Judgment

SARKARIA, J.

( 1 ) THIS judgmentwill govern the disposal of these eight appeals filed on the strength of certificates of fitness granted by the High Court of Punjab of Haryana.

( 2 ) THE appellants have been carrying on business as liquor contractors. At the annual excise auctions held for the year 1968-69, they were the highest bidders for the country liquor vends at various places in the State of Punjab and the auctions were knocked down in their favour.

( 3 ) SINCE the question involved and basic facts - with immaterial variations - are common, it will be sufficient to refer to the facts of the case giving rise to Civil Appeal 1641 of 1971, in which only arguments have been specifically addressed to us by Shri T. S. Munjral, counsel for the appellant. The appellant-firm in this case gave the highest bids of Rs. 2,64,000. 00 and Rupees 1,03,000/- respectively, and got licences in Form L-14 for retail country liquor vends at Jandiala and Bundala in Jullundur District. The material conditions of the licences announced at the auction and accepted by the appellants, were that annual quotas of liquor (in proof litres) for the vends at Jandiala and Bundala were 11,000 and 4600 proofs, respectively. Of the annual licence fees representing the highest bids, 1/24th was to be deposited within seven days of the auction or by the last day of the month in which the auction took place. The appellantshad duly deposited these amounts before the 1/04/1966.

( 4 ) CONDITION 15 (ii) of the contract was that the licensee for retail vend of country spirit had to pay the whole amount of licence fee in 24 equal instalments, each instalment being payable by the 10th and 25th day of each month, beginning from the month of April, 1968.

( 5 ) CONDITION No. 18 reads as follows:

(I) A licensee shall not be entitled to any compensation or claim for damages if the supplies of country liquor to him falls short of the quota fixed in respect of his vend or vends. He will, however, he entitled to the refund of the proportionate license fee in such a contingency provided he established to the satisfaction of the Excise Commissioner that such a short-fall of supplies did not occur because of any fault on the part of the licensee himself. Such claims for refund shall be preferred and considered only after the close of the financial year 1968-69.

(II) Subject to availability and genuine demand of the area concerned, the Excise Commissioner or an Officer authorised by him in this behalf may, in his discretion allow additional quota of country liquor, i. e. over and above the quota fixed for his vend or vends on payment of proportionate additional licence-fee.

( 6 ) ACCORDING to condition No. 26, subject to the directions issued by the Excise Commissioner from time to time regulating the supplies from different distilleries in Punjab for various districts/areas, the licensed vendors were free to obtain their supplies of country spirit, wholly or partly from any of the licensed distilleries or the licensed ware-houses in Punjab.

( 7 ) UNDER condition No. 27, the retail vendors were to obtain their requirement of country spirit from the whole-sale vendors.

( 8 ) RULE 25 (2) of the Excise Rules provided :

subject to availability and genuine demands of the area concerned the Excise Commissioner or an Officer authorised by him in this behalf may, in his discretion, allow additional quota fixed for his vend on payment of proportionate additional licence fee.

( 9 ) THE appellants admittedly defaulted in the payment of certain instalments of the license-fee. Thereupon the Financial Commissioner cancelled the licence for Jandiala vend on October 2, 1969. The cancellation was revoked on 13/03/1969, Excepting this interlude of some days there is no dispute between the parties that the vends at both these places, despite defaults on the part of the licensee, were operated by the appellants for the whole year ending 31/03/1969. It was alleged in the writ petition that inst