The Supreme Court on Monday quashed the writ petition filed by Naresh Dugar of Gyan Enterprises, a partner company of KL Dugar, challenging the government’s decision to hike customs tariff on sugar imports. The apex court decision has upheld the Cabinet decision to hike the tariff.

Three months ago, the Cabinet in a bid to safeguard domestic sugar producers, had raised customs tariff on sugar imports to 30 percent from 15 percent.

Three weeks ago, the single bench of Supreme Court Justice Bam Bahadur Shrestha issued a show cause notice against the government’s decision, responding to a writ filed by Dugar.

The joint bench of Justices Ananda Mohan Bhattarai and Deepak Kumar Karki issued the verdict favouring the government’s decision. The decision was on the Article 19 (1) of Financial Act 1993, under which, the government has the authority to revise customs tariff. Citing that the global decline in the price of sugar and increasing import of low-cost sugar have been affecting the sales of domestically produced sugar, sugar mill owners too have been urging the government to raise customs duty. The country’s demand for sugar stands at 220,000 tonnes annually. The government imports an average of 25,000-30,000 tonnes of sugar from India every year. Last fiscal year, the government had to import 50,000 tonnes of sugar to control fluctuations in the price of sugar.