KALYAN RAY Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner is a MR Distributor at Ranaghat, Nadia. Previously the said distributorship was run under a partnership agreement in the name and style of M/s Roy Enterprise at Birnagar, Ranaghat, Nadia of which the father, mother, both deceased and the present petitioner were the partners. After the death of the parents MR Distributorship is being continued as a sole proprietorship business by the petitioner. It is the grievance of the petitioner that initially the partnership firm used to distribute food grains amongst 37 dealers. Subsequently, distributorship licence of one Pradipta Kundu of Ranaghat who used to distribute food grains to 19 dealers was temporarily tagged with the said partnership firm of the petitioner and his parents, since deceased. As the number of fair price shop dealers increased to 56, the petitioner had to extend the infrastructure of his distributorship business to store food grains for 56 dealers on permanent basis. After promulgation of WBPDS (Maintenance and Control) Order, 2013, the licence was issued to the petitioner directing him to distribute food grains for 56 dealers. It is also submitted by the petitioner that his distributorship includes 2,47,000 ration cards.

(2.) Challenging the said notification the petitioner filed a writ petition being WPA No.5211 of 2023 praying for setting aside the said vacancy notification and further commanding the respondents not to de-tag any dealer and ration card from the petitioner's distributorship. However, in spite of specific order passed by a Coordinate Bench, the respondent authority failed to submit any report in support of its case. On the contrary, the competent authority issued an online devise list to the petitioner on 30/5/2023 directing distribution of the ration commodities only to 38 dealers for the month of July, 2023 in the name of the petitioner. Since the said order was passed during the pendency of WPA 5211 of 2023, the petitioner obtained leave to withdraw the said writ petition in order to file a new writ petition agitating changed circumstances.

(3.) It is also submitted by the petitioner that by promulgation of Targeted Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2015 dtd. 20/3/2015 by the Central Government, the WBPDS (Maintenance and Control) Order, 2015 should be held to be repealed. The petitioner also states that under Clause 26 of 2013 Control Order the District Controller, Food and Supplies is the only authority to publish notification notice in official gazette and also in local newspapers and the Director, DDPS has no authority to issue vacancy notification in respect of appointment of new distributor for 18 members of dealers in Ranaghat. Under such circumstances, the petitioner has prayed for issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus commending the respondents and each of them to resign and/or withdraw, and/or cancel the vacancy notice dtd. 1/9/2022 issued by the Director, DDPS for appointment of distributor at Ranaghat Municipality for 18 members of dealers and other incidental reliefs.