NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has held that computation of Non-Injurious Price (NIP) under the anti-dumping law to protect local manufacturers from foreign competition must be done for the industry as a whole and not in respect of any particular company or enterprise.

The court said that the purpose of imposition of anti-dumping duty on goods imported from foreign countries was both to redress injury and to prevent material retardation of the establishment or growth of that domestic industry.

Giving this ruling, a Bench of Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Markandey Katju said, "The anti-dumping law is extremely important for the country's industrial progress and hence there should be total transparency and fairness in its implementation."

In the present case, Reliance Industries Limited, manufacturing Pure Terephatalic Acid (PTA) sought imposition of anti-dumping duty on PTA originating from Japan, Malaysia, Spain and Taiwan. After examination, the Designated Authority (DA) in the Commerce Ministry imposed a duty of Rs. 521 per metric tonne on PTA originating only from Spain.

An appeal was filed before the Customs Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal and it upheld the findings of the DA. The present special leave petition is directed against this order.

Disposing of the appeal, the Bench said: "The DA has clearly erred in law because the Authority was required to carry out the determination of injury and computation of NIP for the domestic industry as a whole and not in respect of any particular company or enterprise."

Writing the judgment for the Bench, Mr. Justice Katju said that the approach of the DA would lead to a situation where an artificial discrimination would be created between the integrated and non-integrated companies to the peril of the smaller plants with backward integration (a factory which also produces its own raw materials, etc).

The Bench was of the view that the anti-dumping legislation was meant to protect the domestic industries as a whole against unfair practice of dumping, irrespective of whether they were backwardly integrated or not. "There has to be a single NIP for a product and not several NIPs for the same product. The anti-dumping law is, therefore, a salutary measure which prevents destruction of our industries which were built up after Independence under the guidance of our patriotic, modern-minded leaders at that time and it is the task of everyone today to see to it that there is further rapid industrialisation in our country, to make India a modern, powerful, highly industrialised nation," the Bench said.

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