GURPREET SINGH Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Petitioner, a resident of village Srinagar, District Hanumangarh, who has been dis -satisfied with the dealings of the Respondent No. 4 as the fair price shop dealer in the village and who made several complaints on whose basis the authorisation granted to the Respondent No. 4 was ordered to be cancelled by the District Supply Officer, Hanumangarh ('the DSO') on 22.12.2010, seeks to question by way of this writ petition the order dated 23.03.2011 (Annex.13) whereby the Collector, Hanumangarh has remanded the matter for decision afresh to the DSO and the order dated 06.04.2011 (Annex.14) whereby the DSO has restored the authorisation of the Respondent No. 4.

(2.) FROM the averments taken in the petition and the documents placed on record, it appears that after making the applications under the Right to Information Act regarding the dealings of the fair price shop in question, the Petitioner made several complaints about the Respondent No. 4 being not fair in distribution of the essential commodities and having withheld the relevant distribution registers so as to avoid enquiry into his alleged misdeeds. Upon the complaints made by the Petitioner and so also by the Sarpanch, Gram Panchayat Srinagar, the DSO got the matter enquired from the Enforcement Officer and after receiving the enquiry report, proceeded to suspend the authorisation granted to the Respondent No. 4 by the order dated 23.07.2010 (Annex.10); and then, by the order dated 22.12.2010 (Annex.11), proceeded to order cancellation of such authorisation with forfeiture of security amount and with further directions for lodging of FIR against the Respondent No. 4 for the offences under Section 3/7 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.

(3.) SEEKING to challenge the orders aforesaid, it is submitted on behalf of the Petitioner that the Collector has proceeded in a cursory and rather arbitrary manner and has ignored the apparent discrepancies for which the DSO rightly cancelled the authorisation of the Respondent No. 4. It is submitted that there had not been any satisfactory reason given by the Respondent No. 4 for non -verification of the registers; and the story about loss of record was an afterthought and was cooked -up only after the Petitioner sought the requisite information. It is also submitted that impugned order dated 23.03.2011 deserves to be quashed as no opportunity of hearing was given to the Petitioner. According to the Petitioner, such an opportunity to him was entirely necessary as the proceedings were initiated upon the steps taken by him to elicit the information and upon the complaints filed by him. It is submitted that the Petitioner was a necessary party but was intentionally kept out of the proceedings before the Collector. It is further submitted that even if the Collector had, for any reason, remanded the matter for decision afresh, the DSO could not have restored the authorisation of the Respondent No. 4 and, therefore, the order dated 06.04.2011 remains totally misconceived and deserves to be quashed.