Accounting market-fee expenditure alone does not prove passing on and cannot defeat retrospective relief.

The petitioners, rice millers who purchased paddy for processing, had paid market fee and Farmers’ Welfare Fee at the rates prescribed by the notification dated 30 November 2021. A notification dated 29 July 2022, issued under Section 69 of the Chhattisgarh Krishi Upaj Mandi Adhiniyam, 1972, reduced both rates and made the reduction effective from 1 April 2022. The petitioners sought refund or adjustment of the differential amounts paid for the retrospective period.

Their claims were rejected on the ground that they had passed the levy’s burden to consumers. In an earlier round, the High Court set aside the rejections and directed reconsideration, including examination of whether the burden had actually been passed on. After the authority again rejected the claims by a common order dated 10 September 2025, relying substantially on the accounting treatment of the levy as expenditure, the petitioners filed these writ petitions.

Whether rice millers covered by the 29 July 2022 notification were entitled to the benefit of its retrospective reduction for the period beginning 1 April 2022, including refund or adjustment of the differential amount already paid.

Whether the authority could deny refund on the ground of unjust enrichment by inferring that the levy had been passed on to consumers merely because it was recorded as expenditure in the petitioners’ accounts.

Section 19 of the 1972 Act provides for the levy of market fee, while Section 69 empowers the State Government, by notification and subject to specified conditions, to exempt agricultural produce wholly or partly from that fee for a specified period.

A notification granting a statutory benefit must be construed to give effect to its purpose, and a notification expressly made retrospective must receive meaningful effect (Collector of Central Excise v. Himalayan Cooperative Milk Product Union Ltd., (2000) 8 SCC 642; Corporation Bank v. Saraswati Abharansala, (2009) 1 SCC 540; Coastal Paper Ltd. v. Commissioner of Central Excise, (2015) 10 SCC 664).

The doctrine of unjust enrichment bars refund where the claimant has passed the levy’s incidence to another, but that question requires an objective assessment of the actual incidence and cannot be resolved by presumption alone (State of Madhya Pradesh v. Vyankatlal, (1985) 2 SCC 544; Mafatlal Industries Ltd. v. Union of India, (1997) 5 SCC 536).

The Court also referred to Ram Chandra Kailash Kumar & Co. v. State of U.P., 1980 Supp SCC 27, concerning the principle against multi-point levy of market fee in the same market area.

The Court held that the 29 July 2022 notification expressly reduced the rates retrospectively from 1 April 2022, and that denying the differential benefit for amounts already collected would make that retrospective operation ineffective.

The authority was entitled to consider unjust enrichment, but its conclusion that the burden had been passed on rested principally on the fact that the fees appeared as expenditure in the petitioners’ accounts. That accounting entry established that the petitioners incurred the expense; without further examination of invoices, pricing and other relevant material, it did not establish that they recovered the levy from consumers.

The authority had therefore not adequately carried out the factual inquiry required by the earlier remand order.

It directed the Mandi authorities to apply the reduced rates—Re. 1 per Rs. 100 for market fee and Re. 1 per Rs. 100 for Farmers’ Welfare Fee—for the period covered by the notification, calculate the differential paid by each petitioner, and refund the excess.

Where permitted by the applicable statutory scheme, the amount may instead be adjusted against future permissible dues at the petitioner’s option. The calculation and verification were to be completed within three months; the authorities could not reopen the petitioners’ entitlement to the notification’s benefit. No order as to costs was made.