Mumbai, Jun 11 A consumer court in Maharashtra has set aside a district forum's order to a fertilizer company to pay compensation to over a dozen farmers for onion crop failure, holding that environmental reasons could have led to the poor yields.
The fertilizer could not be held responsible as a national laboratory certified its quality, said the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Maharashtra, in its order passed last month.
The commission allowed an appeal filed by manufacturer Rama Krishi Rasayan and retailer Pawar Agro Services against a 2024 ruling of the Nashik district consumer commission.
Several farmers from Nashik district had moved the district consumer commission with separate petitions, claiming that they used Super Phosphate Fertilizer purchased from Pawar Agro Services but their onion crops failed despite using it.
Following the complaints, a Taluka Level Complaint Redressal Committee conducted a survey on September 15, 2022, reporting 60- 70% crop loss.
The district commission, relying on an initial report by the Fertilizer Control Laboratory in Nashik that labeled the sample "non-standard", ordered the manufacturer and the retailer to pay compensation to the petitioners.
The fertilizer firm filed an appeal with the state commission, contending that the farmers had not produced any proof that fertilizer manufactured by it had been used for onion cultivation.
The Taluka Complaint Redressal Committee's report was "baseless", prepared in the absence of the firm's representatives as they were not called for a joint survey, the firm said.
During the hearing before the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, the firm submitted a report from the National Test House (ER), Kolkata, which confirmed that the Super Phosphate fertilizer did not suffer from any quality issues.
The state commission noted that the district commission failed to account for the fertilizer firm's pending requests for third-party re-verification.
Had it waited for the report of the National Test House (ER), the order would have been different, it said.
Further, the local agricultural department's initial inspection was conducted without giving prior notice to the manufacturer, the commission noted.
"...we come to the conclusion that though the production might have been less, the fertilizers cannot be blamed for it. There might be different environmental reasons," it ruled.
