Court No. - 39
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 14680 of 2021 Petitioner :- Sangeeta Gupta Respondent :- Union Of India & Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Gaurav Tripathi Counsel for Respondent :- Pranjal Mehrotra
Hon'ble Mrs. Sunita Agarwal,J. Hon'ble Mrs. Sadhna Rani (Thakur),J.
Sri Pranjal Mehrotra learned counsel has put in appearance on behalf of the respondent No.2 i.e. National Highway Authority of India and Sri Rakesh Kumar for respondent-Corporation.
The petitioner herein is running the retail outlet for petrol and diesel allotted by the Hindustan Petrol Corporation Limited. It is contended that the respondent No.5 has been allotted another outlet at the distance of 7 meter by the Indian Oil Corporation.
For establishment of outlet at such distance, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had issued a guidelines which is appended as Annexure No.'8' to the writ petition. The attention of the Court is invited to page no.'91' of the paper book to submit that the map submitted by the Indian Oil Corporation for construction of the retail outlet allotted to the respondent No.5 is in contradiction to clause 4.6.3 of the said guidelines.
The Submission is that there is no acceleration/deceleration lane in the map submitted by the Indian Oil Corporation and, moreover, creation of such lane is not possible at the spot of the outlet-in-question.
Prayers in the writ petition are as under:-
"(i) Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned No Objection issued by the respondent no. 4 numbered as 178/ D.L.R.C./ Ri.A.Le./2021-22 dated 29.05.2021 (Annexure No.2)
(ii) Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned provisional No Objection quashing the impugned provisional No Objection dated 22.02.2021 numbered 19001/1/RO-W-UP/NH- 19/Ch.305.647/NOC/634 (Annexurre No.1) issued by the respondent no.2 in favour of respondent no.5.
(iii) Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondent no.2 to decide the objection of the petitioner filed on 16.02.2021. (Annexure no.7)."
The submission of the learned Senior counsel for the petitioner is that the National Highway Authority of India did not consider this aspect of the matter while issuing No-Objection Certificate to respondent No.5 and hence the provisional No Objection Certificate dated 22.02.2021 is liable to be cancelled.
Considering the above submissions, noticing the fact that the No Objection Certificate issued by the National Highway Authority is a provisional certificate which is subject to the adherence of the terms and conditions for establishment of the retail outlet, we find that the compliance of the conditions laid down by the National Highway Authority of India is to be ensured by the Indian Oil Corporation for establishment of the retail outlet.
Sri Rakesh Kumar learned counsel for the respondent- Corporation cannot dispute that it is the duty of the Indian Oil Corporation to ensure compliance of the directions issued by the National Highway Authority of India for establishment of the retail outlet/dealership for petrol and diesel.
Considering the above, we dispose of the present writ petition with the directions as follows:-
1. The petitioner shall submit his detail objections alongwith the copy of this order within a period of three weeks from today before the competent officer of the Indian Oil Corporation.
2. In case, such an application is filed, the concerned authority shall look into all the objections taken by the petitioner and deal with the same in the manner to ensure strict compliance of the guidelines/conditions/directions issued by the National Highway Authority of India.
It would, however, be open for the Corporation to rectify the error at this stage only, i.e before establishment of the retail outlet.
Order Date :- 30.7.2021 Himanshu Digitally signed by Justice Sunita Agarwal Date: 2021.07.30 19:35:53 IST Reason: Document Owner Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad Digitally signed by Sadhna Rani Thakur Date: 2021.07.30 19:36:20 IST Reason: Document Owner Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad