BIPATARINI AGENCY Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute in the present writ petition relates to the creation of a M.R. Distributorship in Purba Bardhaman district of West Bengal where the petitioner no.1 and the respondent no. 8 are the rival applicants. The petitioners seek a mandamus on the State respondents to cancel the license issued to the respondent no. 8 for such Distributorship. By the impugned documents dtd. 9/11/2021 and 11/11/2021, the respondent no. 8 (Sonai Food Marketing) was authorised to act as Distributor under the West Bengal Public Distribution System (Maintenance and Control) Order, 2013 and the Director, Department of Food and Supplies was asked to accord online approval in favour of the respondent no. 8.

(2.) A brief outline of the proceedings filed by the petitioner no. 1 and the respondent no. 8 in relation to allocation of the M.R Distributorship is necessary before alluding to the contentions of the parties.

(3.) A vacancy Notification for the appointment of M.R. Distributor at Surekalna in the district of Purba Bardhaman was published on 23/7/2018. This was superseded by another Notification dtd. 9/1/2019. Both the publications were issued by the office of the District Controller, Food and Supplies, Purba Bardhaman. The concerned State respondents received nine applications including from the petitioner no. 1 and the respondent no. 8. However, the vacancy Notification was cancelled on 7/8/2019 by an order of the Department of Food and Supplies. This cancellation was challenged by the respondent no. 8 in WPO 360 of 2020 which was allowed by a learned Single Judge by a judgment dtd. 18/12/2020. The Court set aside the order dtd. 7/8/2019 by which the second vacancy Notification was cancelled and directed the respondent authorities to process the application of the respondent no. 8 for engagement as M.R. Distributor in accordance with law. The learned Judge relied on a Division Bench judgment of 9/10/2020 in FMA 913 of 2020 (Kultali Food Marketing Pvt. Ltd. vs. State of West Bengal) in coming to the conclusion that the order of 7/8/2019 pertaining to cancellation of engagement of M.R. Distributor was not proper.