The main legal point established is that repugnancy between two statutes arises when there is a direct collision between the provisions or when one statute occupies the whole field.

(Per G.S. Patel, J.)

1. On 14th October 2014, notice was issued to the Respondents for final disposal of this Petition at the admission stage returnable on 24th November 2015. Hence: Rule. Respondents waive service. By consent, Rule is made returnable forthwith and Petition called out and taken up for hearing and final disposal.

2. The challenge in this Petition is to the legality and validity of the Maharashtra Solvent Raffinate and Slop (Licensing) Order 2007 (“the impugned Order”; “the State Order”).

3. The Petitioner is an association and a society of manufacturers of paints of various kinds and descriptions. The Petitioner Association’s members are all small scale units. They manufacture paint formulations by combining various raw materials in different proportions to get the desired quality of paint. The relevant raw materials fall into several groups, such as film forming materials, pigments and extenders, solvents and additives. Many of these are petroleum byproducts.

4. Petroleum products are covered by Entry 53 of List-I of the Constitution of India. The items in this list are covered by the Petroleum Act, 1934, and the Central Government has framed Rules in 1976 under that Act. Chapter 1 of the Petroleum Act, 1934 deals with control over petroleum. The relevant rules specify that no license is required for the transport or storage of petroleum of certain classes. The Petroleum Rules, 1976 deal with the importation, transportation and storage of petroleum, licensing, refining and so on. This is stated in the Petition principally to establish that it is the Central Government that has legislative authority over many of the items used by the Petitioner’s members.

5. The Essential Commodities Act, 1955 (“the EC Act”; the) is enacted in order to provide, in the general public interest, control over the production, supply and distribution of trade and commerce in certain commodities specified in the Schedule to that Act to be “essential commodities”. Petroleum is one of these. The purpose of the EC Act is to ensure that the prices and distribution of these essential commodities are maintained in a manner optimally beneficial to the public interest.

6. The Central Government’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas issued the Solvents, Raffinates & Slop (Acquisition, Sale, Storate & Prevention of Automobile) Order, 2000 (“the Central Order”).

7. It is the case of the Petitioner that the impugned order is that there is an impermissible repugnancy between the State Order and the Central Order, and that the former unlawfully contains restrictions not to be found in the latter.

8. We have heard Mr. Kanuga for the Petitioner and Mr. Gokhale for Respondent Nos. 1 to 4 at some length. With their assistance, we have carefully considered the material on record.

9. It is first necessary to make reference to the Central Order, Petition, Ex. D-1, pp. 40-42. That order is clearly issued in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 of the EC Act. Section 3 imposes certain restrictions on the sale and use of solvents, raffinates slops with other products. It reads:

“3. Restriction on sale and use of solvents, raffinates, slops and other product.— (1) No person shall either acquire, store or sell solvents included in the schedule without a licence issued by the State Government or the District Magistrate or any other officer authorised by the Central or the State Government.

PROVIDED THAT no such licence shall be required for consumption of 50 kilo litres per month or less and stock at a given time of 20 Kilo litres or less of solvents listed in the Schedule combined.

(2) No person shall either use or help in any manner the use of solvents, raffinates, slops or their equivalent or other product except motor spirit and high speed diesel, in any automobile: PROVIDED THAT nothing in this Order shall preclude the use of such p