HARINDER SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has invoked the jurisdiction of this Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India with a prayer for issuance of a writ of certiorari for quashing of Licence in Form L-14/A of Excise Unit No. 50R-24/2 (Annexure P4) situated in village Dhab Kariyal, Block Guru Harsahai, District Ferozepur which stands allotted in favour of respondent No. 3 on the ground that the same has been awarded to him contrary to the provisions of Punjab Excise Act, 1914 (for short, 'the Act') as well as contrary to the provisions of the Excise Policy (hereinafter referred to as 'the Policy') adopted by respondent No. 1 for the year 2009-2010.

(2.) A prayer has also been made to restrain respondent No. 3 from running the aforementioned excise unit. The facts of the case, in brief, are as under :-

(3.) FOR the year 2009-2010 too, a Policy was formulated and published, which stipulated that retail PML (L-14A) and IMFL (L-2) shall be granted by inviting applications after being duly notified to the general public and in the eventuality of the responses being more than the number of available excise units or group of excise units, then the allotment was to be made by resorting to the process of draw of lots in the presence of the applicants and the public for which observers were to be appointed by the government. The Policy further stipulated that a successful allottee would be required to deposit 15% of the licence fee as security. Accordingly, the details of the licencing units for the rural areas of District Ferozepur were publicized and were also made available on the internet. It was further mentioned in the publication that a person desirous of obtaining a licence was required to pay a cost of Rs. 16000/- for application form for groups of two units and the same was non-refundable. This amount was to be forfeited to the State exchequer as dedicated fund for education.