New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS) The Supreme Court has held that the computation of Non-Injurious Price (NIP) under the antidumping 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 imposing the antidumping duty on goods imported from abroad 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 judges Ashok Bhan and Markandey Katju said: "The antidumping law is extremely important for the country's industrial progress and hence there should be total transparency and fairness in its implementation."

The bench was hearing a case in which Reliance Industries Ltd, manufacturing pure terephatalic acid (PTA) sought imposition of antidumping 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 special leave petition under consideration of the bench was directed against this order.

Disposing of the appeal, the bench said: "The DA has clearly erred in law because it 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, 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, for example, a factory which also produces its own raw materials.

The bench was of the view that the antidumping legislation was meant for protection of the domestic industries as a whole against unfair practice of dumping, irrespective of whether they were backwardly integrated or not.