Ashutosh Kumar, J.—Heard Ms. Namrata Mishra, learned Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Dhurjati Kumar Prasad, GP-14, for the State.

2. The petitioner has challenged the order of the District Agriculture Officer, Araria, whereby he has been debarred from carrying on the business of sale of fertilizer.

3. Though the writ petitioner has raised a grievance that he was not noticed before passing the aforesaid order of debarment, but the learned counsel for the State has controverted such argument on the basis of a communication made by the District Agriculture Officer, Araria, contained in Annexure-3 to the writ petition bearing C.W.J.C. No.6584 of 2019, wherein the dealer was made known that during the evaluation by the authorities, it was found that the fertilizer was not being sold by e-POS machine which was a breach of the Fertilizer(Control) Order, 1985 (in short the Control Order), entailing cancellation of license. The petitioner was asked to present himself along with the machine before the District Agriculture Officer. That not having been done, it has been urged on behalf of the State, the order of debarment has rightly been passed.

4. However, from a perusal of the provisions contained in Section 31 of the Control Order, it appears that the Controller, after giving the authorized dealer an opportunity of being heard, may suspend or debar the dealer for carrying on the business of fertilizer on one or more of the grounds including that the authorization letter or certificate of registration or certificate of manufacture has been obtained by the dealer by willful suppression of material facts or by misrepresentation of relevant particulars or that any one of the provisions of the Control Order or any terms and conditions of the memorandum of intimation or certificate of registration or the certificate of manufacture, as the case may be, has been contravened or not fulfilled.

5. It has further been provided that while debarring a dealer from carrying on the business of fertilizer or cancelling the certificate, he would be allowed a period of thirty days to dispose of the balance stock of fertilizer, if any, held by him. Anything kept back by the dealer beyond the afore-noted period, would be liable to be confiscated.

6. Sub-Clause (2) of Section 31 of the Control Order further provides that if the contravention by the dealer is of such a nature that it justifies his debarment or cancellation, then the Controller may, without any notice, suspend such authorization letter or certificate as an interim measure and shall immediately furnish the details and the nature of contravention to the dealer and after giving him an opportunity of being heard, pass a final order/s either revoking the order of suspension or debarment within fifteen days from the date of issue of the order of suspension. And, if no final order is passed within the period as specified in sub-Clause (2) of Section 31 of the Control Order, the order of interim suspension shall be deemed to have been revoked without prejudice. However, to any further action which the authority may take against the dealer under sub-Clause (1). Thereafter, a brief statement of the reason for such suspension, cancellation or debarment has to be made, a copy of which has to be served upon the dealer.

7. The learned counsel for the State has pointed out that all the District Magistrates of Bihar were communicated by the Principal Secretary of the Agriculture Department vide notification dated 13th of October, 2017 that in future, the fertilizer shall only be sold through e-POS machine and the dealer shall be made available the subsidized fertilizer only on their furnishing the details of sale by the e-POS machine and not otherwise. Before the Go-live of the project, a dry run was carried out and a direction was issued to all the District Magistrates that the dealers be intimated that the fertilizer would only be sold through e-POS machine and any contravention of the aforesaid directive w