/o Chandulal Agarwal Telengana Rayalaseema Khandasari Sugar Manufacturers Association., Road No.12, Banjara Hills, Hyd. 2 Mahendern Kumar s/o Late Dhanraj Agarwal Bhagavathi Khandasari Sugar Mills, Toophran., Medak District. 3 Mahender Kumar s/o Late Dhanraj Agarwal Sri Rama Krishna Khandasari Sugar Mills, Toophran, Medak District. 4 Rajender Prasad s/o Late Dhanraj Agarwal Navdurga Khandasari Sugar Mills, Kodipalli, Medak District. 5 Narender Kumar s/o Late Dhanraju Agarwal Srinivasa Udyog Khandasari Sugar Mills, Dongal Dharmaram, Medak District. 6 Vijender Kumar s/o Rajender Prasad Laxmi Venkata Ramana Khandasari Sugar Mills., Medak District. 7 Rupender Kumar s/o Rajender Prasad Mohan Khandasari Sugar Mills, Gajwel, Medak District. 8 Rajgopal Bhangadia s/o Late Hukmichand Bangadia Gopal Khandasari Sugar Mills, Eldurthi, Medak District. 9 Satyanarayana Singhania s/o Sagarmal Singhania Satyanarayana Modern Sugar Khandasari Peddamallareddy, Nizmabad District. 10 Megharaj Loyha s/o Bodulal Loya Sivasakti Sugar Industries., Sadasivapet., Medak District. 11 Ram Kumar Choudhury s/o Ramdutt Choudhury Singnodia Khandasari Sugar Mill, Laxmapur, Ramayampet Mandal, Medak District. 12 M.Shobha w/o Mahaveer Pershad Choudhry Choudhry Sugars., Kishan Ganj, Hyderabad. 13 Nandlal Agarwal s/o Late Bhaidyanath Agarwal Krushank Khandasari Sugar Mill, Andol, Medak District. 14 Gouri Shankar Agarwal s/p Prahlad Rai Agarwal Tirupathi Khandasari Sugar Mill, Shankarpalli., Ranga Reddy District. 15 Anil Agarwal s/o Mohan Agarwal Anand Khandasari Sugar Mill Narsapur, Medak District. 16 Rajesh Gupta s/o Late Giridharilal Agarwal Laxmi Narasimha Khandasari Sugar Mill, Chegunta, Medak District. 17 Ashok Agarwal s/o Kannaiyalal J.C.Sugars Ravelli, Toopran, Medak District. 18 Satish Kulkarni s/o Venkat Rao Kulkarni Venkateswara Khandasari Sugar Mill, Togarpally Village, Kondapur Mandal, Medak District. ..... PETITIONERS AND 1 Secretary., Industries & Coimmerce Dept. Secretariat Buildings.,Hyderabad. 2 Commissioner & Director of Sugar & Cane Commissioner, Basheerbagh, Hyderabad. 3 Asst.Cane Commissioner., Sanga Reddy, Medak District. 4 Asst.Cane Commissioner., Bodhan, Nizamabad District. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:MR.M.R.K.CHOWDARY,SENIOR COUNSEL assisted by MR.M.SUDHEER KUMAR Counsel for the Respondents:GP FOR INDUSTRIES & COMMERCE The Court made the following : ORDER: This writ petition is ﬁled for a writ of mandamus to declare the action of respondent Nos.2 and 3 in seeking to enforce Statutory Minimum Price (SMP) as ﬁxed by the Central Government under Clause 3 of the Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966 (for short ‘the 1966 Order’) for the season 2002-03 against the petitioners without any notiﬁcation either by the Central Government or by the State Government under Clause 4 of the 1966 Order, as illegal and arbitrary. The petitioners are khandasari units involved in the manufacture of khandasari sugar. From time to time, they are being asked to pay SMP under GSRs and GOs issued by the Central and State Governments respectively. Clause 3 of the 1966 Order envisages the SMP in respect of sugarcane supplied by the growers to the producers of sugar or their agents. Clause 4 of the 1966 Order governs the payment of SMP to the sugarcane growers by the producers of khandasari sugar. In the instant case, no separate notiﬁcations are being issued by the Government of India in respect of producers of khandasari sugar. However, on the G.Os issued from time to time by the State Government following the notiﬁcations issued by the Government of India in respect of SMP for producers of sugar, the petitioners are made to pay the SMP. By notice, dated 17.02.2003, respondent No.3 called upon the petitioners to pay the revised SMP @ 695/- per metric ton for the season 2002-03 apart from tax incentive of Rs.22/-. This notice is questioned by the petitioners on the sole ground that neither the Central Government nor the State Government had issued any notiﬁcation under Clause 4 of the 1966 Order ﬁxing the SMP in favour of khandasari units. In the counter-aﬃdavit ﬁled by respondent No.3, he inter alia admitted that the State Government has no power to ﬁx the SMP, but for the last 20 years, there has been a practice that the khandasari units are paying the SMP as ﬁxed by the Government of India in respect of sugar factories under Clause 3 of the 1966 Order. I have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties. Under Clause 3 of the 1966 Order, the Central Government is empowered to ﬁx the price of sugarcane to be paid by the producers of sugar or their agents for the sugarcane purchased by them, by notiﬁcation to be published in the oﬃcial gazette. Such a price is required to be ﬁxed having regard to the various factors contained in sub-clauses (a) to (e) of the 1966 Order. Under Clause 4 of the 1966 Order, the Central Government or the State Government with the concurrence of the Central Government is empowered to exercise a similar power of ﬁxing the minimum price or the price of sugarcane to be paid by the producer of khandasari sugar or their agents for the sugarcane purchased by them. It is admitted in the counter-aﬃdavit that no separate notiﬁcation has been issued by the Central Government or it authorized the State Government to issue such a notiﬁcation ﬁxing the minimum price or the price of the sugarcane being supplied to khandasari sugar factories, to be paid by the producers of khandasari sugar to the sugarcane growers. The only circumstance, on which the respondents harped, is that though separate prices are not ﬁxed for the last 20 years, the petitioners and other producers of khandasari sugar have been following the practice of paying the same price as was ﬁxed for sugar producers under Clause 3 of the 1966 Order. I am of the considered view that voluntary payment by the petitioners in the absence of a statutory notiﬁcation under Clause 3 of the 1966 Order does not empower the State Government to unilaterally ﬁx the SMP without exercising the statutory power under Clause 4 of the 1966 Order. When the statute requires a particular thing to be done in a particular manner, the authority vested with such a power is bound to exercise the power in the manner in which it is prescribed. In this view of the matter, I do not see any merit in the stand of the respondents that the petitioners are liable to pay the enhanced SMP in the absence of a separate notiﬁcation issued under Clause 4 of the 1966 Order. Such a stand is plainly contrary to the statutory intendment of the rule making authority as reﬂected from Clauses 3 and 4 of the 1966 Order. The writ petition is, therefore, allowed and the impugned notice is quashed. This order, however, does not preclude the State Government or the Central Government from exercising their statutory power in accordance with Clause 4 of the 1966 Order. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 21st OCTOBER, 2008. kvni