The Delhi High Court today directed continuing the stay on export of non-basmati rice. The Court's direction came on the petitions filed by a bunch of rice exporters against the allocation of quota to 82 exporters alleging that the policy is irrational.
The division bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Rajiv Shakdher today directed the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) to scrutinize the 82 applications which benefitted from allocation of quota for export of non-basmati rice from the centre.
The court also asked
DGFT to examine whether all 82 exporters qualify for the export quota. The court said, "Let us see how many valid applications are there."
The bench asked petitioners to file rejoinder and Centre to file counter affidavit within ten days. The matter is listed for September 7.
The Delhi High court on July 26, had directed the Ministry of Commerce not to proceed with its plan to grant licences to exporters for export of non-basmati rice. The ministry on July 7 had allocated export of 1 million tonnes of non-basmati rice to 82 exporters.
The DGFT with its notification dated July 19 allocated export quotas of 10 lakh tonnes to 82 exporters. The applications for allotments were invited through e-mail on July 21 and 22 on first-come-first-serve basis and subject to a maximum individual quota of 12,500 tonnes.
The All India Rice Exporters Association with other exporters had objected to the notification for allowing exports and alleged that only those companies would be benefited who had prior knowledge of the order.
The petitioners alleged that the July 26 order to stop allocation of export quota was not followed by the government. They also alleged that there was no transparency in the export policy and the notification lacked basis of allocation of quota.
Petitioners were represented by senior advocate Sudhir Nandrajog assisted by advocate Sumeer Sodhi.
Source : lawetalnews.com