SURENDRA SHARMA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Messrs Surendra Sharma, Umesh Prasad Singh alias Umesh Kumar Singh and Sanjay Kumar, all of the district Patna but of villages Manjhauli, Suitha and Pasahi, have sought this writ petition under the High Court prerogative writ jurisdiction seeking a relief, in effect, that instructions which have been issued by the State by its Letter No. 5107 dated 6/12/2001 by the Department of Food and Civil Supplies be declared as ultra vires as it violates the fundamental rights in reference to Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) What aggrieves the petitioner is a policy of the State Government that if there are kinsmen and relatives of a person who may be a member of a Panchayat, a Sarpanch or a Mukhiya, and these close relatives be running a licenced shop dealing with commodities which come under the public distribution system, then such licences be recalled or cancelled.

(3.) The petitioners are under the impression that the permission or the license to sell essential commodities under the public distribution system is a business which is guaranteed to them and it is their fundamental right to do such a business. First, the question which the Court is to examine, is whether it is a fundamental right of a citizen to be guaranteed a licence to deal with goods under the public distribution system. The answer is not complicated. To sell commodities from a ration shop on a license is not a business like any other trade. Essential commodities at a controlled price under State subsidies are not for trade. It is another matter that such commodities are traded through the back door in a parallel economy. These are socio economic measures and, thus, ration shops are meant to cater to the needs of persons below a certain economic level. It is at best a licence which the State may recall for a given reason.