24.07.2025 Court No.24 DL/Item No.–1 [Milan]

WPA 15924 of 2025 Gautam Basu versus Union of India & Ors.

Mr. Debabrata Saha Roy, Sr. Adv., Mr. Pingal Bhattacharyya, Mr. Subhankar Das ….for the Petitioner Mr. Prasun Mukherjee, Mr. Deepak Agarwal ….for the HPCL

1. The petitioner is the distributor of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (in short, “LPG”), who is distributing cylinders of respondent, oil marketing companies to the customers. The petitioner challenges the circular dated 21^st February, 2025 on marketing restructuring and customer transfer policy issued by three leading Oil Marking Companies, namely, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (in short, “IOCL”), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (in short, “BPCL”) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (in short, “HPCL”).

2. It is the contention of the petitioner that on the earlier occasion, the oil marketing companies have issued circular under the same nomenclature on 4th January, 2018 and 9th January, 2018 respectively regarding the policy of customer transfer from one distributor to another distributor. The said policy was under challenge initially before the Hon’ble Division Bench of the Bombay High Court in writ petition No.8753 of 20