BAFATI MIA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant/petitioner filed this writ petition claiming therein that he had been allocated a kerosene oil dealership and he had been running the dealership in a small room with tile shed and dilapidated walls on the ground floor of the premises situate at 54, Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Kolkata-19. In the year 2003, the landlord of the premises having decided to hand over the premises to a promoter hired some anti-social elements of the locality and/ or professional miscreants against the petitioner entrusting them with the responsibility of evicting him from the aforesaid shop. In the last week of january, 2003, he was threatened by some goondas with dire consequences at gun point. They asked him to quit the premises and even the city of Kolkata immediately failing which he would be murdered. We are also told that they even threatened to kill his son along with the petitioner. Out of fear, the appellant/petitioner left Kolkata and went to his native village: Sometime later he returned to Kolkata and asked the landlord to restore him in his small accommodation either in the same premises or elsewhere nearby so that he may resume his kerosene oil dealership. The landlord did not help him. Rather he caused a show-cause notice to be issued from the office of the respondent No. 2 in connection with his kerosene oil dealership. The petitioner, however, failed to give answer to the show-cause notice for a long time out of anxiety and neurosis. Since he had no means of surviving in kolkata, he had been given financial assistance by his well-wishers,

(2.) AFTER recovering from his illness, on 4th of July, 2005 he submitted a mercy petition before respondent No. 3 narrating the aforesaid facts. In response to this mercy petition, the appellant/petitioner received a letter dated 31st of August, 2005 informing him that the respondent No. 2 would give him a hearing on 20th September, 2005. It is stated that when the appellant/petitioner was forced to leave the premises, he was compelled to place his left thumb impression on some blank sheet of papers as also one or two Non-Judicial stamp papers. It is possible that those were subsequently used by them or by the petitioner's landlord.

(3.) ON 20th September, 2005 the petitioner appeared before the respondent No. 2 and produced all the relevant papers regarding grant of kerosene oil dealership. In the meantime, he had rented a shop room within the radius of 1 km. from the original premises on which the licence had been granted. Although the respondent No. 2 gave a patient hearing to him and perused all the relevant papers, no instantaneous order was passed. Since no formal order had been communicated to him, he submitted another representation on 23rd of September, 2005. It was at this stage that the impugned order was communicated to the petitioner. The order, in fact, is dated 23rd of September, 2005.