1. In this writ petition the grievance of the petitioner is that his licence issued under Bihar Trade Articles (Licences Unification) Order, 1984 (Hereinafter referred to as Unification Order) has been cancelled without any show cause and without providing him with a copy of the order as also the refusal to renew his licence under the said, Unification Order.

2. From the show cause filed by the Sub-divisional Officer, West Muzaffarpur, it appears that under an agreement the petitioner was allowed to act as an agent of the Government under the public distribution system. The agreement provided allotment of food-stuff for the purpose of its distribution to card holders and others. One of the clauses of the agreement is termination of the said agreement to act as an agent of the Government without any notice and/or show cause.

3. It is said that on receipt of complaint in the matter of dealing with the distribution of the Government food-stuffs to the consumers, an enquiry was held in presence of the dealer where many consumers were examined. The Block Supply Officer, Paro, submitted an enquiry report to the Sub-divisional Officer. West Muzaffarpur on 199-87 in which he had stated that in spite of several oral warnings to the dealer he paid no heed to the warnings. It is said for this reason the licence of the dealer was cancelled on 16-12-87 by the sub-divisional officer, West Muzaffarpur vide letter No. 486 dated 21-12-87 and the petitioner was informed of this cancellation on 20-12-87. The petitioner refused to-receive the cancellation order after going through the contents of the order and his refusal is mentioned with a note dated 26-12-87 by the peon Gangdeo Singh of Paroo Anchal. It is denied that the petitioner was verbally informed about the cancellation and that the authorities were reluctant to supply him a copy of the cancellation order.

4. In paragraph-11 of the show cause, it has been mentioned that the dealer contravened and violated the provisions of the agreement between him and the respondent No. 3 and Bihar Traders Articles (Licence Unification) Order, 1984 hence the order of respondent No. 3 has not been against the principle of natural justice, arbitrary and mala fide.

5. Unfortunately neither the dealer nor the respondents seem to be clear of the legal position. A person in order to deal in foodstuffs must obtain a licence under the Unification Order but he has no right to be appointed under the public distribution system as fair price shop-keeper. Apart from being a licencee he has to act according to the terms and conditions of the agreement to continue as fair price shop-keeper. It is the discretion of the Government either to appoint a person as fair price shop-keeper or not to do so. If the Government appoints a person as a fair price shop-keeper, an agreement has to be executed therefor and as per the agreement the fair price shop-keeper has to act. If there is violation of the agreement or conditions thereof or the conduct of the fair price shopkeeper is not in consonance with the terms and conditions of the agreement or his acting and dealing do not inspire confidence, by adopting a fair procedure, the Government may terminate the agreement and refuse to allot any food-stuffs to the dealer in future. But this procedure or action will not affect the licence of the petitioner to carry on trade and business in food-stuffs on his own since for cancellation of the licence issued under the order certain statutory procedures have to be followed. The Unification Order provides modality as well as grounds when such order for cancellation can be made. From a perusal of the instant show cause it seems that the consumers were highly dissatisfied with the conduct of the petitioner which was spot verified in presence of the petitioner where some consumers were also examined. Therefore, the authorities fairly arrived at the conclusions that the petitioner is not fit to further act as a fair price shopkeeper