Noted activist Vandana Shiva on Thursday filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the government not to go ahead with the import of wheat till the final disposal of the writ petition.

A three-member bench comprising of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justice R V Ravindran and Justice D K Jain will hear the petition on May 17.

According to the petitioner, the government was going to import contaminated and sub standard wheat at an exorbitant rate of Rs 1600 per quintal while a better quality wheat was available in the Indian market in the range of Rs 800-1000 per quintal.

The petitioner also sought directions to ban multi-national companies and big traders from buying wheat directly from farmers.

Vandana Shiva alleged that artificial scarcity is being created by the MNCs and traders to make huge profits by selling the wheat at spiralling prices and as much there was no need to import wheat.

"Food Corporation of India is deliberately not buying sufficient stock from farmers to create a buffer stock and the government has not explained till date where
the wheat purchased from farmers has gone," she said.

The petitioner also mentioned that Rabi production for the year 2006-07 was 73.6 million tonnes as against 73 million tonnes for the preceeding year, which is more
than the total consumption of wheat in the country.

Vandana Shiva made appealed to the Court that MNCs and traders should also purchase the wheat from mandis instead of buying it directly from the farmers.