Court No. - 49
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 256 of 2017 Petitioner :- Durvijay Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Upendra Upadhyay Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Manu Singh,Vikram Singh
Hon'ble Siddhartha Varma,J.
A show cause notice was issued on 29.8.2012, the service of which, in paragraphs no. 5 and 6 of the writ petition has been denied. The licence to run the Fair Price Shop, thereafter, was cancelled on 7.12.2012. The petitioner filed an Appeal which was also dismissed on 21.9.2016. Hence the instant writ petition.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the impugned order by the Sub Divisional Officer, Aliganj, District Etah, was passed only on the basis of the fact that no reply was submitted to the show cause notice. He submits that if a reply was not submitted, then it was incumbent upon the respondents to have proceeded further with the enquiry. The enquiry did not conclude if the reply was not submitted. A date, time and place for the enquiry ought to have been fixed and, thereafter, the petitioner should have been also given an opportunity to cross- examine the witnesses.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the enquiry ought to have been conducted as per the Government Orders dated 29.7.2004 and 16.10.2014. Learned counsel further relies on two decisions of this Court dated 3.5.2016 (Jagdish Rai vs. State of U.P. & 2 Ors.) and 23.10.2017 (Aajad Kumar vs. State of U.P. and 2 Others) passed in Writ C No. 16848 of 2014 and Writ C No. 46681 of 2017 respectively.
Learned Standing Counsel, however, submitted that the petitioner's submission that the enquiry should have been proceeded with even if no reply was submitted by the petitioner is a bit too far fetched. He submits that when no reply was filed then the preliminary enquiry on the basis of which proceedings were initiated alone could have been relied upon while passing orders.
Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, I am of the view that the writ petition deserves to be allowed. It is settled law that an enquiry ought to be conducted even if no reply was given. Once a notice was issued and a reply was not be submitted, a place, time and date ought to have been fixed for further enquiry. The petitioner should have been allowed to produce his own witnesses and should have also been permitted to cross-examine the witnesses upon whose statements the State Authorities were relying upon. However, I am not convinced that the petitioner was not aware of the show cause notice as the show cause notice also contained the order of suspension and the petitioner's essential commodities must have been stopped thereafter.
In view of the above, the writ petition is allowed. The impugned order dated 7.12.2012 passed by the respondent no. 3 and the order dated 21.9.2016 passed by the respondent no. 2 are quashed.
The matter is remanded back to the Sub Divisional Officer who shall now decide the matter afresh within a period of one month from the date of presentation of a certified copy of this order as per the Government Orders dated 29.7.2004 and 16.10.2014 and as per the law laid down in Puran Singh Vs. State of U.P. and Others reported in 2010 (2) UPLBEC 947.
Order Date :- 21.8.2019 praveen.
(Siddhartha Varma,J.)