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Judgment
Narendra Nath Tiwari, J.—In this I.A., the petitioner has prayed for stay of the operation of impugned order dated 23.11.2013. It has been submitted that by the said order a penalty of Rs. 5,00,000 (rupees five lacs) has been imposed under Section 51 of the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006 for contravention of Section 3(zx), 26 & 27 of the Act and the petitioner''s licence has been suspended.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the order is wholly illegal and arbitrary and penalty is disproportionately high. In view thereof, during pendency of the writ petition, the operation of the impugned order be stayed.
Learned JC to GA opposed to prayer. It has been submitted that the impugned order dated 23.11.2013 is a final order. The respondents have to file counter affidavit and the matter is yet to be heard and decided on merit and an interim order of stay would tantamount to interfering with the said final order without considering the merit of the order after final hearing. The prayer of the petitioner is, thus, liable to be rejected.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties and find substance in the submission of learned counsel for the respondents.
The order, sought to be stayed, is the final order which has been challenged in the writ petition. The respondents are yet to file their counter-affidavit and the matter is to be finally heard on merit. Stay of operation of the said final order would tantamount to interference of the said order without testing the legality of the order.
Further, the impugned order imposing penalty of a sum of Rs. 5,00,000 would not cause any irreparable loss and injury to the petitioner. If the petitioner succeeds, he will be entitled to get back the amount of penalty from the respondents. Suspension of the licence is conditional and the licence would be revived on depositing the penalty amount.
In view thereof, I find no sufficient ground for granting interim stay of the impugned order. Since the licence has been suspended till the amount of penalty is deposited, if the petitioner pays the amount of penalty in two equal installments, as prayed for, the suspension would become inoperative on payment of the first installment for a period of six weeks from the date of depositing the amount. If the petitioner deposits the balance amount of the penalty before expiry of six weeks, the suspension order shall become ineffective.
I.A. No. 9089 of 2013 stands disposed of.