IN THE PUNJAB & HARYANA HIGH COURT AT CHANDIGARH CIVIL WRIT PETITION 12925 OF 2001 DATE OF DECISION : 11-08-2008 Aman Bir Pal Singh ....Petitioner Versus Union of India & others ....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI Present: Mr.B.R.Mahajan, Advocate, for the petitioner Mr.Rajiv Sharma, Advocate, for respondent No.1 Mr.Hari Pal Verma, Advocate, for respondents 2 to 5 Mr.O.P.Goyal, Senior Advocate,with Ms.Priya Khurana, Advocate, for respondent No.6 01- Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2- To be referred to the reporters or not? 3- Whether the judgement should be reported in the Digest? Ajay Tewari, J The petitioner has challenged the allotment of LPG Dealership to respondent No.6 by way of the present petition. The twin grounds of attack are, firstly, that as per the advertisement Annexure P-1, it was necessary that the family income of the applicant should not be more than Rs.2,00,000/-in the last financial year 1999-2000. The second ground of attack is that as per the advertisement, the applicant had to furnish along with the application the details of the land for the godown and willingness of the applicant to transfer the land on ownership/long lease to the corporation. As per the learned counsel for the petitioner, the advertisement stipulated that if after selection, the applicant was unable to provide the land indicated earlier within a period of 2 months, the allotment of CWP 12925 of 2001 --2-- distributorship would be cancelled. As per the petitioner, the original land offered by respondent No.6 could not be made available by her on account of the fact that the Fire Department had not given its clearance. It is his submission that the respondent-corporation did not have the jurisdiction to permit respondent No.6 to change the choice of land offered for the distributorship. Learned counsel for the respondent states that no material has been placed by the petitioner to show that the gross family income of respondent No.6 in the year 1999-2000 was in excess of Rs.2,00,000/-while the respondent has placed on record ample material to show that, in fact, the gross family income of respondent No.6 in the year 1999-2000 was much less than the amount of Rs.2,00,000/-. As regards the second contention, learned counsel for respondent No.6 has urged that there is no dispute that the respondent No.6, in fact, offered 3 kanals 19 marlas of land which was acceptable to the corporation. However, it was not possible to get clearance from the Fire Department since the said land was urban land and that in the circumstances, the action of the respondent-corporation in permitting respondent No.6 to offer suitable land outside the municipal limits could not be termed as illegal. Additionally, learned counsel for the respondent has brought to my notice the fact that this dealership was also one of the dealerships which was subject to scrutiny by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the case of respondent No.6 was considered by the committee appointed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in case Mukand Sarup Mishra versus Union of India in CA 100 of 2002. It is submitted that when the case of respondent No.6 was considered by the said committee, the petitioner appeared before it and placed on record all the material which has been sought to be relied upon in the present case. After considering the entire facts, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that the allotment in favour of respondent No.6 need not be cancelled. Consequent to this order dated 12-01-2007, this Court was pleased to vacate the interim order earlier granted in favour of the petitioner as a result of which the dealership has now been CWP 12925 of 2001 --3-- rendered functional after investing lacs of rupees. In my opinion, this petition cannot succeed. The allegations regarding family income of respondent No.6 being more than Rs.2,00,000/-per year in the year 1999-2000 is not established on record. The only surviving point i.e. whether the respondent-corporation could permit respondent No.6 to offer the land also does not hold water. The stipulation that within 2 months of allotment, the applicant could not offer the same land which had been mentioned, would not result in automatic cancellation. To my mind, this is an enabling clause permitting the corporation to cancel the allotment but is not a mandatory condition. The real consideration to be placed in this provision would be that any applicant who misled the corporation about the availability of land, would render himself liable to cancellation. In the present case, the land undisputedly was there. In the circumstances, it was open to the respondent-corporation to permit respondent No.6 to offer the land since godown could not be built on the previously offered land because of want of no objection from the fire department. Likewise, the fact that this dealership successfully stood the scrutiny of the Hon'ble Apex Court,- in slightly different circumstances though not a deteriment, is not entirely irrelevant. Further, it cannot be lost sight of that after the vacation of the interim order, the distributorship has, in fact, been made operational by respondent No.6 after investing a huge amount of money. On a consideration of all the facts, I hold that this petition is dismissed, but, however, without any order as to costs. Sd/- [Ajay Tewari] Judge 11-08-2008