Page 198 - ELT_15th July 2020_Vol 373_Part 2

180 EXCISE LAW TIMES [ Vol. 373

the petitioners allege. In short, therefore, the entire case of the petitioners is
this: “we do not like this new policy, though we do not question the power,
and we would much prefer to be governed by the earlier policy, even if we
have not been able to substantiate our reasons with any hard facts or data”.
It is impossible to accept any submission framed like this.
13. Mr. Shah for the 1st Respondent draws our attention to a decision of a
Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Ayurveda Sewashram Kalyan
Samiti v. Union of India and Ors., 2014 (305) E.L.T. 246 (All.). There, too, the
question was about poppy seeds imports from Turkey. The court noticed
that India is a signatory to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961.
The National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances notes
that while Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances do have many
medical and scientific uses, yet they can be, and are, also abused and traf-
ficked. India’s policy to preventing drug abuse is part of the Constitutional
mandate to the State to promote health and nutrition. This country is a sig-
natory to at least three international conventions on drug-related matters,
viz., Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, Convention on Psycho-
tropic Substances, 1971 and the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988. The Division Bench
noted from an affidavit fled on behalf of the CBN, Gwalior that the Policy
governing poppy seeds imports prescribes three conditions for such im-
ports. The first of these is as to point of origin : the import must originate
only from the countries stipulated in the Import Policy as amended. The se-
cond condition is that the importer must produce a certificate from the
competent authority of the exporting country that the opium poppy has
been grown legally in that country. The third condition is that all import
contracts have to be compulsorily registered with the Narcotics Commis-
sioner, Central Bureau of Narcotics, Gwalior. We pause to note that, there-
fore, the multiple grounds and objections before us today regarding this
registration are not new. In fact, the Petitioners themselves had to have fol-
lowed them in the past.
14. The Allahabad Division Bench noted that the Import Policy casts on
the CBN, a specialized body, the duty of registering contracts. This is with
the stated public purpose of protecting the due implementation of the poli-
cy of the Government of India of not permitting import of poppy seeds
from non-designated countries. It is in pursuance of that policy that the
conditions of the notification require a certificate that the poppy seeds orig-
inate in a country where opium poppy is grown legally. The Import Policy
is a statutory document enacted in pursuance of the Import and Export
Control Act, 1947. Then there is a reference to the National Policy on Nar-
cotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
15. Once, therefore, we see that the presently impugned Guidelines are
but a step towards implementing a policy that has not only been in place in
some form for many years previously, but is in furtherance of a policy to
promote the larger public interest, then the narrow commercial interests of
the Petitioners must yield. Viewed from this perspective, we do not think
the decision of Learned Single Judge of the Madras High Court in Sri
Adinath Traders v. Union of India, 2016 (338) E.L.T. 571 (Mad.) is of much as-
sistance. That related to a challenge to a categorization of importers, and
that is nowhere near the challenge before us.
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