CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.19396 OF 2009 :{ 1 }: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH DATE OF DECISION: MAY 02,2011 Jasbir Singh Gill .....Petitioner VERSUS Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Panipat and an other ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? PRESENT: Mr. Saurav Khurana, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Ashish Kapoor, Advocate, for the respondents. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner seeks quashing of letter dated 25.11.2009 vide which the petitioner was declared ineligible for allotment of retail outlet dealership for location at Giridah, District Panchkula under open category. An advertisement for allotment of retail outlet was issued on 27.8.2009 in Hindustan Times. The petitioner applied for allotment of the dealership in open category at the site noticed above. On 25.11.2009, the petitioner received a communication, rejecting his CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.19396 OF 2009 :{ 2 }: application on the ground that his application was incomplete and so he was held ineligible for consideration. It is pointed out that the petitioner had submitted an application form where Paragraphs 12 and 14 to 17 were completely found missing. The application being incomplete was rejected. The petitioner has, thus, filed this writ petition to seek quashing of this order. The petitioner would plead that information, which he was required to provide in these missing paragraphs had indeed been mentioned in the other parts of his application and hence, the action of the respondents in holding him ineligible was unfair and unjust. In the reply filed, the respondents have justified their action in considering the petitioner ineligible as he has submitted an incomplete application form where Paragraphs 12 and 14 to 17 of the form were completely missed out and even are not found typed in the application. Reference is made to Clause 19(c) of the advertisement, where it is provided that any application received after the cut off date for any reason, including postal delay and those without accompanying valid documents, including application fee or incomplete in any respect, shall not be considered and no correspondence will be entertained by the respondent-Corporation in such matters whatsoever. Similarly, Clause 13(h) of the guidelines for selection of dealership/distributors provides that application received after cut off date for any reason, including postal delay and those without accompanying valid documents, affidavits, medical certificate etc., application fee or incomplete in any respect will not be considered and no correspondence will be entertained by the Oil CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.19396 OF 2009 :{ 3 }: Company in such cases whatsoever. The respondents would also plead that the case of the petitioner would not deserve any consideration by treating him eligible because there may be large number of other similarly situated persons, who might have been declared ineligible on the basis of requirement of the advertisement. Reference is made to decision of this Court in Dharam Pal Kansal Vs. M/s IOCL, 2008(3) RCR (Civil) 654, where it is held that right of the petitioner would emanate from the advertisement, whereby the applications are invited and since the petitioner in that case had not been able to furnish residence proof, it was held that he was rightly declared ineligible as he had not been able to meet the requirement of advertisement. The prayer accordingly is made to dismiss the writ petition. During the course of hearing, counsel for the respondent- Corporation has placed before me a photo copy of the application form submitted by the petitioner. Copy of the same has also been placed by the petitioner on record as Annexure P-3. A perusal of the same would show that application form submitted by the petitioner contains Paragraphs 1 to 11 and information is also filled in these paragraphs. Thereafter Paragraphs 12 is completely missed out and is not typed. Paragraph 13 though is typed on a separate page but Paragraphs 14 to 17 are again missing from the application form and have even not been found typed or otherwise written or recorded in any manner. The counsel for the respondents has placed before me the application form complete in all respect, which clearly contained CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.19396 OF 2009 :{ 4 }: Paragraphs 12 to 17, in addition to Paragraphs 1 to 11. The application form, as submitted by the petitioner, thus, was incomplete. The plea by the petitioner that he had provided the information, which was required in the missing paragraphs, would be no substitute and it would not make the application form complete. This is not a good reason to submit incomplete application form. The application form as submitted by the petitioner certainly is incomplete and justification offered by the petitioner is neither valid nor can be considered valid to hold him eligible. The respondents have acted in terms of the conditions of the advertisement, which has been held to be having sanctity as per law laid down in Dharam Pal Kansal's case (supra). Any consideration shown to the petitioner to hold him eligible would mean that large number of similarly situated persons would be differently treated, whose cases may have been rejected on the ground that they had not submitted a complete application or information alongwith the application forms. Here is a case where even application form is not complete. Such applications rightly are required to be rejected. I do not see any infirmity in the order passed by the respondents, which would call for any interference. Reference made by counsel for the petitioner in the case of Dolly Chhanda Vs. Chairman, JEE and others, AIR 2004 Supreme Court 5043, can not be of any help to the petitioner. This was a case where claim of daughter of ex-serviceman was rejected in the first counselling on the ground that the certificate issued to her by Zila Sainik Board did not satisfy the requirement of reserve CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.19396 OF 2009 :{ 5 }: category. She had produced a correct certificate at second stage. In these circumstances, her non-consideration and giving admission to candidate securing lower marks was held unjust and illegal. The Court had deprecated the highly technical and rigid attitude adopted by the authorities. The above noted observations were made entirely in different context. It was a case of admission of a candidate who was found meritorious. There was no defect in her application. The ratio of law in this case has no applicability to the facts of the present case. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed. May 02,2011 (RANJIT SINGH ) khurmi JUDGE