Ratan Choudhary vs State Of Bihar

Heard Mr. Amrendra Kumar Sinha No. 1, learned Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Alok Ranjan for the State.

On the grievance of the petitioner being voiced that despite the process of selection being over, no license was being granted to him, the matter was inquired into and it was learnt that because of pending litigation brought about by erstwhile lincesees not having been disposed of by courts of law, no decision is being taken and licenses are not granted to the contenders, who have been selected on the instruction of the department that no license would be granted in case there is any dispute with respect to such vacant shop and such dispute not having been resolved by the judiciary.

This court had observed on 18.08.2022 that such administrative instruction stands against the basic mandate of the Control Order, 2016 which enjoins upon the concerned authorities to fill up the vacant positions and keep it a continuous process so that the targeted beneficiaries are not put to any difficult situation so far as supply of essential commodities are concerned.

In one of the hearings of this writ petition, this Court had asked Mr. Alok Ranjan, learned counsel for the State to bring on record such administrative instruction.

The learned counsel for the petitioner has rightly pointed out that the reference of the administrative letter under the garb of which no license was being issued to the candidates who were selected as licensees was with respect to different issue altogether.

Thus, it appears that till this date, the petitioner has not been granted license despite his having been selected for the same out of some confusion and essentially because of the lackadaisical approach of the departmental authorities.

This cannot be countenanced.

Under the aforesaid circumstances, we direct the District Magistrate, Madhubani to look into the matter on the petitioner presenting a copy of this order and in case it is found that there is no embargo or impediment in granting license to a person against whom the selection process has concluded and he has been found to be suitable, necessary direction shall be issued for issuance of license to him. In case there is any other impediment apart from the one which has been shown in the counter affidavit and which has been found to be non-existent viz. no license in case of any dispute having not been resolved by the courts of law, the reason for such non-grant of license shall be made available to the petitioner for him to agitate against such stand at an appropriate forum.

This shall be done by the District Magistrate, Madhubani within a period of sixty days from the date presentation of a copy of this order. The District Magistrate is further directed to maintain the timeline provided in the order.

With the aforesaid directions/observations the writ petition stands disposed of.