Court No. - 2
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 68503 of 2015 Petitioner :- Arvind Kumar Respondent :- State Of U.P. & 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Satya Narayan Yadav Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Dr. Kaushal Jayendra Thaker,J.
This petition challenges the order of suspension of fair price shop which later on culminated into cancellation of dealership of the petitioner. The petitioner preferred an appeal against the said first impugned order. The appellate authority also did not find favour for the petitioner and his appeal preferred pursuance to cancellation order, got rejected. Both these orders are under challenge before this Court.
The petitioner submits that his shop and its dealership has been put under suspension and cancellation merely on the basis of filing of an F.I.R. which could not have been done. He heavily relied on Division Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Smt. Raj Kumari Vs. State of U.P. and others, 2011 (3) ADJ 638 (DB). As against this, learned Counsel for the State has made his submission that a thorough enquiry was conducted. The petitioner did not even participate in the enquiry, did not file his reply and did not show that drum which was found were not his and, therefore, the enquiry was concluded against him. The submission made before me by the learned counsel for the petitioner whether it was his drum or not is a pure question of fact and they are now being decided by the State. In that view of the matter under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, I would not like to delve into the issue of disputed question of fact.
As far as the decision cited by learned counsel for the petitioner is concerned, it will not come to his aid as the cancellation and dismissal of appeal were based on merit and not only based on the fact that an F.I.R. was lodged. The F.I.R. was the first step when his dealership was placed under suspension. The later part is by way of an enquiry in which very conveniently, the petitioner did not participate. The question is can a person on fault now take benefit of his own fault, obviously the answer is No. The only reason for cancellation of his licence was not that he did not file reply but the facts which were placed before the authorities concerned were proved to come to a conclusion that there was irregularity and, therefore, his licence was cancelled.
The cancellation and dismissal of appeal has taken long time in the judgment cited (supra) and the shopkeeper's suspension had cause lot of inconvenience to the consumers. This is not a case as pointed out by the State.
The writ petition is devoid of merit and is dismissed.
Order Date :- 27.7.2018 Irshad