Dhammika Ganepola, J.

The Petitioners in the instant application have inter alia prayed for Writs of Certiorari quashing the decisions of the 1st to 4th Respondents to suspend the registration of the 1st Respondent factory reflected in the document marked P24 and to conduct an inquiry in respect of 1^st Respondent factory as re in the document marked P25 and Writ of Prohibition prohibiting said Respondents from placing any restrictions on licensed Tea Brokers pertaining to the purchase and/or auction of made tea produced by 1st Petitioner Factory. Further, the Petitioners prayed interim orders suspending the operation of said documents marked P24 and P25 and the decisions contained therein, suspending the operation of the suspension of the registration of 1st Petitioner Factory and preventing the Respondents from issuing directions to any licensed Tea Broker to withdraw tea produced by the 1^st Respondent from tea auctions without holding an appropriate inquiry until the final determination of the instant application.

When this matter was taken up for support on 11.10.2024 and 16.10.2024 the learned President Counsel for the Petitioners submitted that the 4th Respondent has issued a circular dated 06.03.2019 marked as P4 in view of preserving the new naturalness of Made Tea by which the 4^th Respondent has purportedly imposed the following maximum permissible levels of Sucrose, Glucose and Fructose in low country tea;

Sucrose 16mg/g

Glucose 14mg/g

Fructose 19mg/g 

The Petitioners claim that they have been in continuous manufacturing of quality tea in compliance with the lawful requirements of the Respondents and that was consistently listed in the “Fair Prices for Green Leaf” Report issued by the Tea Board. The Petitioners state that no complaints have arisen against them in respect of their tea products in the two years it has been in operation.

However, in the month of March 2024, the Petitioner dispatched 18665.5 kg of made tea to the brokers for sale under invoices no.280 to 342. It is noted that for every 10kg bags dispatched, a package weighing approximately 3.5kg has been delivered for sampling. On or about 28.03.2024, the Broker had been informed that stocks of tea under invoices bearing no.303, 320, 310, 316 and

319 should be withdrawn from the auctions pending investigations. Further, on 03.04.2024 the Broker had been informed that the stocks of tea in invoice no. 323 and 335 should also be withdrawn from the auctions pending investigations. Thereafter, by letters marked P9a, P9b and P10 consignments of tea under invoices no.310, 316, 319, 323 and 335 had been permitted to be sold through the auction. The Petitioners had received a letter from the 4th Respondent, dated April 8, 2024 [P11], informing them that the testing reports for the tea stocks associated with invoices nos. 303 and 320 indicated a violation of established standards in their tea production. It was noted that the quality of the tea had been compromised. Further, the Petitioners had been informed to participate in an investigation conducted by the 1st and 4th Respondents. As per said letter provided details of the quantities are as follows;

Invoice No. Sucrose Glucose Fructose

303 7 16 7

320 7 19 9 

However, the Petitioners state that they were not informed when the purported tea samples were drawn for investigation by the 4th Respondent from batches of invoices Nos. 303 and 320. Hence the Petitioners claim that they are unaware of the genuineness of the test and the chain of custody maintained by the Respondents. While the inquiry is going on, pursuant to a request by the Petitioners, another set of sample collections had taken place on 30.05.2024 with the participation of the Petitioners and such samples had been sent for testing. However, the Petitioners had not been served with copies of the purported test results issued by the Tea Research Institution in respect of said sample testing.

Nevertheless, the Glucose level of the samples obtained from the stocks of t