Civil Writ Petition No. 17006 of 2010 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 17006 of 2010 Date of decision: April 21, 2011 Pawan Kumar ....Petitioner VERSUS M/s Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. and another ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: Mr. Rakesh Gupta, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Ashish Kapoor, Advocate, for the respondents. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. The respondent-Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. issued advertisement for inviting applications for allotment of various retail outlets for petroleum products. The petitioner had applied for a retail outlet in Sector 44, Chandigarh and another at Dharamheri, District Patiala. The interviews were conducted. The petitioner had surrendered his allotment of Dharamheri outlet at District Patiala by opting for Company Owned Company Operated outlet in Sector 44, Chandigarh. The petitioner was called in office by the respondents for verification of the documents. The petitioner received a letter from the respondents, vide which he was informed that the documents supplied by him were demanded by some third person under the Right to Information Act. The petitioner duly wrote to the respondents that these documents are confidential and personal, Civil Writ Petition No. 17006 of 2010 -2- hence may not be supplied. Without serving any notice, the allotment has been cancelled and the petitioner, accordingly, is before this Court. Reply is filed by the respondents raising preliminary objection making allegation against the petitioner that he has suppressed material facts. It is pointed out that complaint dated 29.3.2010 was received by the answering respondents against the petitioner. As per the complaint, the petitioner had given false affidavits to get marks under the sub-head “Tapping of sales volume from family/firm business” under the head “capability to generate business”. This complaint was got investigated by the answering respondents. The investigating report revealed that the petitioner had submitted 19 affidavits of 18 prospective customers totaling 142.2 kilo litre/per month of tied up volume. The letters to all the 18 prospective customers were sent seeking their confirmation whether the affidavits were given by them or not. In some of cases, the responses were received back with remarks such as “incomplete address”, “unclaimed” and “no address” etc. One person i.e. Sh. Baladeen appeared in the office of the answering respondents on 8.5.2010 and denied in writing having given any affidavit to the petitioner. Reference is made to the undertaking given by the petitioner in the form that any wrong information/suppression of fact will disqualify him for being considered for the dealership. Accordingly, the cancellation order is justified by the respondents. The counsel for the petitioner, however, points out that investigation has been done without associating him in any manner. Civil Writ Petition No. 17006 of 2010 -3- He, Accordingly, prays for a direction to the respondents to investigate the issue by associating him, where he would get a chance to prove that the documents submitted by him were genuine. Since the issue can only be resolved by determing the disputed question of facts, these can not appropriately be gone into by a writ Court. These disputed facts can be decided by evidence alone. Liberty is given to the petitioner to approach the Civil Court, in case, he has any cause to agitate in regard to this factual controversy. The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed. April 21, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH ) monika JUDGE