Declining to interfere with the Union government’s order of imposition of quality control on import of plastic raw material by prescribing standard, the High Court of Karnataka has said that insistence of quality from threshold for ‘Make in India’ products would ensure to meet all global standards for the products exported with ‘Made in India’ tag.
“If the quality emerges right from the word go till the finished product under the ‘Make in India programme’, only then the country would be able to compete with others. A step towards that will not be interfered with by this court except if the step towards that depicts palpable and demonstrable arbitrariness, which is neither pleaded nor present,” the court observed.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna made these observations in his January 8 order of dismissing a petition filed by All India HDPE/PP Woven Fabric Manufacturers’ Association, Bengaluru.
The petitioner-association had questioned the quality control order, issued in September 2021, prescribing that import of certain types of polyethylene with effect from January 5, 2024, should confirm to the Indian Standard (IS) mark notified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) under the BIS (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018.
‘Helping Reliance group’
It was alleged in the petition that imposition of standard on supply of raw material will restrict free movement and sale of the raw material and the standard was fixed with “a single purpose of helping Reliance Group.” According to the petition the quality control should have been fixed on the finished product and not on the raw material.
However, the court, from the list provided by the Central government, found that there are at least seven other manufacturers like Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., ONGC Petro additions Ltd., GAIL (India) Ltd., etc. other than Reliance Group in the sector of manufacturing of raw material. “Therefore, the contention that it would lead to cartelisation or monopoly by one industry is farther from truth,” the court observed.
Also, Justice Nagaprasanna said that the court cannot sit in the arm chair of experts and interfere with the government’s policies in the realm of regulation, economics, and quality.
