IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.3148 of 2008 M/S SHREE KUSHWAHA FUEL Versus COAL INDIA LIMITED & ORS ----------- For the Petitioner: Mr. Arbind Kr. Jha, Advocate For the Respondents: Mr. V.M.K. Sinha, Advocate ------------- 06 08.09.2008 The petitioner enjoyed a linkage for the purposes of supply of coal granted by the Central Government and pursuant, thereto, the petitioner was to be supplied by the Bharat Coking Coal Limited. In order to verify genuiness large number of units operating a general notice was issued to all such smokeless fuel consumers and similarly consumers in the non-coal sector. This notice contained documents with regard to 19 points to be submitted dated 30.11.2004 (Annexure-3). This notice only mentions the list of documents that were required to be submitted along with an affidavit in the specified format along with photograph of the original before 31st December 2004. Petitioner, accordingly, submitted the above documents. It may be noted that the coal supplies were actually granted to the petitioner, now, having submitted these papers. The petitioner waited, when all of a sudden in March 2007, the coal supplies to the petitioner was stopped and ultimately by communication dated 6/8th of June 2007 (Annexure-11), the petitioner was informed that as the documents submitted by the petitioner were neither authenticated by him nor they were duly attested by any Gazetted Officer or notarized by notary public, his matter could not be processed. In my view, it is rightly submitted that this is a strange behaviour on part of respondents. Such a requirement was never - 2 - disclosed to the petitioner on any earlier occasion. The only requirement was that the documents to be covered in the form of an affidavit given in the format which was duly done. Now, respondents wanted some further authentication, they could not hang the petitioner first and demand authentication later. This on the fact of it lacks of arbitrariness on the part of respondents. Be that as it may, the petitioner immediately complied with this whole, as its supplies were suspended. It filed all the papers on the 26th of June 2007 and now it has been confronted with the impugned order dated 31st December 2007 (Annexure-13). Whereby, in view of the three deficiencies pointed out in the said letter the unit of petitioner has been branded as “not established” and the unit suffers from suspension of supply of its sole raw material. In my view, the action taken by the respondents cannot be sustained. It is well settled that such an order as impugned visits the petitioner with serious civil consequences. It cuts the blood supply to the heart and soul of the petitioner’s unit. It is too late to contend that this can be done by a State instrumentality, even without granting an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner. The petitioner may be having the documents, which are found to be deficient. The petitioner could be in a position to convince the authorities that the documents were sufficient. Petitioner could have convinced the authorities that in stead of looking to the documents respondents visit the site itself to see the industry. There could be many many explanations provided that an opportunity was granted for the same before stopping the supply of raw material to the petitioner. What - 3 - this Court finds strange is even before petitioner was asked to resubmit documents. A decision somewhere along the line was taken ex parte. Once, the decision had been taken then petitioner was asked to resubmit documents and again without hearing the petitioner the unit has been held to be a non-established unit. Whether the unit is established or not is a question of fact, which could have well been verified by sending an Officer to the site itself. Existence or non-existence of a unit cannot be determined merely on basis of papers, because, the unit is not established on papers but is established on ground. Unfortunately, the respondents holding monopolistic power are exercising their power in the most wishful and arbitrary manner, which is eloquent from the facts noted above. In that view of the matter, I have no option left but to quash the Annexure-13, as aforesaid and allow the writ application with the direction to the respondents to reconsider the matter afresh, in view of the observations made above. After noticing the petitioner in detail and making such enquiry, as it deems fit and proper in accordance with law. Actions should be taken for verification and final orders pass within a period of two months from the date of production of a copy of this order before the General Manager (S&M), Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Koyla Bhawan, Koyla Nagar, Dhanbad because the petitioner has already suffered an ex parte punishment for almost one and half years. The writ application is accordingly allowed. Trivedi/ (Navaniti Prasad Singh,J.)