NEW DELHI, AUG 6: The Delhi High Court today reserved till tomorrow its ruling on separate petitions by publishers of four newspapers challenging the validity and legality of the government's order levying anti-dumping duty on newsprint imports from various countries.

The division bench consisting of Justice R C Lahoti and Justice J K Mehra reserved the judgment after hearing the arguments of counsel for the petitioners the publishers of The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Times of India and The Indian Express the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), the Central Government and newsprint manufacturers.

C S Vaidyanathan, counsel for M/s Kasturi and Sons Limited (publisher of The Hindu), and Arun Jaitley, counsel for the publishers of The Indian Express, Times of India and Hindustan Times, argued that the June 11 order of the designated authority recommending levying of the anti-dumping duty was ``illegal' as it was arrived at arbitrarily and without following the prescribed procedure.

The rules required the designated authority to determine and disclose the normal values, export prices, margins of dumping and to record detailed reasons in support of these findings, they added.

Not only did the designated authority not furnish the reasons, he also did not disclose or determine his findings on the normal values, exports prices among other things, the counsel added.

The counsel for the newspapers contended that the designated authority was bound to and ought to have given the newspapers a hearing before arriving at his preliminary findings. However, the Central Government counsel refuted the charge saying that the views of all the parties had been taken before arriving at the decision.

The petitioners also contended that besides the general principles of natural justice, even the relevant rules required that the designated authority hear the interested parties in this case, the newspapers before arriving at any finding.

Despite this, the entire exercise was shrouded in secrecy until the findings were published on June 11, the counsel contended.

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