TMI Blog1998 (8) TMI 616X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... iyam, 1964 (for short the Act) shall be paid by the seller or purchaser when agricultural produce is sold by a trader to the Government. The aforesaid question arose under the following facts: Appellants are traders carrying on business in rice milling within certain areas constituted in the State of U.P. Such areas have been notified as market areas under Section 6 of the Act. Among the business activities carried on by the appellants they purchased paddy form cultivators or sellers outside the market area and the paddy so purchased is hulled to make it rice for sale. They are under a duty to sell rice to the State Government as levy by virtue of Clause (3) of the U.P. Rice and Paddy (Levy and Regulation of Trade) Order, 1985, which wa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... market fee to the Committee; and (4) in any other case of sale of such produce, the purchaser shall be liable to pay the market fee to the Committee. The Market Committee concerned made demands on the appellants to remit the market fee as indicated in Section 17(iii) (b) (3) of the Act. Appellants challenged the said demand before the Allahabad High Court on different grounds. First ground is that when a rice miller gives rice to the Government as levy under the Levy Order it does not amount to a transaction of sale and hence no market fee can be collected thereon. Second ground is that the State Government is not a trader as contemplated in the sub- clause and hence there is no liability to pay market fee. Third ground is that, ev ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... llants relied on the decision of another two Judge Bench of this Court in Krishi Utpadan Mandi Samiti, Haldwani ors. vs. India Wood Products Ltd. anr. (1996 3 SCC 321) in which this Court held thus: In a case where the trader selling the produce has realised the market fee from the trader, the seller shall be bound to pay the market fee to the Committee. However, where the selling trader does not realise it from the purchaser he is under no obligation to pay the market fee to the Committee. On behalf of the Market Committee it was submitted then that an earlier decision of a Constitution Bench of this Court was not taken note of by the learned Judges in Krishi Utpadan Mandi Samiti Ltd. vs. Indian Wood Products Ltd. anr. (sup ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... f the produce is purchased by a trader from another trader . (2) In such a case it is open to the seller to realise the market fee from the purchaser. (3) But it is the duty of the seller to pay the fee to the Committee. It is significant to note that the word used for the seller to realise market fee from his purchaser is may while the word used as for the seller to pay the market fee to the Committee is shall . Employment of the said two monosyllables of great jurisprudential import in the same clause dealing with two rights regarding the same burden must have two different imports. The legislative intendment can easily be discerned from the frame of the sub-clause that what is conferred on the seller is only an option to coll ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Act though in a different context. Their Lordship, while dealing with Section 17(iii) (b) of the Act looked at the distinction between sub-clause (2) and sub-clause (3) and observed that if paddy is purchased in a particular market area by a rich miller and the same paddy is converted into rice and then sold, the rice miller will be liable to pay market fee on his purchase of paddy from the agriculturist- producer, but he cannot be asked to pay market fee over again under sub-clause (3) in relation to the transaction of rice. The Bench then added: If, however, paddy is brought by the rice-miller from another market area, then the Market Committee of the area where paddy is converted into rice and sold will be entitled to charge market ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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