THUMMUKUNTLA RAJI REDDY Vs. GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner on the basis of a peculiar plea that persons who are similarly situated to him are being allowed to run the liquor shops despite termination of licences filed this writ petition for issuance of a mandamus to extend the same purported illegal benefit to him as well.

(2.) On the petitioner's own showing his A-4 licence for sale of Indian made foreign liquor in retail was cancelled by respondent No.2 by order dated 06-09-2011.

(3.) Having failed to convince this Court to grant relief in Writ Petition No. 25474 of 2011 filed by him, the petitioner filed an appeal before respondent No.1 questioning the order of cancellation. It is not the pleaded case of the petitioner that he has secured an order of stay from respondent No.1. He has however pleaded that even though the licences of ten other A-4 licensees have been cancelled, they are permitted to run the shops. In my opinion, the petitioner cannot take the plea of discrimination because with the termination of licence, he loses his right to carry on the business unless such termination order is either cancelled or suspended by the competent authority. Even assuming that the respondents have permitted some others to run the shops despite cancellation of licences, the petitioner cannot claim parity because the settled legal position is that a person cannot invoke Article 14 of the Constitution of India for claiming negative equality (see State of Bihar vs. Upendra Narayan Singh and others, 2009 5 SCC 65; General Manager. Uttaranchal Jal Sansthan vs. Lakshmi Devi, 2009 7 SCC 205 and State of Punjab vs. Surjit Singh, 2009 9 SCC 514.