Case: Shri Mahinder Kumar Gupta Etc Vs. Union Of India, Ministry Of Petroleum And Natural Gas

Writ Petition No. 253 of 1993 was filed by an Association and also a partner as an individual. Writ Petition No. 64 of 1994 was filed by the petitioner who is a widow and daughter of a dealer in petroleum products. These matters relate to the contracts of dealership or distributorship of petroleum products awardable by the Government of India Undertakings. In the first case, admittedly, the appellantsis already having a dealership for distribution of petroleum products. In the second case it is an admitted fact that one of the appellants partners is already having a dealership of petroleum products and in the third case, the appellants mother is already having a dealership of petroleum products

Court's reasoning:
In this case, we are concerned with dealership of petroleum products applicable for all categories in which clause (b) prescribes ineligibility of persons if one of the persons mentioned therein has already a dealership. It is seen that one of the conditions subject to which a candidate is entitled to apply for grant of dealership is that his spouse father/mother, brother/sister, son/daughter,aw if already had been given dealership, he/she is made ineligible to apply for dealership. In the case of partnerships, partners should individually fulfil theeligibility criteria/conditions and all of them must appear for an interviewis true that in case of physically handicapped persons, only three classes of persons were made ineligible. Physically handicapped persons have been treated as a class by themselves. Under these circumstances, any other person other than PH, cannot claim parity with PH persons. As far as partnership is concerned, if one of the persons either have a dealership or relations who were found to be eligible under the relationship criteria, and had the dealership, then clause 10 of the said guidelines gets attracted and such partnership also did not become eligible to apply for dealership/distributorship. The object of clause 10 appears to be that for those partners who either one among themselves or any of the relations of one of the partners had a dealership, the other partner or the specified relations also not be eligible to apply for grant of dealership individually or as a member of the partnership. Therefore, the guidelines are based on public policy to give effect to the constitutional creed of Part IV of the Indian Constitution6. Under these circumstances, we find no arbitrariness or unjustness in prescription of the guidelines for the eligibility criteria. The second writ petition stands liable to be dismissed on the sole ground that the Association cannot file a writ petition as it has no fundamental right under Article 32 of the Constitution.