Judgment

Y.K. Sabharwal, J.—The marketing of petroleum products has been quite a lucrative business. The four public sector oil companies --Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPC), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPC) and IBP Company Limited (IBP) control the marketing of the said products. We are concerned with the marketing of petrol and diesel, Superior Kerosene Oil (SKO), Light Diesel Oil (LDO) and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). The challenge in these matters is to the validity of the order of the Government of India dated 8th August, 2002 whereby all allotments made with respect to retail outlets, LPG distributorships and SKO-LDO dealerships on the recommendations of the Dealer Selection Boards (DSBs) since 1st January, 2000 were decided to be cancelled.

2. In past also allotments of retail outlets for petroleum products were cancelled by this Court after coming to the conclusion that the allotments made were arbitrary, on account of political connections/motivation and extraneous considerations. The tainted allotments were also cancelled by various orders of High Court of Delhi. The allotments which were on merits and not taint