MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court has dismissed a batch of writ petitions against the order of the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), restricting import of betel nuts from South East Asian countries only through Mangalore port.

Dismissing a batch of 20 petitions filed by betel nut importers and traders yesterday against the DGFT's order, Justice S Nagamuthu said, allowing import through all ports would be detrimental to the interests of domestic producers concentrated in Karnat aka, Assam and Kerala.

The restriction was imposed to neutralise freight charges incurred by importers and the home growers in transporting the nuts to various trade centres. According to the Centre, around five lakh tonnes of betel nuts were grown annually on more than four lakh acres of land in Karnataka, Kerala and Assam. Since the produce was not sufficient to meet the demand the government permitted its import.

Import and anti-dumping duties were levied on the goods to avoid an unhealthy competition between the importers and the domestic producers. But the levy could not exceed the limit agreed among the member countries of the World Trade Organisation. Therefo re, the DGFT felt that market should be dense near the geographical location where production was concentrated and issued the notification on August 29 and there was no illegality in the notification, the judge said.

As the government had to strike a balance between the traders and producers, the producers could never be allowed to be the neglected lot of this country, the judge said. - PTI