Judgment

FAZAL ALI, J.:- Inspired by the objective of removing nation-wide shortage of sugar and for the purpose of enhancing sugar production in order to achieve an equitable distribution of the commodity so as to make it available to consumers at reasonable rates, and thereby relieving the sugar famine, the Cane Commissioner, Government of Uttar Pradesh by virtue of a Notification dated 9th October, 1980, acting under clause 8 of the Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966, (hereinafter referred to as the Control Order) directed that no power crusher, with certain exceptions, of a khandsari unit or any agent of such owner in the reserved area of a mill could be worked until December 1, 1980. The exact contents of the Notification may be extracted thus :

"Lucknow, Thursday 9th October 1980.

In exercise of the powers under cl. 8 of the Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966, read with the Central Government, Ministry of Food Agriculture, Community Development and Co-operation (Department of Food), Government of India Order No. GSR 122/Ess. Comm/Sugarcane dated July 16, 1966, I, Bhola Nath Tiwari, Cane Commissioner, Uttar Pradesh hereby direct that no owner of power crusher (other than those vertical power crushers which manufacture Gur or Rab from Sugarcane grown on their own fields) or a Khandsari Unit or any agent of such owner shall in any reserved area, of any Sugar Mill work the Power Crusher, or the Khandsari Unit prior to December 1, 1980, during the year 1980-81.

By Order

Bhola Nath Tiwari

Cane Commissioner

Uttar Pradesh"

2. The Control Order was passed by the Central Government in exercise of the powers conferred on it by Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, (hereinafter referred to as the Act of 1955). In order to understand the contentions raised by the parties it may be necessary to analyse the prominent features of the above Notification with reference to the situation it was intended to meet.

3. It is not disputed that sugar was being produced in the State of U. P. by the sugar mills through hydraulic process and by the power crushers through what is known as the open pan process. Both the mills as also the crushers drew their raw material, namely, sugarcane, from the sugarcane growers. In order to facilitate production by the sugar mills, most of whom were controlled by the State, a reserved area of the fields growing sugarcane was fixed throughout the State. The Notification applied only to the reserved area of a mill and not to any other areas. In other words, any area which fell outside the reserved area was not affected by the Notification and the power crushers situated in that area could still manufacture khandsari by the open pan process. Thus, it would be seen that the ban imposed by the notification was confined only to a particular area in the State of U. P.

4. Secondly, the Notification limited the ban to work power crushers only to a short period of one month and a half i. e. from October 9, 1980 to Dec. 1, 1980. Thirdly (and it was also not been disputed) the owners of power crushers of khandsari units, who are the petitioners in these cases, had taken out regular licences under the U. P. Khandsari Sugar Manufacturers Licensing Order of 1967 (hereinafter referred to as the Licensing Order) It, therefore, logically follows that the power crushers owned or worked by the petitioners were governed by the conditions of the licences under which they were working the crushers. Fourthly, what was prohibited by the Notification was only the manufacture of khandsari while the production of gur or rab from sugarcane grown in the fields belonging to the owners of the crushers was left out of the ambit of the Notification.

5. We have mentioned these essential features of the Notification because the most important argument put forward before us by the counsel for the petitioners has been that it imposes unreasonable restrictions on the right of the petitioners under Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution to carry on their t