The court determined that unilateral delivery of commercial cylinders exceeded contractual obligations, infringing the petitioners' right to conduct business, while the presence of an arbitration clause did not preclude writ jurisdiction in cases of fundamental rights violation.

JUDGMENT :

(Bibek Chaudhuri, J.)

1. M/s CLS Limited a private company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 carries on the business of distributorship of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) in respect of sale and distribution of domestic LPG cylinders under the name of its business concerned M/s Anand HP Gas Service CLS Limited. The operation of the business of the said Gas Service is limited to an area in the district of Howrah. It is the case of the petitioners that for the purpose of distributorship business the petitioners constructed a godown having 12,000 KG capacity as per the norms and guidelines laid down by the respondent No.2 Company. The petitioners also obtained a fire license and other licenses necessary for carrying on the said business. The godown with storage articles has been insured by the National Insurance Company in due compliance with Clause 20 of the Dealership Agreement. The petitioners further contend that after entering into the dealership agreement with HPCL, the petitioners are bound by the terms and conditions mentioned in the Marketing Discipline Guidelines for LPG Distributorship which is published by the Oil Marketing Companies as per the Marketing Discipline Guidelines. The LPG Distributors are required to place timely and sufficient indents for filled cylinders and at the bottling plants of the Oil Marketing Companies to ensure timely delivery of filled cylinders to the customers. Therefore the companies are obliged to deliver packed LPG cylinders to the distributors according to their requirement. The grievance of the petitioners is that the respondent No.2 Company has been acting contrary to these norms and unilaterally dumping its products upon the petitioner without any order being placed by it. Furthermore, the company compels the petitioner to receive commercial cylinders and store them in their godown although, the distributorship was granted to the petitioner for domestic cylinders. Since the petitioner’s godown has 12,000 KG or 12 Metric tons capacity the petitioner is suffering from a space crunch to keep the cylinders supplied by the respondent No.2 in excess of the petitioner’s capacity. The petitioner is compelled to keep commercial cylinders in his godown in excess of its capacity and it is the reasonable apprehension of the petitioner that the Fire license and Trade license may be cancelled if any inspection is held by the said authorities of the government for storing cylinders in excess of the capacity of the godown. Therefore the petitioner was compelled to make representation before the respondent on 7th June, 2023 when the HPCL gave a specific target to distribute the cylinders both domestic and commercial, in most arbitrary and unjust manner. In spite of receipt of such representation the respondent No.2 did not stop their unilateral deliveries and continued to dump commercial cylinders to compel the petitioner to sell the same at a higher price than what is available in the open market.

2. On the above fact, the petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs:

a) Dispense with Rule 26 of the Writ Rules framed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for this Hon'ble Court;

b) A Writ of and/or in the nature of Mandamus do issue directing the respondents, their men, agents, servants, and assignees specifically the Respondents No. 2 to 7 not to unilaterally alter the indent of your Petitioners and not to deliver the commercial cylinder