TS snaps milk deal, rapped

The Telangana High Court reprimanded TS Dairy Development Federation officials for their “narcissistic attitude” for terminating agreements with distributors to supply Vijaya brand milk from its units to dealers without notice. The federation had appointed 150 distributors to supply Vijaya dairy milk to 1,650 vendors.

Justice P. Keshava Rao was dealing a petition by T. Padmaja who challenged the termination of her distribution contract and forfeiture of security deposit of about `15.4 lakh. She sought a direction to the TSDDF not to interfere with the distribution of milk.

The bench felt the federation’s action was not acceptable. It said word of mouth cannot be considered as an intimation to the distributor.

Ms Lalitha Gayathri, counsel for the petitioner, said the federation’s officials were acting in an autocratic manner by suppressing distributor rights. She said that the federation had issued a termination memo to Ms Padmaja though interim directions by the High Court were pending on a similar matter.

The petitioner said that the federation had entered into agreement to distribute milk from the unit to vendors for a period of two years and she had organised transport vehicles and other infrastructure. She said that without giving notice, the federation had terminated the contract by alleging that she was not supplying milk properly and was not paying money.

Federation standing counsel was not able to submit evidence to the court to show that notices had been served to the petitioner about violations of the agreement. Pointing to the nonavailability of evidence to show that notice had been served, the court allowed Ms Padmaja to to continue as distributor.