Court No. - 39
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 16611 of 2021 Petitioner :- M/S J. Lal Filling Station Indian Oil Retail Outlet And Another Respondent :- Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. And Another Counsel for Petitioner :- Vinay Kumar Upadhyay,Pramod Bhardwaj Counsel for Respondent :- Anand Tiwari
Hon'ble Mrs. Sunita Agarwal,J. Hon'ble Mrs. Sadhna Rani (Thakur),J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri Rakesh Kumar learned counsel appearing for the respondent-Corporation.
The challenge is to the termination order dated 01.04.2021 regarding retail outlet dealership granted to the petitioner no.1.
Perusal of the order impugned indicates that the retail outlet was inspected on 17.05.2017 in the presence of the joint inspection team nominated by the District Magistrate, Agra. The constitution of the team has been given in the impugned order. During the course of inspection, irregularity in MS nozzle was found to the following effect:-
i. MIDCO DU Sr No 03GC0228GVR : 1 MS nozzle: Impression of tampering was found The above pulsar was sent to the Concerned OEM Lab for testing. The MIDCO Company has released/sent the test report No. MIDCO/TR/MEB/388) Vide letter ref: I/A/MP/17-18/197 dated 28.02.2018 as under:-
A show cause notice dated 25.05.2018 was, thereafter, served on the petitioners to which explanation was offered by it. It appears that at one stage of the proceedings, the petitioners had approached this Court wherein direction was given for affording personal hearing to the petitioner. The impugned order records that the petitioners had denied all the charges and raised objection with regard to the test report stating therein that the pulsar, the device confiscated by the Inspection Team, had not been sent to the Government Laboratory and the test report is against the guidelines. Further submission was that earlier the defect found in the pulsar, on the complaint made by the petitioners, was corrected by the manufacturing company and it was sealed thereafter. At the time of inspection, seal of the pulsar was not found broken or tampered. The submission, thus, is that the report that pulsar was found not in conformity with MIDCO Standard design as per the visual inspection report, thus, is incorrect.
Considering the said submission, having noticed that the inspection team had reported the impression of tampering in the pulsar, the claim of the petitioner that seal was found intact is incorrect.
As regards the tampering in the pulsar, the remarks given by the test lab noted above make it clear that tampering was made by addition of the cable in the pulsar which cannot be said to be the manufacturing defect.
As regards the claim of the petitioner that testing was not done by the Government laboratory, suffice it to say that the testing was done by the manufacturing company itself. After receipt of the test report, show cause notice had been issued to the petitioners and explanation submitted by it had been duly considered. Personal opportunity of hearing has been accorded to the petitioner no.2 in accordance with the directions issued by this Court.
In the said scenario, no infirmity can be found in the decision of the respondent.
The present petition is, thus, found devoid of merit and, hence, dismissed.
However, it is kept open for the petitioners to file an appeal by invoking under Clause 8.9 of the Marketing Guidelines by approaching the Dispute Redressal Forum. In case, such an appeal is filed, the same shall be decided without being influenced by any of the observations made hereinabove.
Order Date :- 28.7.2021 Radhika