Civil Writ Petition No.7645 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.7645 of 2011 Date of Decision:02.05.2011 M/s S.S.Rice and General Mills ......Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.Aman Bansal, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) Heard. Issue notice of motion. At this stage, Mr.Sartaj Singh Gill, Deputy Advocate General, Punjab, accepts notices on behalf of the respondents. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, going through the record with their valuable assistance and after considering the entire matter deeply, to my mind, the present writ petition deserves to be accepted in this regard. As is evident from the record that the Director, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Punjab(for brevity “the Director”) has decided the representation of the petitioner with a single-line, cryptic, non-speaking impugned order dated 04.02.2011(Annexure P-4), which lacks application of mind. Such authorities ought to have discussed the material on record and were legally required to indicate the valid reasons, for arriving at a conclusion, in order to decide the real controversy between the parties, in the right perspective. It is now well-settled principle of law that every action of such authorities must be informed by reasons. The order must be fair, clear, reasonable and in the interest of fair play. Every order must be confined and structured by the Civil Writ Petition No.7645 of 2011 2 rational and relevant material on record, because the valuable rights of the parties are involved. The importance of passing speaking and reasoned order was reiterated by the Hon'ble Apex Court in case Chairman, Disciplinary Authority, Rani Lakshmi Bai Kshetriya Gramin Bank V. Jagdish Sharan Varshney and others (2009) 4 Supreme Court Cases 240 has held(para 8) as under:- “The purpose of disclosure of reasons, as held by a Constitution Bench of this Court in S.N.Mukherjee V. Union of India, is that people must have confidence in the judicial or quasi-judicial authorities. Unless reasons are disclosed, how can a person know whether the authority has applied its mind or not? Also, giving of reasons minimizes the chances of arbitrariness. Hence, it is an essential requirement of the rule of law that some reasons, at least in brief, must be disclosed in a judicial or quasi- judicial order, even if it is an order of affirmation.” Therefore, since, the impugned order(Annexure P-4) is a cryptic and non-speaking order, so, it cannot legally be maintained in the obtaining circumstances of the case. In the light of aforesaid reasons, the instant writ petition is hereby accepted. The impugned order(Annexure P-4) is set aside and respondent No.2 is again directed to decide the matter afresh, by passing a speaking order, within a period of one month from the date of receipt of the certified copy of this order. May 02, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE