Hon’ble Siddhartha Varma, J.—When the fair price shop of the respondent No. 4, namely, Bhavnath Singh was suspended on 13.5.2016 and when it was thereafter upon an enquiry restored on 8.2.2017, the petitioner who was aggrieved by the restoration of the fair price shop filed an appeal which was numbered as 68 of 2017. However, when the petitioner’s appeal was dismissed on 19.5.2017 by the Deputy Commissioner (Food) Varanasi Division-Varanasi as being not maintainable, the petitioner filed the instant writ petition.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the respondent No. 2 had placed reliance on the English version of the Uttar Pradesh Essential Commodities (Regulation of Sale and Distribution Control) Order, 2016, and had held that the appeal was not maintainable. He submits that this was in contravention of the settled principle of law that if there was any confusion or ambiguity with regard to any provision of the authoritative English translation of a particular piece of legislation then it was always permissible to look into the Hindi text of it to remove any doubt or ambiguity.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner read out the English version of the Clause 13 of the Uttar Pradesh Essential Commodities (Regulation of Sale and Distribution Control) Order, 2016, and also the Hindi version of the Clause 13 of the Uttar Pradesh Essential Commodities (Regulation of Sale and Distribution Control) Order, 2016, and therefore the English versions as well as the Hindi version are being reproduced here as under :

13. Appeal—(1) Appeal in relation to action or subject covered under the National Food Security Act, 2013 and rules famed under it shall lie before the authority mentioned in sub-clause (10) of clause 11 of this order but appeal against appointment, suspension and cancellation of fair price shop by the competent Authority shall lie before the Divisional Commissioner.

(2) Any person aggrieved by an order of the Designated Authority denying the issue or renewal of a ration card or cancellation of the ration card under the National Food Security Act, 2013 may appeal to the Appellate Authority within thirty days of the date of receipt of the order.

(3) Any person aggrieved by an order of the Competent Authority denying the issue or renewal of the agreement to the fair price shop owner, suspension or cancellation of the agreement may appeal to the Appellate Authority namely the Divisional Commissioner or the Joint Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner (Food) authorized by him in writing to hear and dispose appeal within thirty days of the date of receipt of the order and the Appellate Authority shall, as far as practicable, dispose the appeal within a period of sixty days:

Provided that once an appeal has been disposed of by the Appellate Authority, the time for issue or renewal of the agreement of the fair price shop owner by the Competent Authority referred to in sub-clause (9) of clause 10 shall begin from the date of decision of the Appellate Authority on the appeal:

Provided further that an appeal pending before the Appellate Authority appointed under the Uttar Pradesh Schedule Commodities Distribution Order, 2004 shall be disposed of by such authority as if this order had not been made.

(4) No appeal shall be disposed of unless the aggrieved person has been given a reasonable opportunity of being heard.

(5) Pending the disposal of an appeal, the Appellate Authority may direct that the order under appeal shall not take effect for such period as the authority may consider necessary for giving a reasonable opportunity to the other party under sup-clause (4) or until the appeal is disposed of, whichever is earlier.

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