A division bench comprising Chief Justice S N Variava and Justice S K Mahajan also issued notices to the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), the general manager of its Patpar ganj plant here and chairman-cum-managing director of Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS), a state government undertaking, asking them to file replies by September 29.

The court instructed counsel for United Communist Party of India (UCPI), which filed a public interest writ seeking probe into the alleged sale of synthetic milk in the Capital, to submit sample tests of milk purchased from Mother Dairy of NDDB and DMS, by next date.

UCPI counsel Sugariva Dubey told the court that he had approached sub-divisional magistrate, Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh with a request to find out the supplysources of the adulterated milk last week following which the director of a private dairy was arrested and three of its officials were absconding.

The sample tests, conducted by the Ghaziabad authorities of the milk from the said dairy, were found to be containing `formaline' and `neutraliser' -- both dangerous substance, he claimed.

Dubey told the court that he had approached the Mother Dairy officials and the milk samples tested by them were found to be of `standard' milk. They also apprised him of the system of milk collection adopted by them, he said.

According to the system evolved by the Mother Dairy, it procured milk exclusively from the state cooperative dairy federations of Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, which buy milk through the district cooperative unions in their respective states.

Dubey alleged that DMS officials were unauthorisedly supplying the subsidised milk to some middlemen for sale in the open market and the consumers had to pay Rs 10 to 11 for a packet ofone kilogram priced at Rs seven.

He said this was a "fraud" on people as government was giving a subsidy of Rs 5.50 on each packet to make the milk available to poor people. ``The middlemen are thriving at the cost of poor and needy,'' he said.

The court expressed unhappiness over Dubey's failure to submit the report of sample tests as directed last time.

``We told you earlier that if you have doubt about the sale of adulterated milk, you should have first tested samples and come to the court,'' the court observed.

Dubey, however, said that he approached the Ghaziabad DMS in an effort to ascertain the sources of "adulterated" milk as bulk of the supply to Delhi came from Uttar Pradesh.