BHEEMANGOUDA Vs. THE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner was granted an authorization to run a fair price shop at Badarli village, covering the area of Thimmapur village, Sindhanur Taluk, Raichur. The authorization was renewed upto 31.12.2019.

(2.) The grievance of the petitioner is that, on the instigation of the fourth respondent, the second respondent passed an order dated 08.03.2019 as per Annexure-'E' establishing a new fair price shop at Thimmapur village bifurcating 457 cards which were earlier assigned to the petitioner's fair price shop without issuing prior notice to the petitioner and without conducting any inquiry, in violation of Rule 11 of the Karnataka Essential Commodities (Public Distribution System) Control Order 2016 (hereinafter referred to as "PDS Control Order"?).

(3.) In the course of his arguments, learned counsel pointed out that, apart from violations of the PDS Control Order, the impugned order has been passed at the behest of the District Incharge Minister, Raichur and in view of the impugned order, petitioner is left with only 394 cardholders as rest of the area falls within Thimmapura village. Learned counsel has referred to Rule 4 and Rule 6 of the PDS Control Order and would submit that the impugned order has been passed without calling for applications by publication and without giving minimum 30 days time as prescribed in Rule 4 and without considering the order of priority for grant of authorization as stipulated in Rule 6 of the PDS Control Order.