THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SHRI MADAN B. LOKUR AND THE HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR W.A. No.1070 OF 2011 DATED:30-11-2011 Between: Thellapudi Padmavathi … Appellant And The District Collector (CS), SPSR Nellore District and two others. … Respondents THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SHRI MADAN B. LOKUR AND THE HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT APPEAL No. 1070 OF 2011 JUDGMENT: (per the Hon’ble the Chief Justice Shri Madan B. Lokur) 1. The appellant is aggrieved by an order dated 14.9.2011 passed by a learned Single Judge in Writ Petition No. 25944 of 2008. 2. By an order dated 7.11.2008, the respondents approved the proposal for bifurcation of the existing fair price shops into two shops in Vavilla Village of Vidavalur Mandal in Nellore District. 3. It is submitted that at the time of bifurcation, there were total of 942 cards, out of which, 767 were white cards or BPL cards, 60 were AAY cards, 4 AV Cards and 111 were pink cards. The intention at the time of bifurcation was to give an equal number of cards, i.e., 471 cards to each shop. 4. The appellant, who was the owner of the fair price shop which was bifurcated was aggrieved by the decision of the respondents and therefore filed a writ petition relying upon G.O. Ms. No. 35, dated 17.9.2007 to contend that first of all there was no notice given to the appellant before the bifurcation and secondly the number of cards were not equally distributed. 5. The learned Single Judge rejected both the contentions and that is why the present appeal is before us. 6. Learned counsel for the appellant has raised two contentions before us. The first contention is that there was no need to bifurcate the existing fair price shop since there were no complaints from the customers. In this context, while referring to G.O. Ms. No. 35, dated 17.9.2007, it is submitted that fair price shop should be established within one kilo meter radius of the card holder and as far as the radius of the present village is concerned, it is hardly one kilo meter. As such, there could have been no complaint by any of the cardholders about any inconvenience being caused to them and in fact there was no such complaint. 7. We are not impressed by this submission made by learned counsel. In our opinion, if the authorities bona fide decide for the benefit of the public that it is necessary to have more than one fair price shop, they are entitled to do so. There need not necessarily be a complaint before bifurcation is ordered. 8. In fact, in this regard, it is mentioned in paragraph-5 of G.O. Ms. No.35 that in rural areas, the number of ration cards to be attached to each fair price shop should be about 400 to 450 of white cards or BPL cards. In the present case, the number of BPL cards as mentioned above is 767 and therefore, if the respondent authorities decided to bifurcate the shop to bring down the number of BPL cards in each shop to about 400, we do not see any reason to interfere with this decision. 9. The second contention urged by learned counsel for the appellant is that the distribution of cards should be equal. For this reliance is placed on Clause 6(v) of G.O. Ms. No. 35, dated 17.9.2007. In our opinion, this contention also has no merit. When the distribution of cards is to be equal, what is meant is that to the extent possible, the distribution should be equal. For example, if the number of existing cards is uneven as in the present case, it cannot mean that if distribution has to be made, then one of the cards will have to be divided. This is obviously not the intention of G.O. Ms. No.35. Therefore, as long as there is a rational, equitable and fair distribution of cards, the requirement of Clause 6(v) of G.O. Ms. No.35 would be met. 10. That apart, G.O. Ms. No. 35 only lays down certain guidelines for setting up fair price shops. These guidelines are not statutory in nature and if there is some minor variation, depending upon the exigencies, latitude must necessarily be given to the authorities. 11. We see no reason to interfere with the decision of the learned Single Judge declining to interfere in the writ petition. 12. There is no merit in the writ appeal and the appeal is dismissed. The interim application is also dismissed. MADAN B. LOKUR, CJ SANJAY KUMAR, J 30-11-2011 pnb