Smt. Meena Singh and Another vs The Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. and Others

Hon''ble Mr. Keshav Kumar Trivedi, J.—The petitioners have come before this Court praying for invoking the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India by this Court in the matter of selection of respondent No. 3 for grant of dealership of retail outlet for the place the petitioners have also made application, pursuant to impugned order dated 7-3-2011, contending inter alia that the application of the petitioners was rejected on the flimsy ground and against such an action, the petitioners were required to approach this Court by way of filing a writ petition. During the pendency of the said writ petition, interview call letter was issued to the petitioners, therefore, they appeared before the Committee of the respondents, submitted the documents. However, again the claim of the petitioners has been rejected saying that they have failed to produce the original documents in proof of the fact that the petitioners have financial viability to establish the retail outlet and that they have not produced the original document of lease deed. According to the petitioners, such a lame excuse was taken by the respondents only to oust the petitioners from selection and thereby illegally respondent No. 3 has been selected. It is contended that such an act of the respondents is an arbitrary action in view of the fact that the petitioners have placed on record other documents to indicate that they have financial viability, capability of establishing the retail outlet, but other documents were never assessed and only because they failed to produce two FDRs, the entire application was rejected at the threshold and no marks were assigned to the petitioners in all categories. According to the petitioners, such an act of the respondents is per se illegal, it being an arbitrary, malafide device of the authorities of the respondents. The contentions of the petitioners are that pursuant to the advertisement (Annexure P-1), they submitted an application for grant of dealership at NH-75 Extension from Churhat Hospital towards Sidhi. It was an open category retail outlet. For the said outlet, financial viability was fixed at Rs. 20,00,000/-. The petitioners along with their application submitted the relevant documents. Though, it was reflected in the advertisement that at the time of interview originals of such documents were required to be produced, but since the two FDRs were not renewed, the originals were not available with the petitioners and, therefore, the same could not be produced. It is contended that all other relevant documents relating to financial capabilities of the petitioners were produced at the time of interview and if the assessment of the financial capacity of the petitioners would have been done on the basis of those documents, they were having a capacity of more than Rs. 24,80,000/- and even if the value of two FDRs was reduced from the said financial capability of the petitioners, they had a sufficient capability of about Rs. 22,00,000/- and could not be Completely barred under the category in which they have applied for taking part in Selection. It is contended that such reasons as have been assigned by the respondents are not justified and, therefore, the entire claim of the petitioners was not to be rejected. It is contended that the law is well settled by the Apex Court in this respect in various cases and it is settled that on the basis of other documentary evidence of which the originals were produced by the petitioners before the Interview Committee, their claim was to be assessed and they were not to be ignored nor their application was to be rejected in the manner it has been by the respondents. It is, therefore, claimed that after quashing the selection of respondent No. 3, the respondent-Corporation be commanded to assess the merits of the petitioners for grant of dealership on the place for which application is made by the petitioners.

Refuting the allegations made in the writ petition, the respondent Nos. 1 and 2 have filed a return. With the return, the respondents have placed on record a scheme formulated and the guidelines issued for consideration of the applications. It is contended that the brochure issued by the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ''Corporation'') contains specific conditions of production of documents. There is a procedure prescribed as to how the documents are to be considered. It is contended that if such instructions are taken into consideration, the petitioners have failed to produce the relevant documents and, therefore, their claim was rightly rejected. It is further contended by the respondent-Corporation that there is a system of evaluation for dealer''s selection prescribed by the Corporation by issuing the policy circular No. 90-10/2005. It is specifically contended in the return that if separate stage for consideration of documents are prescribed and for each stage, the committees have been formulated, it is necessary for the candidates to pass through all such stages and then only they are to be interviewed. It is contended that this being a matter relating to an offer of doing business with the Corporation, subjective satisfaction of the Corporation is paramount and whether the Corporation is willing to do business with a particular person or not is dependent on such subjective satisfaction. For testing the genuineness and good relationship in the business, if the Corporation has prescribed certain parameters and has fixed certain committees to evaluate documents etc. and only on the basis of such stages, if the Corporation has provided conditions precedent to be satisfied, to choose the person for doing the business,'' it cannot be said that any arbitrary action is taken by the Corporation. Drawing attention of this Court to the prescription of Committees, it is said that there is level one committee, which is required to scrutinize the applications and award marks to the candidates in respect of the parameters, which are based on documents. The availability of land and infrastructure to establish a retail outlet is required to be examined by another committee if an applicant clears the test of level one committee. However, if the applicant is not approved by the level one committee, his/her application is put out of selection and no further actions are taken by other committees. The last committee is known as Selection Committee. Any candidate is called for interview only if the candidate is cleared through the above said two committees. Reading the provisions of the circular of the Corporation, it is contended that the Corporation has taken a complete care to maintain transparency and fairness in selection and for that purposes, while directing constitution of committee, it has been categorically said that the officers of a particular category should not continue in the committee for a long period of time. Preferably, they should not continue for more than a week. Thus, in a transparent manner, the application of the petitioners was examined. The level one committee found that the petitioners have not produced the originals of the FDRs. Bringing to notice the copies of the FDRs placed by the petitioners for consideration before the said Committee, it is contended that the FDRs, which were matured in the years 2008 and 2010, were never renewed and, thus, the Committee thought that the petitioners were not correct in placing such documents for making a claim. It is further said that the original lease deed of the land was never produced by the petitioners on the excuse that the same was taken by the lessee. Since this was not acceptable in terms of the specific provisions made in the brochure as indicated in the advertisement, the application of the petitioners was rightly rejected.

Learned Counsel for respondent No. 3 has contended that in all fairness the selection was done. The respondent No. 3 was earlier also selected for grant of retail outlet. Since the petitioners were agitating, the respondent No. 3 was required to take part in the selection once again. Second time also, the respondent No. 3 is selected on merits, but because of the writ petition, the respondent No. 3 is not being granted the Letter of Indent. Stating that as has been categorically pointed out that the petitioners were called upon to produce the originals, but since they failed to produce the originals of FDRs and the lease deed, their application was rightly rejected, it is contended that the petition is totally misconceived and liable to be dismissed.

Heard learned Counsel for parties at length and perused the records.

No doubt, there is a provision made that marking is to be done on the basis of documents made available at the time of making of the application. However, it is also specifically provided that originals of the documents-are required to be produced at the time of interview before the Committee. It is also provided that no applicant will be allowed to produce any document after filing of the applications. The marks, which are to be assigned, are also indicated in the advertisement. The caution is also given in the advertisement and the brochure that failure to produce originals of the documents before the Committee will entail rejection of the application. As has been contended, the petitioners were required to submit the documents in support of their claim made with respect to the financial viability and providing the land and other infrastructure for establishing the retail outlet. It was necessary on the part of the petitioners to produce the documents, if such documents were required to be taken into consideration. If the petitioners were of the opinion that even if the FDRs are excluded, they can be assessed to be financially capable of establishing the retail outlet, they should not have relied on the FDRs at all. But, once the documents of FDRs were added in the financial capability, it was the duty on the part of the petitioners to produce the originals of the said documents. The petitioners were required to produce such a document for evaluation, at the stage when the application was to be assessed by the level one committee of the respondent Corporation. It was not open to the petitioners at that time to withdraw the FDRs from consideration of financial viability. There were specific provisions made in the guidelines in that respect. Why this was necessary, because it was not an ordinary thing but a faith to be generated in the Corporation that the petitioners were fit persons to do business with. This Court, Bench at Gwalior, considering such circumstances has held in one of the cases, where a particular document, a medical certificate, was not accepted and the Committee has rejected the claim, that the action of the Corporation was proper and in accordance to the clauses mentioned in the brochure and, therefore, no interference in such a case was necessary. The said order of learned Single Judge has been affirmed by the Division Bench of this Court at Gwalior by rejecting the writ appeal.

Learned Counsel for the petitioners has placed reliance in case of Dolly Chhanda Vs. Chairman, JEE and Others, , and drawing attention of this Court to Paragraph 7 of the findings recorded by the Apex Court, has contended that merely because such a document was not produced by the petitioners, it could not be said that the petitioners were totally ineligible to take part in the selection. It is contended that if it was shown that there was sufficient proof of the fact that the petitioners were qualified before the relevant date, they should not have been denied the benefit of taking part in the selection by assigning them marks for each category. Such a contention of the learned Counsel for the petitioners cannot be accepted in view of the fact that the qualification prescribed for taking part in university examination or selection and relaxation in such qualification is totally different and distinguishable from a trade or a business selection in case of grant of retail outlet dealership. It is to be seen that such persons, who are willing to do business with the Corporation are trustworthy and have produced all such documents on which they have placed reliance before the Committee of the Corporation for the purposes of examining their eligibilities, their viability and the truthfulness. The Corporation is required to supply the petroleum product to such retail outlet and the reputation of the Corporation that it is doing the business with right persons, is to be maintained. For the said purposes, if certain parameters are prescribed and adhered to, it cannot be said that such adherence to the specific provisions made in the brochure were to be relaxed for a particular person. If this is allowed for a particular person only and adhered to others, in the considered opinion of this Court, would be a discriminatory act of Corporation and would be hit by Article 14 of the Constitution of India. Further, there may be other persons also who could be dealt with similarly but since they have not come to the Court, only if in petition of petitioners such directions are issued to the Corporation, that too would not be justified for this Court. All are to be treated alike.

Learned Counsel for the petitioners has further placed reliance in case of R.S. Garg Vs. State of U.P. and Others, and has contended that as per the law laid down by the Apex Court, the relaxation was available to the petitioners. The said case is also relating to selection in service, grant of permission and the consideration of such relaxed eligibility in selection. That being a totally different sphere, the analogy as laid down in the said case would not be applicable in the present case. Here the discretionary power is to be exercised only if the Corporation is satisfied that such a person or an applicant is trustworthy to do the business with. Choosing a person with these parameters cannot be said to be arbitrary action of the respondent-Corporation. In view of the aforesaid, the factual aspects, the parameters of the consideration being different, the reliance placed by the learned Counsel for the petitioners in the aforesaid case is misconceived.

Learned Counsel for respondent No. 3 relying on the case of Trideshwar Dayal and Another Vs. Maheshwar Dayal and Others, contended that if the valuation is done in the appropriate manner, exercising such powers it cannot be said that such an action was unjustified. It is seen that the said case was with respect to valuation of the property for the purposes of fixing the stamp duty. There was specific power conferred on the authorities and in exercise of such power, if the authorities have valued the property, it was held that such an act was just and proper. It is contended by the learned Counsel for the respondent No. 3 that such a valuation of financial viability of the petitioners was to be done according to the instructions in the brochure and since they failed to produce the originals of the FDRs, it was rightly decided that the other documents of the petitioners were not to be evaluated. This may be a different situation, but, of course, if a person is to be selected for the purposes of doing business, the subjective satisfaction of the respondent-Corporation was necessary. To arrive at such a subjective satisfaction, if the Committee duly constituted by the Corporation has held that the petitioners were not to be assessed for financial viability on the basis of remaining documents, it cannot be said that such an act of the Committee of the respondent-Corporation was arbitrary, malafide or illegal in any manner.

In the totality of circumstances as have come on record, since the petitioners of their own have claimed the benefit of FDRs and knowing fully well that they were required to produce original FDRs at the time of evaluation, have failed to produce the same before the Competent Committee of the respondent-Corporation, it cannot be said that the respondent-Corporation in rejecting the claim of the petitioners has committed any wrong. In view of the aforesaid, no case is made out to interfere in the selection made by the respondent-Corporation. The petition fails and is hereby dismissed but with no order as to cost.