IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL Special Appeal No. 126/2020 Kuldeep Sajwan … Appellant Versus Ranjeet Singh & Others … Respondents Sri V.B.S. Negi, Senior Advocate, for the appellant. Sri Pradeep Joshi, Standing Counsel, for the State/respondents. August 12, 2020 Hon’ble Ravi Malimath, A.C.J. Hon’ble Narayan Singh Dhanik, J. (Per : Narayan Singh Dhanik, J.) Facts, to the limited extent necessary, are that the petitioner-respondent no. 5 filed a Writ Petition (M/S) 1759/2019 challenging the order dated 17.5.2019, passed by the Chief Superintendent, District Hospital, Uttarkashi, by which the present appellant (respondent no. 5 in the writ petition) was granted permission to open a shop of generic medicines inside the Government Civil Hospital at Uttarkashi. Vide the order under appeal dated 26.6.2020, a learned Single Judge of this Court partly allowed the writ petition and quashed the order dated 17.5.2019, but refused to allot the shop, in question, in favour of the writ petitioner and further directed the State Government to constitute a committee and allot the shop afresh following the relevant rules and the guidelines issued by the learned Single Judge. The learned Single Judge observed that there seemed to be no transparency while allotting the shop either to the petitioner (who was the earlier allottee) or to the private respondent-appellant (who was the subsequent allottee) and the committee did not give any reason as to why amongst the 5-6 candidates, who participated in the allotment process, only the private respondent-appellant was chosen for the allotment of the 2 shop. Being aggrieved, the private respondent no. 5 has come up in appeal before this Court. We have heard learned Senior Counsel for the appellant and the learned State Counsel. It transpires that earlier “No Objection Certificate” was issued in favour of the writ petitioner to open the shop, in question, but subsequently a fresh process was initiated for the purpose and ultimately the shop, in question was allotted to the present appellant without assigning any reason. This is clearly arbitrary, and such an action which is arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair and against the principles of distributive justice and public policy is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. For the sake of convenience, Article 14 is reproduced as under: “14. Equality before law.—The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” In view of the settled legal position and also the fact that no reasons have been assigned for denying the shop to other participants including the writ petitioner and for allotting the same in favour of the appellant, we are of the considered view that the learned Single Judge has rightly quashed the said order dated 17.5.2019 and directed to initiate the fresh allotment process. Hence, we are satisfied that the order under appeal does not necessitate any interference by this Court in the present intra-Court appeal. Consequently, the Special Appeal is dismissed. (Narayan Singh Dhanik, J.) (Ravi Malimath, A.C.J.) Pr