The court held that the petitioner had no vested right for grant of extension of the export obligation period and its application for extension would necessarily have to be considered as per the policy in force at the time.

VIBHU BAKHRU, J.

1. The petitioner has filed the present petition impugning an order dated 08.03.2016 passed by respondent no.3 (Policy Relaxation Committee-hereafter ‘PRC’) and an order dated 22.09.2015 passed by respondent no. 2 (hereafter ‘DGFT’). By the aforesaid orders, the petitioner’s applications for extension of time to complete its export obligations were rejected.

2. It is the petitioner’s case that it was unable to complete the export obligations for reasons beyond its control. The petitioner claims that in view of the orders passed by Hon'ble Allahabad High Court in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) bearing PIL No. 29523 of 2014 captioned Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors., the stocks of white sugar produced by the petitioner were placed under the control of the District Magistrate and the petitioner was unable to export the same.

3. The petitioner, accordingly, claims that it is entitled to extension of time for completing the export obligations and the denial of the same is arbitrary and unreasonable.

4. Briefly stated, the relevant facts necessary to address the controversy are that the petitioner obtained an Advance Authorization-Advance Authorisation No. 0510336650 dated 08.10.2012 - from the Regional Office of DGFT for import of 30,000 MT of raw sugar (corresponding to a polarimeter reading of less than 99.5% but not less than 98.5%) of CIF value of Rs. 82,94,62,500.00/- with an obligation to export 28571.400 MT of white sugar of FOB value of Rs. 95,38,81,875.00/- with the “actual user” condition. The export obligation was to be discharged within a period of eighteen months from the date of issue of the Authorization; that is, by 30.04.2014.

5. Admittedly, the petitioner failed to fulfil the export obligation within the prescribed time. After the time for performing the export obligation was over, the petitioner filed an application dated 08.05.2014 with the DGFT seeking extension of time to fulfil its export obligation. At the material time, the petitioner had exported only 7,580 MT of white sugar against its obligation to export 28,571 MT of sugar.

6. The petitioner’s application was favourably considered and by way of an amendment sheet dated 21.05.2014, DGFT extended the period for performing the export obligation till 07.10.2014. The petitioner, thereafter, filed an application dated 09.10.2014 before the PRC seeking further extension of time. The petitioner claimed that sugar manufacturers, including the petitioners, were unable to make payment to sugarcane growers from whom they had purchased sugarcane in the previous year. Consequently, the State Government (under orders of Hon’ble Allahabad High Court) had taken control of the sugar lying with manufacturers including the petitioner in order that the same may be sold to make payments to the sugarcane growers directly. The petitioner also claimed that it requested the District Magistrate, Hapur to release stock of sugar required to be exported; however, the same was not released.

7. The petitioner claims that since no action was taken by PRC with regard to its application dated 09.10.2014, the petitioner filed another application dated 23.06.2015 once again requesting for extension of time to perform its export obligation. The aforesaid application was rejected by a communication dated 22.09.2016 for the reason that the petitioner had not fulfilled 50% of the export obligation as required under paragraph 4.42(c) of the Hand Book of Procedures (HoP) 2015-20. It was further pointed out that appendix 4J of the HoP had been amended by limiting the extension of export obligation period to six months.

8. On 07.12.2015, the petitioner once again applied for extension of the export obligation period, which was denied by a communication dated 08.03.2016.

9. Mr Somnath Shukla, the learned counsel appearing for petitioner contended that the petitioner had faced a genuine difficulty in performing its export obligation on account of the PIL fi