Calcutta, Sept. 23: Keventer Fresh, which sells farm produce in Reliance Fresh outlets and intends to be a supplier to Metro Cash & Carry, has filed 12 writ petitions against agri-marketing committees in the state for sitting on licence applications.

The outcome of the first aggressive legal challenge to the committees, run by the Forward Bloc, is expected to have a bearing on big investments in food retail as the Left Front partner has been blocking efforts by companies to source farm produce and sell them.

The petitions, filed by Keventer at Calcutta High Court on Monday, are scheduled to come up for hearing on Thursday.

Eleven petitions have been filed for not responding to applications for licences that would have allowed Keventer to deal in wholesale agriculture products. The twelfth petition was moved against a committee for not accepting a tax that would have accorded legal sanctity to the lone licence Keventer now holds.

Debanjan Mandal, partner of Fox and Mandal and counsel for Keventer, said: “My client has a fundamental right to carry out trade and business in a lawful manner. The acts of marketing committees amount to interference into that right.”

Keventer had applied for 11 licences in various districts to make wholesale purchases of agri-products. The applications have been pending for more than a year with various district marketing committees. The applications have been neither rejected nor accepted. Neither was any reason given for the inaction, sources said.

“I have tied up with 12,000 farmers in these 11 districts. If the licences are not given, they will be affected,” Keventer chairman Mahendra Kumar Jalan told The Telegraph.

The district committees are under the state agri-marketing board, headed by Forward Bloc leader Naren Chatterjee who has publicly vowed to prevent the entry of big investors in wholesale and retail.

According to the Union government’s rules, domestic investors can run retail as well as wholesale outlets while 100 per cent foreign investment is allowed in wholesale ventures.

The petitions have been moved a day before officials of the German wholesaler, Metro Cash & Carry, reached Calcutta to meet ministers on their pending application for a licence. Keventer hopes to be one of the suppliers to Metro.

Last month, Jalan had dared Chatterjee to prove that the company was doing business illegally. Chatterjee had taken a swipe at Keventer for selling fruits and vegetables in the outlets of Reliance Fresh that had suspended operations after vandalism by suspected Bloc supporters.

Keventer could sell through the Reliance outlets by virtue of an agri-product marketing committee licence for North 24-Parganas. Keventer had cited the acceptance of tax by the committee to prove that its licence was valid. However, since then, the committee stopped accepting the tax.