The main legal point established in the judgment is that a valid, particularized, and unambiguous show-cause notice is essential for decisions pertaining to blacklisting, and a failure to do so would be fatal to any order of blacklisting pursuant thereto.

JUDGMENT :

P. SAM KOSHY, J.

1. Aggrieved by the impugned order issued by the respondents No. 2 to 4 dated 23.10.2021 whereby the petitioners establishment has been blacklisted/degraded for a period of two years for the alleged ground of non performance, the present writ petition has been filed.

2. The impugned order has been challenged apart from other grounds on the ground of it being violative of principles of natural justice. The contention of the petitioner is that before passing of blacklisting/degrading order, the petitioner was never given any opportunity of hearing inasmuch as even no show-cause notice for the said action was ever issued to the petitioner.

3. Though the petitioner has challenged the said order on merits as well, this court had issued notices to the respondents No. 2 to 4 calling upon them to instruct this court as to whether any opportunity of hearing was given to the petitioner before the impugned order was passed. The respondents have filed their reply and in the reply the stand that they have taken is that before issuance of the impugned order of blacklisting/degrading the respondents infact had issued show-cause notices on three earlier occasions dated 17.05.2021, 04.06.2021 and 14.06.2021 and the petitioner had also submitted their reply to the said notices and it is only thereafter that the impugned order has been passed.

4. At this juncture the counsel for the petitioner submits that a perusal of aforementioned three show-cause notices would give a clear indication that show-cause notices were infact for the termination of contract on the ground of non performance by the petitioner. The said show-cause notices were totally silent so far as action proposed of blacklisting or for that matter degrading. Therefore, the counsel for the petitioner submits that the said show-cause notices cannot be treated as show-cause notices for the action of blacklisting and as such the action of blacklisting amounts to an order without opportunity of hearing and the same deserves to be struck down holding it to be without following the principles of natural justice.

5. Having heard the contentions put forth on either side and on perusal of records particularly going through the documents enclosed along with reply of the respondents, it would clearly reflect that the contents of three show-cause notices were of identical in nature. Show-Cause notices nowhere contemplated blacklisting or degrading to be the proposed action for which the show-cause notices have been issued. On the contrary, perusal of document Annexure P/13 with the writ petition would show that infact those notices were used for passing the said order dated 19.07.2021 whereby the contract issued in favour of the petitioner was terminated. This makes it clear that those proceedings which were drawn by the respondents were infact relating to termination of the contract and were not for the blacklisting or degrading part. This in other words also means that for the issuance of order of blacklisting dated 23.10.2021 which is under challenged in the present writ petition, there does not seem to have been any proceedings, nor any specific show-cause notice issued, nor opportunity of hearing given to the petitioner specifically proposing the action of blacklisting/degrading.

6. It would be relevant at this juncture to take note of the recent decision of the Supreme Court in case of UMC Technologies Pvt. Ltd. vs. Food Corporation of India and Others, 2021 (2) SCC 551, wherein the Supreme Court in paragraphs 13, 14, 19 and 21 held as under:

“13. At the outset, it must be noted that it is the first principle of civilised jurisprudence that a person against whom any action is sought to be taken or whose right or interests are being affected should be given a reasonable opportunity to defend himself. The basic principle of natural justice is that before adjudication starts, the authority concerned should give to the affected party a notice of the case against him so th