Arijit Banerjee, J.

1. The disputes in the two writ petitions under consideration arise in relation to the Foreign Trade Policy (in short the ‘Policy’) for the period 2009-14 framed in terms of Sec. 5 of the Foreign Trade (Development Regulation) Act, 1992 (in short ‘the Act’) and the procedure framed for the purpose of implementing the Policy and contained in the ‘Handbook of Procedure’ (in short the ‘Procedure’).

Brief background of the case:-

2. Duty Free Import Authorization (DFIA) is one of the duty exemption schemes under Chapter 4 of the Policy. DFIA is issued to allow duty free import of inputs. DFIA may be either Post-export or Pre-export.

3. The petitioner company is a ‘Merchant Exporter’. Clause 9.39 of the Policy defines merchant exporter as a person engaged in trade activity and exporting or intending to export goods.

4. Since the inception of the 2004-09 Policy, the petitioner company (hereinafter referred to as ‘SESA’) used to apply for issuance of Post-export DFIAs. After getting DFIAs, SESA used to purchase diverse goods from various manufacturers upon payment of duty and all applicable taxes including excise duty and used to export the goods within the time s