1. The Legal validity of the West Bengal Lubricating Oil Licensing Order, 1967, (in short, Licensing Order, 1967) and a notification being No. 2864-FS, dated 3rd August, 2000 are in challenge in this Writ Petition.

2. Petitioner No. 1 is the Lubricating Oil Dealers’ Association, a society registered under the West Bengal Society Registration Act, 1961 and the Petitioner No. 2 is the Vice-precedent of the Association.

3. The Petitioners say that the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 (in short, E. C. Act) was enacted at a time when there was acute crisis of some essential goods requiring the interference of the Government for maintenance equitable distribution and availability of such essential goods at a fair price, preventing hoarding black marketing etc. of such essential commodities. Similarly at one point of time there was a gap between the demand and supply of Lubricating Oil in the market for which both the supplies and price used to be controlled by the Central Government. But subsequently the entire scenario has changed radically. Several private enterprises, as well as Government undertakings were permitted to manufacture Lubricating Oil. Import was also allowed and t