By the Court.—We have heard Sri V.B. Upadhyaya, learned senior counsel assisted by Sri Ashok Tripathi for the petitioner. Sri Prakash Padia, appears for respondent Nos. 2 and 3 - Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

2. The petitioner is aggrieved by the letter of Territory Manager (Retail), Meerut of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (hereinafter called as the BPCL) dated 5.9.2006 withdrawing the Letter of Intent (LOI) dated 10.2.2001 for the proposed MS/HSD Retail Outlet Dealership at Kaushambi, District Ghaziabad.

3. Brief facts giving rise to the writ petition are that the petitioner applied in pursuance to the advertisement issued in the year 2001 published in daily newspapers, for proposal to appoint retail outlet dealer for kerosene-L.D.O. at locations given in the advertisement in the State of U.P. Item No. 4 in the advertisement, was in respect of retail out dealership at Kaushambi in District Ghaziabad, in open general category, for which last date for receipt of application was 10.10.2000. In respect of details of the land and the location, the advertisement provided as follows :

“Applicable for Retail Outlet Dealerships only (Not Applicable for locations reserved for SC/ST Categories): The applicant should furnish, alongwith the application, details of land which he/she may make available for the dealership, considering the location of the land from the point of view of commercial angle. Applicants willing to transfer the land on ownership/long lease to the oil company at the rates acceptable to the oil company would be given preference. If an applicant, after selection, is unable to provide the land indicated by him/her earlier, within a period of 2 months, the allotment of the dealership made to him/her would be cancelled.”

4. In Para 12 of the advertisement, applicable for locations reserved for SC/ST categories, the oil company made a provision for the following facilities as per prevalent policies for retail outlet dealership, and which provided for (a) land and its development (b) Sales room (c) Drive way (d) Compound wall, etc.

5. The petitioner was selected and was issued a letter of intent dated 10.2.2001. Para 10 of the letter of intent provided that the letter is merely a letter of intent, and is not be construed as a ‘firm offer’ of dealership. The dealership will be on petitioner’s complying with the terms and conditions spelt out in the letter of intent, and confirmed/formalized by an appointment letter, followed by signing of dealership agreement by both the parties.

6. The petitioner could not arrange for the land. It is alleged in the writ petition that the land was either not available or could not be provided by the Ghaziabad Development Authority (hereinafter called as the ‘GDA’) to the petitioner. The petitioner also made a request to the respondent - BPCL for approaching the GDA for land on the proposed site. The BPCL by its letter dated 17.3.2001, requested the Vice Chairman of the GDA, to provide for a suitable land for establishment of retail outlet. In response to the said request, the GDA vide letter dated 13.8.2001 informed the BPCL, that it has no land at Kaushambi for retail outlet. The matter thereafter remained pending for several years, in which the petitioner repeatedly requested the BPCL to provide suitable land for establishment of retail outlet.

7. During the pendency of the correspondences, to provide land for establishing retail outlet, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India reviewed the marketing guidelines vide its letter dated 17.11.2005, in order to make more objective and transparent on various aspects of marketing of petroleum products. The guidelines provided for (i) Reconstitution/resitement/revival of dealerships/distributorships; (ii) Allotment of retail outlets to landowners on the basis of direct offers of land.

8. The policy of resitement of dealerships/distributorships, was divided into two stages viz.., LOI stage, and the stage where dea