HARSIMRAN KAUR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who responded to an advertisement, issued by the respondent for appointment of LPG Distributorship was informed that her candidature was being found ineligible for award of a contract, for the reason of "incomplete application form as submitted by the applicant." The contention of the petitioner was that the she had given all the particulars in the pro forma given in the advertisement and the rejection of her candidature on a vague statement that it was incomplete without even detailing what was the information that had not been completed, was not justified.

(2.) In the counter filed on behalf of the respondent, it was sought to be contended that in the pro forma of the application, which was to contain six pages, Page Nos.4 and 5 were found missing. The relevant Page Nos.4 and 5 sought to elicit details relating to the infrastructure that the petitioner was capable of providing and Column No.14 was to secure information for capability to arrange evidence with reference to fixed deposits and other financial details. Learned counsel appearing for the respondent produced before me the original form that had been received along with the application. I notice that the pages in the bunch of papers presented are numbered page-wise and it runs from Page Nos.1 to 16. I find from the bunch that Page Nos.4 and 5 are missing. I am unable to believe that the application could have been given deliberately tearing away two pages. The entire bunch of papers have pagination as mentioned above and after Page No.3 is only Page No.6. Evidently, the papers have been lost somewhere and exercising jurisdiction under Article 226, it will not be possible for me to venture a guess where the petitioner deliberately did not send Pages No.4 and 5 and gave a false pagination or whether there was any lapse on the part of the respondent in losing the two pages and ultimately rejecting the candidature of the petitioner. In the normal course of things, the whole set of papers could not have been missed but I do not want to place the lapse as having occurred on account of the petitioner or on account of the respondent.

(3.) Learned counsel appearing for the respondent states that in the advertisement,which was issued, condition No.19 states that if the application is submitted without accompanying the valid documents or is incomplete in any respect, it would not be considered. The incompleteness, if it is shown to have been at the instance of the petitioner, the clause could operate. By granting opportunity to the petitioner to supply the information, which ought to have been there in Page Nos.4 and 5, I am not substituting any new terms or adding fresh conditions. I only want a consideration of the petitioner's candidate as the justice demands, for without finding that the petitioner had definitely not submitted the details willfully, it would not be possible also to reject her candidature. Again in the present case, it is not as if the respondents have undertaken the exercise of considering all the applications and taken a decision in this regard. The process is said to be still not complete and therefore, no prejudice could be caused if the petitioner's candidature is also considered and an ultimate decision is taken on the relative merits of the candidates who have applied for distributorship. Such a direction has already been given by this Court on 19.02.2009 that the respondents could consider the petitioner also and take a decision but the respondents state that such a decision was not taken, for it was not possible to undertake such an exercise in the absence of relevant materials, which were required to be given by the petitioner and by virtue of operation of a specific condition relating to the cut-off date for submission of the relevant particulars.