NEERAJ KUMAR Vs. DISTRICT SUPPLY OFFICER, DEHRADUN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner before this Court was given a licence to run a fair price shop at Village Central Hope Town Selaqui, Development Block Sahaspur, District Dehradun in the year 2001. The genesis for grant of a fair price shop or its cancellation/suspension starts from the resolution of the concerned Gram Sabha. Gram Sabha in its resolution dtd. 17/6/2015 resolved that there are complaints against the petitioner, and therefore, the licence of the petitioner'sshop should be taken away from him and given to another member of the Gram Sabha i.e. present respondent no. 2 Puran Singh. Consequent to that, the District Supply Officer vide its order dtd. 19/6/2015 attached the ration cards of the fair price shop of the petitioner to the fair price shop of one Pravesh Kumar. This order dtd. 19/6/2015 was challenged by the petitioner before this Court in a writ petition being WPMS No.1688 of 2015, where he was asked to file an appeal before the Divisional Commissioner. Consequently, the petitioner filed an appeal before the Divisional Commissioner which was allowed by the Commissioner vide order dtd. 3/12/2015 with the directions that the petitioner shall be given an opportunity of hearing by the District Supply Officer and the District Supply Officer shall then pass a speaking order. Consequent to that, the District Supply Officer passed its order on 13/4/2016, whereby the fair price shop of the petitioner ostensibly restored but some of the consumers, i.e. some of the units were given to one Puran Singh i.e. respondent no. 2 before this Court. This order was challenged by the petitioner before this Court in the present writ petition.

(2.) A learned Single Judge of this Court vide order dtd. 1/4/2019 dismissed the writ petition of the petitioner. The learned Single Judge was of the opinion that the impugned order dtd. 13/4/2016, whereby ultimately the cards were distributed between two fair price shop dealers instead of one, the order was passed with the consent of the petitioner, therefore, no interference was liable to be made.

(3.) Aggrieved by the order dtd. 1/4/2019, the petitioner filed a special appeal being SPA No. 447 of 2019 before a Division Bench of this Court, which was allowed by the Division Bench of this Court on 17/5/2019. The relevant portion of the order dtd. 17/5/2019 passed by the Division Bench reads as under:-