HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD LUCKNOW WRIT - C No. - 10646 of 2025 Court No. - 5 HON'BLE ALOK MATHUR, J. HON'BLE PRASHANT KUMAR, J. 1. Vakalatnama filed by Shri Dileep Singh on behalf of respondent No.6 and vakalatnama filed by Shri Ratnesh Chandra on behalf of respondent No.7 are taken on record. 2. Heard Shri G C Verma, learned counsel for the petitioners, Ms. Deepshikha, learned standing counsel for State-respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3, Shri Tushar Mittal, learned counsel for respondent Nos.4 and 5, Shri Dileep Singh, learned counsel for respondent No.6 and Shri Ratnesh Chandra, learned counsel for respondent No.7. 3. By means of present writ petition, the petitioners are the cane growers and are aggrieved by the Cane Reservation & Allocation of Cane Purchase Centres Order Letter No.809/C/Purchase-1/Reser./122/2025- 26/Lucknow, dated 18.10.2025 to the extent of Cane Purchase Centre, Uddhanpur has been allotted to respondent No.7 which according to the petitioners is arbitrary, illegal and against the statutory provisions of Rule 22 of the Uttar Pradesh Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply Purchase) Rules, 1954. 4. It has been submitted that petitioners have been supplying the sugarcane to the Bajaj Hindustaan Sugar Ltd., Gola Gokarannath, District Kheri since a very long time and by means of fresh reservation order, they have been allotted the Balrampur Chini Mill in District Lakhimpur Kheri. Versus Counsel for Petitioner(s) : Girish Chandra Verma Counsel for Respondent(s) : C.S.C., Dileep Singh, Gaurav Mehrotra Ruchi Verma And 164 Others .....Petitioner(s) State Of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. Sugar Cane Deptt. And 6 Others .....Respondent(s) Various grounds have been raised assailing the said reservation order contending that the new purchase centre in case the petitioners are to supply to the Balrampur Chini Mill would be more than 50 kms from the residence as stated in paragraph 10 of the petition, and therefore, the reservation centre would be unreasonable, unjust and unfair. 5. On the other hand, the respondents have opposed the writ petition on various grounds. It has been submitted firstly that the writ petition at the behest of individual crane grower would not be maintainable and this aspect of the matter has already been considered by a decision of Division Bench of this Court in Writ-C No.38324 of 2019 (Akram Khan and another vs. State of U.P. and others) where the Division Bench of this Court had considered the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply and Purchase) Act, 1953 and also the Rules made thereunder namely the Uttar Pradesh Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply and Purchase) Rules, 1954. This court also considered the previous pronouncements in Writ-C No.2075 of 2014 (Satnam vs. State of U.P. and others) as well as in PIL No.1081 of 2013 (Dharam Veer Singh & ors. vs. State of U.P. & others) wherein it was held that a writ petition at the behest of individual crane grower would not be maintainable. The court also considered the judgment delivered in Writ-C No.2201 of 2019 (Harveer Singh & ors. vs. State of U.P. & others) where again it was reiterated that the writ petition at the behest of individual crane grower seeking to raise grievance with regard to reservation or assignment of cane area is not maintainable and their cause can be espoused only by the crane growers' co-operative society. 6. In the aforesaid circumstances, the Division Bench of this Court in Akram Khan (supra) held as under:- "22. Having regard to the aforementioned facts and circumstances the position which emerges is that in terms of the provisions for under the Act, 1953 and the Rules, 1954 an elaborate mechanism is provided for reservation and assignment of cane areas to sugar factories in order to regulate the supply and purchase of sugarcane in their area. The factors which are taken into consideration include ascertaining the views of the cane growers' co-operative society of the area. The individual cane growers have therefore no right or locus standi to raise any challenge to reservation or assignment WRIC No. 10646 of 2025 2 of cane areas in favour of a particular sugar factory and any grievance in this regard is to be espoused only through the cane growers' co-operative society which represents the cane growers of the area. 23. We are therefore not inclined to entertain the present writ petition which has been filed by the petitioners claiming to be sugarcane growers of the area in their individual capacities." 7. In light of the above, the judgment of the Co-ordinate Bench of this Court is binding upon this Court and hence in the present case also where petition has been filed by individual crane grower would not be maintainable. Considering the grievance raised by petitioners, a pointed query has been made to Shri Ratnesh Chandra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent No.7 and in response he has informed this Court that to facilitate the crane growers number of crane purchaser centres has been created and one centre has been created in Udaanpur itself and the distance from the purchase centre to the field of the petitioners would not be more than 4 kms. and certainly not 50 kms as asserted by the petitioners. 8. It has further been informed to this Court that the impugned reservation order has already been assailed by Bajaj Hindustan Sugar Mill in appeal before the State Government in Appeal No.1097 of 2025-26 and the entire controversy is in any case pending before the appellate authority. 9. In light of the aforesaid, specially that the petition at the behest of crane growers would not be maintainable apart from which we find that the controversy is already engaging the attention of the appellate authority hence, no ground for interference is made out and accordingly, the writ petition is hereby dismissed. November 6, 2025 Saurabh Yadav/- WRIC No. 10646 of 2025 3 (Prashant Kumar,J.) (Alok Mathur,J.) Digitally signed by :- SAURABH YADAV High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench