IMPORTANT POINT: No absolute bar applies to exercising the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

A.Y. KOGJE, J.

1. This appeal is preferred by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (hereafter referred to as “the Corporation” for short) and its territorial manager against the oral judgment dated 10.05.2013 passed in Special Civil Application No.7619 of 2011.

2. By the impugned judgment, the Single Judge has allowed the petition filed by the respondent and quashed the order dated 20.08.2010 (Annexure-G), which pertains to the termination of agreement of dealership of the respondent (Original Petitioner).

3. Brief facts are that the respondent was selected by the corporation for allotment of the dealership at Harij which was reserved for the category of women of Scheduled Caste.

On being selected, the respondent made necessary arrangements for developing infrastructure to facilitate the running of dealership at her own cost. The dealership agreement came to be executed between the corporation and the respondent on 15.03.2008 and thereafter, supplementary agreement which was for the period of 15 years was also executed. On 22.07.2009, the officer of the Quality Control Cell of the corporation checked and inspected petrol pump. During inspection, they found the stock to be proper, density was proper and thereafter, checked delivery of petrol and diesel from the dispensing unit, however, on rechecking, the team found shortage of 210 Ml. in its delivery.

It is on account of this short-fall in delivery through the dispensing unit, a show-cause notice dated 14.09.2009 came to be issued upon the respondent to show cause within a period of 7 days against the irregularities alleged, for taking action which would include termination of dealership. A reply to the show-cause notice was given by the respondent vide her reply dated 30.09.2009 and thereafter, the respondent was communicated with decision dated 20.08.2010, under which the agreement of dealership of the respondent with the corporation was stood terminated with immediate effect. It is this decision, which was subject matter of challenge in the writ petition, which ultimately came to be quashed under the impugned oral judgment.

4. The corporation has filed the appeal challenging the findings of this Court in the impugned order contending that there is no violation of principles of natural justice as show-cause notice dated 14.09.2009 was issued for termination of the dealership of the respondent. It is further contended that it is on account of the misconduct adopted by the respondent in shortage of delivery of the fuel through its dispensing unit when the inspection team carried out the checking and inspection of the dealership premises of the respondent. It is contended that one of the dispensing unit bearing No.OE310 of MIDCO model 981C which was being used for dispensing high speed diesel when checked in “Flash Mode” of 555.55 against the delivery of 5 liters, was delivering 210 ml short which was beyond the permissible limit of 10 ml. Such shortage of delivery was observed on three consecutive occasions of deliveries made for inspection in the “Flash Mode”. It was during inspection found that when the dispensing unit switched off and restarted, then against the delivery of 5 liters, the dispensing unit was delivering 10 ml short which was within the permissible limit. It was further contended that there was a report of the company manufacturing dispensing unit, after carrying out the examination of the dispensing unit that the software in the chip regulating dispensation of the fuel was not that which was originally installed by the manufacturer of the dispensing unit on behalf of the corporation. It was further contended that the respondent had initially filed Regular Civil Suit No.06 of 2010 challenging the dealership, termination order and the said Civil Suit, came to be disposed by an order dated 21.03.2011 by the Civil Judge at Harij on the basis of arbitration clause-19 and holding that no jurisdiction was available with the Civil Court to entertain the Civil Sui