This "cross appeal," as the textiles ministry officials put it, will be filed on Monday by New Delhi's permanent mission in Geneva.

The 15-nation European Union had recently filed an appeal in the WTO appellate body, even as the final report of the panel is yet to be adopted by the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB). The report was circulated to all members of the world trade body on October 30.

Officials explained that as EU could resort to such an action and that India, too, had decided to follow suit as permitted under the WTO rules.They said that New Delhi would make its submissions by December 20, after which there would be an oral hearing. Thereafter, there would be another submission by both the parties on January 3 and the final hearing by the Appellate Body has been scheduled for January 24.

The panel report had accepted India's main contention that EC could not establish material injury to its domestic industry on account of the bed linen exports and the anti-dumping duties were, therefore, "unwarranted."

The ruling implies that EC will have to withdraw the duties that it had imposed on the product from December 5, 1997, though it has the option to represent before the WTO Appellate Body under the WTO rules. Finding that it stood on a "strong" wicket to fight the issue, New Delhi had moved the WTO dispute settlement panel some time in June-July 1999 and the panel was constituted on October 27 of the same year.

The EC had imposed definitive anti-dumping duties on five sampled Indian companies. The names of the companies with the quantum of duty in each case are Bombay Dyeing & Manufacturing Company (7.7 per cent), Omkar Exports (14.2 per cent), Madhu International (17 per cent), Prakash Cotton Mills (2.6 per cent) and Anglo-French Textiles (24.7 per cent). The Commission had made the assessment at three levels-the entire European Community, the entire EC industry and at the level of sample producers.

Textile export promotion council (Texprocil), which had studied the case, had concluded that the EC had imposed the duties despite the "overwhelming" evidence that the bulk of India's exports of bed linen termed "Seer Sucker" had physical characteristics which were different from the one manufactured in the EU member-countries. Even while acknowledging this fact, the Commission had chosen to impose the duties, the council, which has bed linen exporters as its members, contended.