Every action of the State must be informed by reason, and lack of reasons for rejection of applications may render the action arbitrary and subject to challenge.

U.P.Singh, J.

1. All these cases have been heard together since the impugned order is one and common and this judgment will govern all of them.

2. For appointment of Coal Agents for the periods from 1-11-1988 to 31-10-1991, applications were invited in pursuance of the advertisement in the newspapers. A Committee was constituted consisting of respondents 2 to 7 under the Chairmanship of respondent No. 2. The applications so received in pursuance of the advertisement were considered by the said Committee. Certain conditions were imposed and the applicants were required to submit their applications annexing certain documents such as, Treasury Chalan of Rs. 2,000 experience certificate, income-tax clearance certificate, commercial taxes clearance certificate, from the nationalised Bank concerning financial soundness of the applicants and affidavit stating whether the applicant or his father or brother or any member of his family were convicted for any offence under the Essential Commodities Act or in any other criminal case and also stating whether such criminal cases were pending or not.

3. In accordance with the said advertisement, applications were submitted along with the Treasury Chalan of Rs. 2,000 and the required documents were also annexed. In their meeting on 4-8-1988, the Committee consisting of respondents 2 to 7, by the impugned order contained in Annexure-1 annexed to C.W.J.C. No. 7986 of 1989, rejected the applications filed by these petitioners without assigning reason whatsoever, the applications of all these petitioners were rejected by stating that certificates from the Bank were defective; in some cases certificates from the Income-tax Department so issued were defective; in some cases affidavits were found to be defective and so on. It will be relevant to notice that the order rejecting these applications contained in Annexure-1 did not state any reason whatsoever as to what was the particular defect found in each case. These petitioners were left to imagine the grounds of rejection of their applications since no reason was assigned for such rejection of their applications since no reason was assigned for such rejection. Such blanket order cannot be treated as due consideration of the individual cases. Consideration does not mean subjective consideration and the applications could not be thrown out on imaginary grounds. The impugned order, thus, suffers from vagueness and the order is cryptic. A persons right for being considered to be appointed as such as a Coal Agent could not be rejected without informing him the grounds and the reasons weighing in the mind of the authority for rejecting his application.

4. It has now been well-settled by the Supreme Court in the case of life Insurance Corporation of India V/s. Escorts Ltd. and Ors. -- , that every action of the State or an instrumentality of the State must be informed by reason and in appropriate cases, actions uninformed by reason may be questioned as arbitrary in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

5. For the reasons aforementioned, the impugned order contained in Annexure-1 annexed to C.W.J.C. No. 7936 of 1989 which is common to all the writ applications is quashed in so far as the cases of these petitioners are concerned.

6. In the result, these writ applications are allowed and the respondents are directed to reconsider the cases of these petitioners in the light of the decision and observations made above within one month from the date of receipt of the certified copy of this order since out of a period of three years commencing from the 1st November, 1988, expiring on the 31st October, 1991, hardly ten months are now left.