Safeguard duty committee validity upheld where no statutory composition was prescribed and domestic review remained available.

A safeguard duty committee constituted by administrative arrangement was not invalid merely because all members were not Secretaries of the concerned departments, since no statute prescribed a fixed composition and senior officers from the relevant Ministries participated without objection. The Court also held that review under the safeguard duty rules was permissible because Rule 18 expressly provided for review, and the WTO Agreement on Safeguards did not bar that domestic mechanism. No further quasi-judicial hearing was required at the Standing Board stage, as the affected party had already been heard during the inquiry and the Board only considered the recommendations, public interest, and market conditions. The safeguard duty challenge therefore failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the constitution of the Standing Board for recommending safeguard duty was illegal for want of all members being Secretaries of the concerned departments; (ii) whether review under the safeguard duty rules was barred by the WTO Agreement on Safeguards; (iii) whether the decision-making process at the Standing Board stage required a quasi-judicial hearing.

Issue (i): Whether the constitution of the Standing Board for recommending safeguard duty was illegal for want of all members being Secretaries of the concerned departments.

Analysis: No statutory provision prescribing the composition of such a committee was shown. The Board was constituted by administrative arrangement, was chaired by the Commerce Secretary, included senior officers of the concerned Ministries, and its recommendations were circulated without objection from the Ministries concerned. The final decision was to be taken by the competent Minister and then gazetted.

Conclusion: The constitution of the Standing Board was held to be valid and no illegality was found in the decision-making process.

Issue (ii): Whether review under the safeguard duty rules was barred by the WTO Agreement on Safeguards.

Analysis: The Court noted that Rule 18 of the safeguard duty rules expressly provided for review. In the presence of a domestic statutory review provision, the argument that review could not be exercised because of the WTO Agreement was rejected.

Conclusion: Review was held to be permissible.

Issue (iii): Whether the decision-making process at the Standing Board stage required a quasi-judicial hearing.

Analysis: The hearing requirement had already been satisfied during the inquiry stage when the petitioner was heard before recommendations were made. The Board's function was to consider those recommendations and the prevailing public interest and market situation, which did not make the exercise quasi-judicial.

Conclusion: No further quasi-judicial hearing was held to be necessary.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the safeguard duty decision failed, and the dismissal of the writ appeal left the impugned safeguard duty determination undisturbed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a safeguard duty committee is constituted by administrative arrangement in the absence of any prescribed statutory composition, and the statutory scheme itself provides for review, the committee's constitution and the resulting decision are not invalid merely because the committee is not composed in the manner suggested by the challenger.

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