( 1 ) THE petitioner was appointed as a dealer of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. , (HPCL) (not a party to the writ petition ). Sy reason of the same, he is permitted to sell in retail motor spirit (petrol and high speed diesel ). He has been in the business in yanam in Pondicherry for the last seven years. On 14-10-2002, Indian Oil corporation Ltd. , (IOC,) Visakhapatnam invited bids in sealed covers for providing land to IOC on lease for a period of thirty years at various places including at Yanam. The bids have to be submitted to the second respondent at Visakhapatnam. Aggrieved by the same, the petitioner filed the writ petition seeking a declaration that the action of the ioc in issuing notification inviting sealed tenders for offering land on lease for establishing petroleum outlet is illegal and arbitrary. His main contention is that Yanam is a small place where there are already adequate number of petroleum outlets of various companies and that if another outlet is licensed in Yanam, the same would be detrimental to his business as a dealer of hpcl. He also apprehends that oil companies have prescribed sales targets to be achieved by various petroleum