The Calcutta High Court has dismissed a PIL challenging the notifications dated 12th of July, 2022 and 29th of September, 2022 imposing fee for availing benefit of Online Queue Management System upon the transporters/ exporters exporting their goods to Bangladesh from various international border checkposts located at the Indo-Bangladesh Border.
The plea of the petitioner is that such imposition of fee imposes unreasonable restrictions upon trucks carrying goods from reaching the international border checkposts and that exorbitant high fee without any commensurate service being provided against such fee has been imposed by the State.
It has further been pleaded that small scale exporters will be unable to pay such exorbitant fee mandatorily which will prevent such exporters from conducting their business resulting in financial losses to them.
It has further been alleged that the state government has ignored the hardships being faced by all exporters, transporters, traders and manufacturers and that the notifications suffer from vice of violation of Article 14 and Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution and are also violative of Article 265 of the Constitution. It is also alleged that the action of the State is contrary to the trade policy and the impugned notifications are causing undue financial hardship to the sections of the business community including exporters without offering any commensurate service in exchange for the fee being charged.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj noted that the preliminary objection raised by the learned Advocate General about maintainability of the PIL needs to be decided.
The Bench further noted that the petitioner is a practicing advocate of the High Court unconnected with the business of export. Cause of the exporters has been taken up by projecting the problems which may be faced by them on account of imposition of fee by the impugned notification. The issue of quid pro quo has also been raised which is mainly concerning the exporters. Nothing prevents the exporters to approach the competent Court and raise their grievances. The Advocate General has also raised the plea that the impugned levy infact has facilitated such exporters. No exporter is before the Court even in the representative capacity to ascertain this fact.
Having regard to the nature of issue which has been raised by the petitioner, the Court opined that a PIL on such an issue at the instance of an advocate practicing in the Court having no connection with the issue cannot be entertained especially when the affected persons are adequately well off to raise their personal cause in the appropriate judicial proceedings.
So far as reliance of counsel for the petitioner in the matters of Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (supra), Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (supra) and Asian Leather Limited (supra) is concerned, these judgments relate to the issue of a levy without authority of law which is an issue on merit which can be raised by the effected parties in appropriate maintainable proceedings.
“Even if the rule of locus is relaxed in a PIL, yet the issue which is involved in the petition cannot be permitted to be raised at the instance of a person totally unconnected with the issue and unaffected by the notification. Hence, the benefit of the order of the Court dated 28th of September, 2021 passed in WPA (P) 213 of 2021 in the case of Ambika Roy vs. The Hon’ble Speaker, West Bengal Legislative Assembly and Ors. cannot be extended to the petitioner. The counsel for the petitioner has also placed reliance upon the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of State of Uttaranchal vs. Balwant Singh Chaufal & Others reported in (2010) 3 SCC 402 but in that judgment also, it has been held that the Court should prima facie verify the credential of the petitioner before entertaining a PIL and that the Court should be fully satisfied that substantial public interest is involved before entertaining the petition and the Court should, before entertaining the PIL, also ensure that the PIL is aimed at redressal of genuine public harm or public injury. The above test is not satisfied in the present case”, the Court observed.
Hence, the preliminary objection raised by the Advocate General is sustained and PIL is held to be not maintainable which is accordingly dismissed, however, making it cleared by the High Court that if any affected party approaches the competent Court, then the issue will be decided on its own merit without being influenced by any observation made in this order. The petition is accordingly dismissed by the High Court.