1. The petitioners have preferred this writ petition seeking declaration that provisions of Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976, for short, hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act’ and the Rules framed thereunder are not applicable to the subject goods in so far as petitioner is concerned and for a writ of certiorari quashing the impugned notices and to strike down the definition of ‘industrial consumer’ and ‘institutional consumer’ in Rule 2-A of the aforesaid Rules as being contrary to the scheme of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act and inconsistent with other provisions of the Rules.

2. The first petitioner is a joint venture company between Larsen & Toubro Limited-the second petitioner and the non-resident Messer Eutectic Castolin Group. The first petitioner is engaged in manufacturing welding products such as electrodes, brazing rods, powders and fluxes and selling thereof. These welding products are used mainly in repairs and maintenance work on costly industrial equipments and these are not meant for use in conventional fabrication work. A specialized welding technology process which has been patented as “Eutectic Castolin Welding Process” is used. The first petitioner is selling the products to its associate company and selling agent, the second petitioner. The business division of the second petitioner is selling these products to a network stockiest spread all over India. The third petitioner is one such stockiest in Bangalore. These products are packed in plastic containers known as dripacks in the industry. The dripicks contained the marked quantities and bear on them the declaration “for industrial use only”.

3. The second petitioner is selling these products with the help of a core team of sales/service engineers trained in the specialized “Eutectic Castolin Welding Process.” These sales/service engineers meet the technical personnel of the industrial units and ascertain their requirements for reconditioning, remaking, rejuvenation and restoration of the machinery or equipment and accordingly advise them with reference to the quantities and types of the welding products required, the nature of the processes to be adopted for reconditioning/restoration of the machinery or equipment etc., In case of the leading industrial units, the second petitioner itself carries out the welding process by employing trained service engineer. The sales personnel of second petitioner also identify contractors who are trained for carrying out the special processes of reconditioning etc. and engage them for the purpose. Since the welding products manufactured by the first petitioner are used in specialized welding, the second petitioner conducts training programme for potential customers to educate their technical personnel with respect to the utility of these materials. Sometimes, the stockiest who are trained for carrying out welding process also undertake the contract of carrying out the welding processes ad desired/instructed by the sales/service engineers of petitioner No.2, besides selling of the welding electrode products.

4. The case of the petitioners is that these welding electrode products were seized from the premises of the stockiest of second petitioner by the third respondent alleging that address of the manufacturer or packer and MRP have not been marked on such packages as required under the PC Rules. The petitioners were received with the notice dated 11.09.2007 from the third respondent informing that a case has been registered for violation of Section 39 of the Act and they were asked to appear before the Assistant Controller of Legal Metrology on 17.09.2007. The petitioners have explained to the third respondent that the provisions of the Act and the PC Rules are not applicable to the packages of welding electrode products as these are meant for industrial consumers. These are purchased only by manufacturing industry. These products are very costly in comparison to normal products used b