Can't put blanket ban on PUSA-44, other paddy hybrids: HC to Punjab
The Punjab and Haryana high court bench clarified that the state cannot prohibit the use of varieties duly notified by the government of India under the Seeds Act of 1966.
Justice Kuldeep Tiwari, in his order, stated that the government notification dated April 7, 2025, 'does not pass the test of legality.'
'Therefore, the writ petitions are allowed and the impugned administrative order is set aside,' read the order. In the 59-page order, the court observed that the state government was not vested with any power to impose a ban upon notified kind or variety of hybrid seeds, which have legal force on account of Section 5 of the Act of 1966'.
The HC, however, upheld the administrative orders of April 4 and April 10, 2019, which imposed a prohibition only on the use of non-notified varieties of hybrid paddy in the state.
The court orders came on two civil writ petitions filed in the high court against the orders by the Punjab agriculture department, which initially banned PUSA-44 and all types of hybrid paddy seeds, notified and non-notified alike.
Senior advocates Munisha Gandhi and Gurminder Singh, representing the petitioners, companies involved in the business of seed production/trading, or the farmers aggrieved by the blanket ban, argued that the state government lacked statutory power to issue such sweeping orders.
They contended that the subject of seeds falls in the concurrent list of the Constitution, giving Parliament the authority to legislate.
Supporting this view, the Union government also opposed the blanket ban. In its reply filed through the additional solicitor-general Satya Pal Jain, the Centre submitted that the Seeds Act 1966 did not empower any authority to restrict or allow movement of seeds, which was a matter linked to interstate trade protected under Article 301 of the Constitution.
The court said that although a detailed reply has been filed, the state government maintained stoic silence on certain queries.
'As stated by the senior counsels for the petitioners, the state government has neither separately notified any seeds as per provisions of Section 2(i), nor established any mechanism of authorised dealers as per provisions of Section 2(iv) of the Act of 1949. Rather, the state government is following the mechanism for regulating seeds as per the central government enactments, i.e. the Act of 1966, Rules of 1968 and the Seeds Order. Consequently, this court can easily infer that, despite the Act of 1966 being in force, the Act of 1949 has been dug out and invoked by the state government merely to lend legal force to its decision to impose a ban on the use of notified kind or variety of hybrid seeds,' read the order.
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