IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) MONDAY, THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF JULY TWO THOUSAND AND NINE PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.10642 of 2008 Between: N. Amarnath Reddy S/o N. Sivasankar Reddy R/o Talupula Village, Atmakur Mandal, Anantapur district. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The State of Andhra Pradesh repby its Ex-Officio Secretary, Consumer Affairs, Food & Civil Supplies, (CS-I) Department, Secretarait, Hyderabad. 2 The District Collector, Anantapur District, Anantapur District. 3 Revenue Divisional Officer, Anantapur, Anantapur District. 4 The Tahsildar/Mandal Revenue Officer, Atmakur mandal, Anantapur District. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:MR.K.SRINIVAS Counsel for the Respondents:AGP FOR CIVIL SUPPLIES The Court made the following : ORDER: This writ petition is filed for a mandamus to set aside notification, dated 15.04.2008 whereby the vacancy of fair price shop No.2 of Thalupuru Village, is proposed to be filled up. The petitioner is an existing fair price shop dealer of Thalupuru Village. The said shop was stated to have been bifurcated by creating a second shop, by name, fair price shop No.2 of Thalupuru Village. Consequent on such bifurcation, respondent No.2 issued the impugned notification, against which the petitioner filed the present writ petition. According to the petitioner, the order of bifurcation is contrary to the guidelines contained in G.O.Ms.No.35, dated 17.09.2007 for the reason that the number of cards pertaining to Below Poverty Line (BPL) to be attached to a fair price shop should be 400 and Above Poverty Line (APL) should be 50. The petitioner pleaded that as the total number of cards available is only 646, his shop will not be allotted the minimum of 400 BPL cards. The petitioner has not filed a copy of G.O.Ms.No.35, though he claimed to have filed the same in the writ petition. However, the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Civil Supplies furnished a copy of the said G.O., wherein it is laid down that in rural areas, the number of IRIS based ration cards (BPL pink cards) to be attached to a fair price shop should be 400 to 450. In case there are more than 400 BPL and 50 APL cards in a village, there can be two fair price shops provided that the total number of BPL cards in the village is not less than 600, and the number of BPL and APL cards should be attached to two fair price shops equally. On the admitted facts of this case, the total number of cards prior to bifurcation was 646. The petitioner did not plead that BPL cards and APL cards were below the minimum required number of 400 and 50 respectively. Therefore, the petitioner failed to show that bifurcation of the existing fair price shop for Thalupuru Village is in violation of the guidelines contained in G.O.Ms.No.35, dated 17.09.2007, in any manner. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner was not given any notice or supplied with the order of bifurcation, before the impugned notification was issued. The learned Assistant Government Pleader for Civil Supplies submitted that as held by the Supreme Court in District Collector and another v. B.Suresh and another[1], there is no requirement of issuing a notice or supplying a copy of order of bifurcation to the existing fair price shop dealer. The learned counsel for the petitioner did not dispute this legal position. For the above-mentioned reasons, I do not find any merit in this writ petition and it is accordingly, dismissed. As a sequel to dismissal of main petition, WPMP.No.13911 of 2008 filed by the petitioner for interim relief is disposed of as infructuous. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 13th JULY, 2009. kvni [1] 2000(1) ALD 9 (SC)