IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) MONDAY, THE TWENTIETH DAY OF OCTOBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE V.V.S.RAO WRIT PETITION No.11731 of 2004 Between Udayagiri Venkata Suseela, W/o. Madhava Rao, R/o. Veligondla Village, Nellore District. ..... Petitioner AND 1 The District Collector, Nellore. 2 The Joint Collector, Nellore. 3 The Revenue Divisional Officer, Kavali, Nellore District. 4 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Kondapuram Mandal, Nellore District. 5 Thota Rajeswari, D/o. Chenchuramaiah, R/o. Veligondla Village, Nellore District. .....Respondents Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court will be pleased to issue an order, direction or Writ, more particularly one in the nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring the order or the 1st respondent passed in D.Dis.(E)1366/02, dated 12-6-2004 whereunder he dismissed the revision ﬁled by the petitioner and conﬁrmed the order of the 2nd respondent herein in D.Dis(E)1683/98, dated 1-7-2002 where under he set-aside the appointment of the petitioner as Fair Shop Dealer of Veligandla Village, Kondapuram Mandal, Nellore District, as illegal, arbitrary and violative of principles of natural justice and also against the provisions of the A.P. State Public Distribution System Control Order, 2001 and set- aside the same. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.V.SUDHAKAR REDDY Counsel for the Respondents 1 to 4: GP FOR CIVIL SUPPLIES The Court made the following: THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V.V.S.RAO WRIT PETITION No.11731 of 2004 ORDER: Authorised Fair Price Shop (FPS) dealer of Veligondla village, one Rosaiah, died. So as to ﬁll up resultant vacancy, Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer (RDO), Kavali–third respondent herein; issued a notiﬁcation in October/November 1997 inviting applications from eligible candidates indicating that preference will be given to candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribes (STs). As per notiﬁcation, a candidate must have passed 10th class and he/she should be resident of village where vacancy exists. Candidates with lesser qualiﬁcations would also be considered only when candidates with 10th class are not available. Petitioner and ﬁfth respondent appeared in selection for appointment of FPS dealer. After selection, RDO found that ﬁfth respondent, who is Physically Challenged (PC) person, did not perform satisfactorily and therefore rejected her claim. Petitioner’s performance in selections was found to be satisfactory when compared to other candidates and she was appointed as FPS dealer by proceedings dated 06.7.1998. This was assailed by ﬁfth respondent in appeal before Joint Collector, Nellore–second respondent herein. By order dated 01.7.2002 appeal was allowed setting aside appointment of petitioner on the ground that ﬁfth respondent passed 10th class and is PC person. Feeling aggrieved by the same, petitioner preferred a revision before District Collector, Nellore, who by impugned order dated 12.6.2004, dismissed revision petition, aggrieved by which present writ petition is filed. A counter aﬃdavit is ﬁled inter alia projecting following case. Petitioner is not qualiﬁed and ﬁfth respondent is qualiﬁed because as per G.O.Ms.No.55 as well as G.O.Ms.No.198, dated 06.2.1996, 3% reservation should be provided for PC persons and therefore selection of petitioner is unsustainable. This Court heard learned Counsel for petitioner, learned Assistant Government Pleader for Civil Supplies and learned Counsel for ﬁfth respondent. Two brief questions, which need to be considered, are whether impugned order is bad being non-speaking order and whether it is proper for District Collector to have passed impugned order after receiving transfer orders from the Government. It is no gainsaying that a quasi-judicial authority like all judicial authorities has to give reasons for the conclusions reached in an enquiry concerning rights of contesting parties. Indeed non-disclosure of reasons would violate doctrine of natural justice and principle of fairness, which are two characteristics of healthy democratic governance. The following observations of Supreme Court in State of West Bengal v Alpana Roy[1], in this regard are relevant and may be extracted hereunder. Even in respect of administrative orders Lord Denning M.R. in Breen v. Amalgamated Engineering Union (1971 (1) All ER 1148) observed, "The giving of reasons is one of the fundamentals of good administration". In Alexander Machinery (Dudley) Ltd. v. Crabtree (1974 LCR 120) it was observed: "Failure to give reasons amounts to denial of justice". Reasons are live links between the mind of the decision taker to the controversy in question and the decision or conclusion arrived at". Reasons substitute subjectivity by objectivity. The emphasis on recording reasons is that if the decision reveals the "inscrutable face of the sphinx", it can, by its silence, render it virtually impossible for the Courts to perform their appellate function or exercise the power of judicial review in adjudging the validity of the decision. Right to reason is an indispensable part of a sound judicial system, reasons at least suﬃcient to indicate an application of mind to the matter before Court. Another rationale is that the affected party can know why the decision has gone against him. One of the salutary requirements of natural justice is spelling out reasons for the order made, in other words, a speaking out. The "inscrutable face of a sphinx" is ordinarily incongruous with a judicial or quasi-judicial performance. When revision petition was presented to District Collector, petitioner raised following grounds. 1. The lower court failed that the 1st respondent is hailing from rich family and also having lesser age when compared with the Revision Petitioner and hence the Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer, Kavali has properly selected the Respondent appointed as F.P.Shop dealer of Veligandla village. 2. That the lower court failed that the notiﬁcation issued by the Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer, Kavali did not speak reservation for PHC person. Therefore giving preference to the 1st respondent is not proper, when there is no reservation to the PHC person. 3. The lower court failed to see that the 1st respondent whose candidature was rejected for appointment as F.P.Shop dealer of Veligandla village is a woman and who has to go out from the village after getting married. Therefore even if her candidature is considered it becomes additional problem to renotify the same vacancy to select another candidate. 4. The lower court ought to have seen at the Revision Petitioner has been working and running F.P.Shop since 4 years with good reputation and hence her continuance will give better result. While disposing of revision petition, District Collector passed the following order. Heard the arguments and perused the records. The Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer, Kavali was issued notiﬁcation calling for applications from the women candidates showing preference to ST category and if no such candidate available the other women candidates will be selected in other category. In view of the above fact the Joint Collector, Nellore has rightly considered the physically handicapped person. Hence, the Revision Petition is dismissed. Various grounds urged by petitioner are not even adverted to nor ﬁndings of fact or law recorded therein. This vitiates order of District Collector. Secondly though an allegation is made in aﬃdavit accompanying writ petition that District Collector was relieved on 14.6.2004 he passed orders on 12.6.2004 having reserved the matter on 24.1.2004. The same is not denied in the counter. This shows that District Collector passed orders after receiving transfer orders. There has been healthy convention in Judiciary that whenever a Judge/Presiding Oﬃcer receives orders of transfer ordinarily such Presiding Oﬃcer restrains from hearing or passing any ﬁnal orders. This principle should be equally made applicable even to administrative/executive authorities. The District Collector having received transfer orders, some time after reserving the matter for orders on 24.1.2004, passed impugned order and therefore this is gross act of impropriety, which vitiates impugned order. In view of the above, the impugned order is set aside and the matter is remitted to District Collector, Nellore, with a direction to dispose of revision petition afresh, after considering the grounds urged by petitioner and ﬁfth respondent. Petitioner and ﬁfth respondent shall approach District Collector, Nellore, with a copy of this order after one week from today. The writ petition is accordingly allowed. No costs. ______________ (V.V.S.RAO, J) October 20, 2008 NOTE: Dispatch order copy by 21.10.2008. (By order) YS To 1 The District Collector, Nellore. 2 The Joint Collector, Nellore. 3 The Revenue Divisional Officer, Kavali, Nellore District. 4 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Kondapuram Mandal, Nellore District. 5 Two CCs to the Government Pleader for Civil Supplies, High Court Buildings, Hyderabad. (OUT) 6 Two C.D. Copies. [1] AIR 2005 SC 3657 : 2005 (7) SCJ 422