Aggarwal, J. -- 1. This intra-Court appeal filed by appellant Jinendra Kumar Jain is directed against the order of the learned Single Judge dated 3rd July, 2008 in Writ Petition No. 1375/05 setting aside his selection for LPG distributorship for block Narwar, District Shivpuri. The selection of the appellant by Indian Oil Corporation Limited for allotting LPG distributorship has been set aside by the learned Single Judge on the ground that he was not eligible for such allotment on the date of application as he did not have the title of the land, particulars of which were given in the application submitted for allotment.

2. Briet1y stated, the facts of the case giving rise to this appeal are that the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) (respondents No.2 and 3 herein) had issued an advertisement in Nav Bharat Times dated 13.10.2001 inviting applications from eligible persons for allotment of LPG distributorship for block Narwar and Pohri, District Shivpuri. Clause (1) contained in the advertisement is relevant for the purpose of decision of the present appeal and the same is extracted below:

^^1- vkosnd dks vkosnu ds lkFk forjd in ds fy, miyC/k dh tkus okyh tehu dh foLr`r tkudkjh nsuk vko’;d] ,sls vkosndksa dks ftudh tehu O;kikj dh n`f”V ls mi;qDr txg ij gS vkSj ftls os bafM;u vk;y dkjiksjs’ku fy- )kjk Lohdk;Z dher ij iw.kZ :i ls cspus@iV~Vs ij nsus dks bPNqd gS mUgsa izkFkfedrk nh tk,xh] pqus tkus ds ckn vxj vkosnd )kjk mfYyf[kr tehu dks vk’k; i= ¼LOI½ ds frfFk ls 2 ekl ds vanj ugha nsrs gaS rks mudk forjd in jn~n dj fn;k tk,xk A**

3. The appellant along with respondent No.4 and other persons had made an application for allotment of LPG distributorship pursuant to the above advertisement. The IOCL after completing preliminaries had called 28 persons for interview which was held by three member committee on 1.10.2003. The interview was attended only by 16 persons, 11 did not report for interview and one was found ineligible. This we are saying on the basis of minutes of the selection committee produced before us by the counsel for IOCL.

4. The selection committee of IOCL which held interview of eligible candidates on 1.10.2003 in terms of the policy of IOCL had evaluated the performance of candidates by allotting marks under five different subheads as under :

(i) Personality, business ability and salesmanship : 20 marks

(ii) Capability to arrange finance-financially sound : 15 marks

(iii) Educational qualification and general level of intelligence : 20 marks

(iv) Capability to provide infrastructure: 35 marks

(v) General assessment -- value system: 10 marks

5. The three member committee made their independent assessment of all the eligible candidates who appeared for interview on 1.10.2003 and found the appellant to be the best suitable person for allotting LPG distributorship to him for block Narwar, District Shivpuri. A Letter of Intent (LOI) was thus issued by the IOCL in favour of the appellant on 12.8.2004. However, before the LOI was issued by the IOCL in favour of the appellant, respondent No.4 who was third in the merit list had filed a writ petition being Writ Petition No. 1375/05 and challenged the selection of the appellant mainly on the ground that he was not eligible for consideration for allotment of LPG distributorship on the date of application as he did not have the title of the land mentioned by him in his allotment application. It was stated by respondent No.4 in his writ petition that in terms of the advertisement pursuant to which applications were made by the candidates for allotment of LPG distributorship, it was mandatory for the candidate to have land for the purpose of godown and show room, particulars of which were required to be given in the application form. The case of respondent No.4 in the writ petition was that since the appellant had already sold the land, particulars of which were given by him in his application in the year 1999 to one Sharda Devi and, therefore, the pa