JUDGMENT :

Prashant Kumar Mishra, J.

The writ petitioners preferred this appeal against the order, dated 11.03.2022 passed by learned single Judge dismissing W.P.No.25580 of 2021.

2. The above writ petition was filed seeking the following relief :

“.. to issue order, writ or direction more particularly one in the nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the 3rd respondent in appointing a committee without issuing any notice to take samples of the crop and in the absence of the petitioners and without issuing any notice or without following due process of law, as illegal, arbitrary, ultra-virus the provisions of the Seeds Act, 1966, is unconstitutional and consequentially, direct the 3rd respondent to issue notice to the petitioner intimating the date of time of taking samples of the crop for the purpose of scientific investigation before passing any orders and grant such other relief as this Court deems fit in the circumstances of the case.”.

3. The only contention raised before the learned single Judge is that under Section 15 of the Seeds Act, 1966 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’), the concerned authority is enjoined to issue notice to the petitioners, and the action of the authorities in appointing scientists to collect the samples of crop for analysis, without giving any notice, would result in failure of statutory process and would become vitiated.

4. Section 15 (1) and (2) of the Seeds Act, 1966, which is relevant for the present case, reads thus:

15. Procedure to be followed by Seed Inspectors –

(1) Whenever a Seed Inspector intends to take sample of any seed of any notified kind or variety for analysis, he shall-

(a) give notice in writing, then and there, of such intention to the person from whom he intends to take sample;

(b) except in special cases provided by rules made under this Act, take three representative samples in the prescribed manner and mark and seal or fasten up each sample in such manner as its nature permits.

(2) When samples of any seed of any notified kind or variety are taken under sub-section (1), the Seed Inspector shall-

(a) deliver one sample to the person from whom it has been taken;

(b) send in the prescribed manner another sample for analysis to the Seed Analyst for the area within which such sample has been taken; and

(c) retain the remaining sample in the prescribed manner for production in case any legal proceedings are taken or for analysis by the Central Seed Laboratory under sub-section (2) of section 16, as the case may be.

5. A plain reading of the above quoted provision would indicate that notice has to be given to the person from whom the Seed Inspector intends to take samples. In the instant case, as could be seen from the material on record, on the basis of the complaint made by the farmers that the paddy variety supplied by the petitioners is not up to the mark, a committee consisting of Scientists, Seed Inspectors and officials from the Agriculture Department collected the samples from the fields of the farmers but not from the premises of the petitioners. Therefore, issuance of the notice to the petitioners at this stage does not arise.

6. Admittedly, the stage of initiating any legal proceedings against the petitioners has not yet taken place. If any such legal proceedings are sought to be initiated against the petitioners based on the samples collected from the fields of the farmers, it will always remain open for them to take recourse of pursuing legal remedies available to them under the Act. Apart from that, under sub-section 2 (c) of Section 15 of the Act, one of the samples out of three samples taken by the authorities is to be retained by the Seed Inspector in the prescribed manner for production in case any legal proceedings are taken or for analysis by the Central Seed laboratory under sub-section (2) of Section 16, as the case may be, and therefore, such sample would be available for production or analysis in case any legal proceedings are sought to be initiated a