HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO. 5912 OF 2007 ORDER: Three DWCRA group fair-price shop dealers of Mulugu Mandal in Medak District filed this writ petition challenging the Notification dated 31.01.2007 issued by the Revenue Divisional Officer, Siddipet, in so far as it pertained to the alleged existing vacancies of dealers in respect of their fair- price shops. 2. This Court, by order dated 23.03.2007, granted interim stay of all further proceedings pursuant to the impugned Notification. 3. Owing to subsequent developments, the writ petition was dismissed as withdrawn in so far as petitioner. No.2 DWCRA group is concerned. 4. The petitioner No.1- DWCRA group was appointed as the dealer of the fair-price shop of Tuniki Bollarum village in Medak District in the year 2001. By way of the impugned Notification, the respondent authorities notified a vacancy in respect of the fair-price shop – Tuniki Bollarum -2. The counter filed on behalf of the respondents indicates that the petitioner No.1 DWCRA group’s fair-price shop was bifurcated in the year 2006 under the proceedings of the District Collector. In consequence thereof, the bifurcated new fair-price shop-Tuniki Bollarum-2 was notified under the impugned Notification. Pertinent to note, the said bifurcation is said to have been effected pursuant to the Circular dated 23.08.2005 issued by the Government of Andhra Pradesh through the Office of the Commissioner of Civil Supplies, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. The instructions in the said Circular are to the effect that the Collectors must maintain a minimum of 350 cards in each Fair Price Shop in rural areas for the purpose of ensuring the economic viability of the existing shop as well as the newly created shop in the event of bifurcation. Further, the Circular made it clear that the Collectors were to adhere to these instructions scrupulously. The counter filed by the respondents however demonstrates that the petitioner No.1- DWCRA group’s fair-price shop only had 500 cards and therefore, the cards to be distributed between the existing fair-price shop and the proposed new shop upon bifurcation would be less than the required minimum of 350 cards. The bifurcation was thus not in keeping with the Circular dated 23.08.2005, which the District Collector, Medak, was bound to follow and is therefore of no legal consequence. The inclusion of the new shop in the impugned Notification based upon such bifurcation, calling for applications for filling up the vacancy in the said dealership cannot be sustained. 5. In so far as petitioner No.3 DWCRA group is concerned, the authorization dated 10.10.2005 issued under Clause 5(5) of the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Commodities (Regulation of Distribution by Card System) Order, 2001, appointing it as the Dealer of the Fair Price Shop of Baswapur Village, specified that it was valid up to 31.03.2006 but Clause 16 thereof stated to the effect that the holder of such authorization should work for a minimum period of five years unless suspended or cancelled. In the light of this authorization the stand of the respondent authorities in their counter that petitioner No.3 DWCRA group was appointed only for a period of six months temporarily is opposed to the record. Ostensibly, it was on the basis of the expiry of this temporary appointment that petitioner No.3- DWCRA group’s fair-price shop was also included in the impugned Notification. Once this assumption of fact is shown to be perverse, the inclusion of the petitioner No.3- DWCRA group’s fair-price shop in the impugned Notification also cannot be sustained. 6. For the reasons aforestated, the impugned Notification in so far as it pertained to Tuniki Bollarum and Baswapur fair-price shops is liable to be quashed. 7. The writ petition is accordingly allowed setting aside the impugned Notification dated 31.01.2007 to that extent. No order as to costs. ______________ SANJAY KUMAR, J June 23, 2011 SP HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO. 5912 OF 2007 June 23, 2011 SP