The central legal point established in the judgment is the importance of fulfilling the eligibility criteria, providing accurate information, and the exercise of judicial review in contractual matters.

K.K. Trivedi, J.

1. The petitioner, an applicant, who has applied for grant of LPG distributorship from the respondent- Petroleum Company, has approached this Court ventilating her grievance by this petition under Article226 of the Constitution of India in the matter of closure of the proceedings for such allotment on various grounds, mainly contending that the closure of the proceedings for grant of LPG distributorship and in fact action of respondents of not considering the application of the petitioner on flimsy grounds is bad in law.

2. It is the case of the petitioner that the respondents have advertised the availability of the places where distributorship of LPG cylinders was to be granted. A brochure containing the guidelines for selection of the regular dealer was published by the respondents. The petitioner submitted an application and pursuant to the conditions prescribed, information about the availability of suitable land for the purpose of construction of the godown was produced by the petitioner. Since the land in question was obtained by her mother-in-law on lease from the State Government, with the permission of the department a sub-lease was executed in favour of the petitioner by her mother-in-law. All other relevant certificates of no objection were obtained and produced by the petitioner, but, instead of considering such a claim of the petitioner, the proceedings were closed and later on the petitioner was informed that her application cannot be considered as the land mentioned by her in the application was a leased land of which the lease period was expiring before the completion of the period indicated in the brochure. Since the eligibility condition was not fulfilled by the petitioner, therefore, her application was rejected. It is the case of the petitioner that since the application of the petitioner was erroneously rejected whereas she being fully qualified to be granted the distributorship, was denied her rightful claim and, therefore, this writ petition was required to be filed.

3. While entertaining the writ petition, this Court granted an interim stay on 9.10.2014 staying the operation of the impugned order dated 20th September, 2014 (Annexure P/15).

4. Upon service of the notices, the respondents have filed the reply contending inter-alia that the distributorship is granted subject to fulfillment of certain conditions prescribed under the scheme and since the petitioner was not satisfying one such condition, the application of the petitioner was rightly rejected. It is contended that after rejection of the application fresh action is required to be taken by the respondents. A prayer for vacating the interim stay is also made. Mainly the contention of the respondents is that eligibility should be on the last date of making of the application as prescribed in the advertisement. Any event which has taken place after the cut of date would not make any candidate eligible for selection.

5. Rejoinder has been filed by the petitioner contending inter-alia that not only the lease agreement has been executed, but the mother-in-law of the petitioner has also applied for declaring the land as free hold in terms of the scheme made by the State Government. Such an application was pending consideration. It is the contention of the petitioner that this condition as is made applicable to the petitioner by the respondents was not adhere to in cases of several applicants, who have been granted the dealership by the respondent-Company and that being so, the rejection of the application of the petitioner is bad in law.

6. Heard learned counsel for the parties at length and perused the record.

7. First of all the scope of interference by this Court while exercising writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in such contractual matters, has to be examined. The Apex Court in the case of Sanjay Kumar Shukla Vs. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited [(2014) 3 SCC 493], after summarising all previou