Judgment

M.M.DUTT, J.

(1) IN this writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India the petitioners have prayed for issuance of the writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents not to compel the petitioners to take out licences and to pay market fee under the U.P. Krishi Utpadan Mandi Adhiniyam, 1964, hereinafter referred to as the Act.

(2) THE petitioners are the producers of khandsari sugar and are the owners of Khandsari Sugar Units which they operate with the aid of power crushers for the production of khandsari sugar. The petitioners claim that as they are only producers of khandsari sugar, they are not liable to take out any licence or to pay the market fee under the Act as illegally demanded by the respondents Mandi Samitis.

(3) IT appears from the Preamble that the Act provides for the regulation of sale and purchase of agricultural produce and for the establishment, superintendence and control of market therefor in Uttar Pradesh. S. 5 of the Act provides for the declaration of intention of the State government to regulate and control sale. and purchase of agricultural produce in any area to be declared as a Market Area. Under S. 6, the Market Area will be declared by the State government by a notification in the gazette after considering the objections received within the period referred to in S. 5 of the Act. Section 9(1) of the Act provides as follows: 9(1) As from the date of declaration of an area as Market Area no Local Body or other person shall, within the Market Area, set up, establish or continue, or allow to be set up, established or continued, any place for the sale, purchase, storage, weighment or processing of the specified agricultural produce, except under and in accordance with the conditions of a licence granted by the Committee concerned, anything to the contrary contained in any other law, custom, usage or agreement notwith-standing : Provided that the provisions of this Ss. shall not apply to a producer in respect of agricultural produce produced, reared, caught or processed by him or to any person who purchases or stores any agricultural produce for his domestic consumption.

(4) S. 17 lays down the powers of the Committee constituted under S. 13 of the Act. Clause (iii) (b)(l) of S. 17 provides as follows : 17. A Committee shall, for the purposes of this Act, have the power to(iii) levy and collect:

(B) market fee, which shall be payable on transactions of sale of specified agricultural produce in the market area at such rates, being not less than one percentum and not more than one and half percentum of the price of the agricultural produce so sold, as the State government may specify by notification, and such fee shall be realised in the following manner

(1) if the produce is sold through a commission agent, the commission agent may realise the market fee from the purchaser and shall be liable to pay the same to the Committee ;

(5) IT is urged by Mr Sorabjee, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners, that as the petitioners are only producers in respect of agricultural produce, they are not required to take out any licence in view of the proviso to S. 9(1) of the Act. Counsel submits that under the proviso, sub-section (1) of S. 9 will not apply to two categories of persons, namely, (1) the producer in respect of agricultural produce and (2) any person who purchases or stores any agricultural produce for his domestic consumption. In other words, according to the learned counsel, a producer who produces the agricultural produce in the Market Area and sells them will not have to take out a licence under Ss. (1) of S. 9. We are unable to accept the contention. In our view, it is not the intention of the legislature that a producer of an agricultural produce within the Market Area would be exempt from taking out any licence, even though he sells his produce in the Market Area. We have already noticed that the