1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR. WRIT PETITION NO. 3126 OF 2011 (M/s. Khandelwal Industries .v. The Union of India and others) Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's orders or directions Court's or Judge's Orders and Registrar's orders. Shri A.C. Dharmadhikari, Advocate for the petitioner. Ms. Chaube, Advocate for the respondents. CORAM : SMT. VASANTI A. NAIK AND PRASANNA B. VARALE, JJ. 03RD AUGUST, 2011. Heard the learned Counsel for the parties. It is brought to the notice of this Court by the learned Counsel for the petitioner that an identical challenge was raised to the restriction imposed by clause 4(i) of the Public Notice dated 17.06.2011 by filing Writ Petition No. 4743 of 2011 at the principal seat and the Division Bench at the principal seat has by the judgment dated 20th July, 2011 in a bunch of writ petitions including Writ Petition No. 4743 of 2011 allowed the writ petitions in terms of the operative part of the judgment dated 20th July, 2011. The learned Counsel for the respondents, on perusal of the judgment in the decided cases at the principal seat and the perusal of this writ petition, states that the issue involved in the present writ petition is the same as that was involved in the bunch of writ petitions at the principal seat. In this view of the matter, it is necessary to allow this writ petition on the same terms on which the bunch of writ petitions bearing Writ Petition No. 4743 of 2011 and others were allowed by the judgment dated 20th July, 2011. Hence, the writ petition is allowed in the following terms. (1) Clauses (i) and (iii) of para.4 of the Public Notice dated 17 June 2011 at Exhibit”K” to the Writ Petition No. 4743 of 2011 are held to be without authority of law. 2 (2) Since there is no challenge to clause (ii) of para.4 of the aforesaid Public Notice, Respondents are at liberty to implement para.4(ii) of the above Public Notice. (3) While it is true that as per Annexure 3 to the Public Notice dated 17 June 2011, 25 June 2011 was the last date for making applications and 6 July 2011 was the date of declaration of allocation, since we are striking down clauses (i) and (iii) of para.4 of the Public Notice dated 17 June 2011, the parties who had not exported cotton in the previous cotton years 1 October to 30 September (2008-09 and 2009-10) will also be eligible to apply for registration certificate. This might have ordinarily prompted us to direct the respondents to issue a fresh Public notice inviting applications all over again. However, having regard to the fact that the cotton season comes to an end on 30 September 2011, we direct the respondents to receive, consider and process all applications which were made prior to 6 July, 2011 without taking into consideration clauses (i) and (iii) which are held to be illegal. However, those who applied after 25 June 2011 and before 6 July 2011 will be allocated the floor limit of 100 metric tonnes per IEC by 27 July 2011. (4) As regards the parties who applied within the time limit upto 25 June 2011, each party will be given firm allocation of atleast 100 Mts and for the balance quantity remaining after allocation as above and under direction No.(3), allocation will be made to the parties who applied upto 25 June 2011, (without taking into consideration clauses (i) and (iii) of para.4 of the Public Notice dated 17 June 2011), on prorata basis with ceiling of 4250 metric tonnes per IEC and floor of 100 metric tonnes per IEC as already provided in clause (ii) of para.4 of the said Public Notice. Allocation in terms of 3 this direction shall be done by 27 July 2011. (5) It is clarified that parties who had applied earlier for export quantity of less than 100 metric tonnes will be deemed to have applied for 100 metric tonnes. (6) After arriving at such prorata allocation it will be open to the respondents to round off the quantities of cotton bales to the extent of 25 metric tonnes (i.e. 150 cotton bales or one container load). In other words allocation to parties who applied up to 25 June 2011 will be in multiplies of 25 metric tonnes. In casse the allocation as worked out on prorata basis comes to a fraction of one container load, it will be rounded off to the nearest integer. (7) It is clarified that these directions except direction No. (3) will apply to all parties who applied up to 25 June 2011 and direction No.(3) will apply to parties who applied from 26 June 2011 to 5 July 2011 (both days inclusive) irrespective of the fact whether they have filed Writ Petitions before any Court. (8) Trade Notice dated 6 July 2011 had already made reference to the present litigation. In order to ensure that the respondents are in a position to carry out the above directions for reallocation without taking into consideration clauses (i) and (iii) of para.4 of the Public Notice dated 17 June 2011 we direct that until the D.G.F.T., carries out this exercise for reallocation, no party shall be permitted to export in excess of 1000 metric tones of cotton bales pursuant to the allocation made as per Annexure-1 to the Trade Notice dated 6 July 2011, which will stand modified upon allocation to be made as per direction No.(4) hereinabove. 4 (9) Having regard to the fact that the Public Notice dated 17 June 2011 has been subject matter of litigation before this Court and other Courts the last date for submission of document, scrutiny and issue of registration certificate which was earlier scheduled to be 15 July 2011 shall now stand extended upto 8 August 2011. (10) We clarify that these directions are for the limited purpose of the current cotton season for the quantity of 10 lakh cotton bales (difference between 65 lakhs bales permitted by Notification dated 9 June 2011 minus 55 lakh bales permitted by the previous Notification) and will not come in the way of the Central Government formulating appropriate policy for the subsequent years. Order accordingly. No order as to costs. JUDGE JUDGE *rrg.