CHARDIKALA INDANE Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petitioners, who claim to be the new LPG Distributors, have filed this writ petition under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India for issuance of mandamus directing the respondents to transfer the customers\LPG consumers to them from the existing distributors till they reach the refill sale viability level i.e. 50% of the ceiling in terms of the unified guidelines for the selection of LPG Distributorship 2016 and as per the circular dated 04.01.2018 (Annexure P2).

(2.) In brief, the case of the writ petitioners is that they have been appointed as new LPG Distributors by the Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. They pray that under the circular (Annexure P-2) while marketing restructuring, the existing customers of the old LPG Distributors have to be transferred to them till they reach the refill sale viability level i.e. 50% of the ceiling in terms of the unified guidelines for the selection of LPG Distributorship, 2016. At the outset, it must be noticed that the Government of India had approved the unified guidelines for the selection of LPG Distributorship on 23.06.2016. As per the unified guidelines under Clause 2.4.1.1 Market Ceiling and Refill Ceiling Limit as also refill sale per month for feasibility limit were defined and fixed. Clause 2.4.1.1. is extracted as under:

(3.) Learned counsel for the writ petitioners admits that the unified guidelines do not itself provide for migration of the customers from the old distributors to the new distributors.