HYDERABAD, May 6: The Sindh High Court Hyderabad circuit has restrained the Agriculture Marketing director and the Dadu market committee assistant director from charging in excess of the sanctioned market fee and setting up illegal check posts.

Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Mohammad Mujeebullah Siddiqui passed the order on Wednesday on a constitutional petition jointly filed by six agriculture produce dealers against the aforementioned respondents besides two contractors, Ali Hassan Soho and Shaukat Ali Bhutto.

The bench ordered that while charging the market fee, the provisions of the Agriculture Produce Market Rules would be adhered to by the respondents and observed that if excess fee had been charged from the petitioners, they were free to seek refund.

The court also told the respondents to display market fee rates at proper places as required by law. The market committee assistant director claimed that the government had notified the committee that the entire Dadu taluka had been declared market area and added that all illegal check posts had been removed and no such post would be set up in future.

Informing the court that the petitioners were market fee defaulters, he said that they could seek refund of any excess amount charged by the contractors. The petitioners contended that the Sindh government had leased out market fee recovery rights to the respondents in the limits of the market which remained to be set up and added that they were ready to pay the sanctioned fee on any sale or purchase of goods in the non-existent market area.