JUDGMENT

Khare, CJI.-The respondent herein, is a sole proprietor of a Chartered Accountant firm in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. One of the statutory functions assigned to the appellant herein is to get the accounts of public sector undertakings and governments concerns audited by the Chartered Accountants. The audit work of the government and public sector undertakings is assigned to only those Chartered Accountant firms which are enrolled on the panel maintained by the appellant. In May, 1981, the appellant through an advertisement invited applications from the firms of the Chartered Accountants for the purpose of empanelment for audit of government companies. The aforesaid advertisement stipulated that excepting the States of Orissa, Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura, only the partnership firm of the Chartered Accountants were eligible for enrollment on the panel and the proprietary firms of the Chartered Accountants were made ineligible either to apply or to be empanelled for being assigned audit work of the government companies. However, in several States the proprietary firm based on those States was made eligible for being brought on the panel for audit