APMC fined, told to shift bakra mandi in two weeks

Nagpur: The Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) was slapped with a fine of Rs25,000 for not complying with the directives of the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court to shift the Bakra Mandi from Wathoda to Kalamna Market.
During an urgent hearing of the application filed by Umesh Utkhede and others in an earlier PIL on Wednesday, a division bench comprising justices Ravi Deshpande and Amit Borkar asked the registry to transfer the amount to the ‘Chief Minister’s Relief Fund’.
The petitioners, through their counsel Kartik Shukul, pointed out that despite HC’s specific orders to the APMC and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), the mandi continued to operate from the residential area near Symbiosis International University.
“The APMC has been directed to make the mandi functional at Kalamna Market within two weeks. The creation of all other infrastructural facilities can go on by permitting the sale of goats. We aren’t directing APMC to permit animals for slaughtering or sale of meat. We also direct NMC to close down the mandi from Wathoda after the expiry of two weeks and see that such activities are not carried out there,” the judges said.
Earlier, on May 26, the HC had disposed of the PIL regarding the shifting of the Bakra Mandi after APMC, which filed an intervention, agreed to take it to Kalamna. However, neither the APMC nor the NMC took efforts for nearly a month.
“In the absence of any claim for time to establish the mandi in Kalamna, we got the impression that all the infrastructural facilities are ready and the market can be made functional immediately,” the judges said.
The APMC counsel then came up with an excuse saying the creation of all infrastructural facilities in Kalamna will require at least four weeks. “We’re unable to understand such a stand in the light of what transpired before us on May 26. We were made to carry an impression that the APMC is prepared to establish the Bakra Mandi immediately or at least in eight days. We find it to be total misrepresentation on the APMC’s part and direct it to deposit the cost,” the bench tersely observed.
Considering the difficulties expressed by the APMC in creation of facilities, the HC granted it two weeks to shift the mandi. “In case of APMC’s failure, we direct NMC to take all such coercive measures as permissible in law to close down the market after two weeks,” the judges said.