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* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

Reserved on: 3rd September, 2025

Pronounced on: 22nd December, 2025

+ W.P.(C) 8031/2020, CM APPL. 26159/2020, CM APPL. 1957/2021

& CM APPL. 51745/2022

DELHI PETROL DEALERS ASSOCIATION .....Petitioner

Through: Mr. Darpan Wadhwa, Senior Advocate

with Mr. Anand Varma, Ms. Adyasha Nanda and Ms. Divita Vyas,

Advocates.

versus

BHARAT PETROLEUM CORPORATION LIMITED.....Respondent

Through: Ms. Maninder Acharya, Senior

Advocate with Mr. Rupesh Kr. Sinha

and Mr. Sataroop Das, Advocates

with Mr. Shekhar Gupta, Law Officer

BPCL.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AMIT SHARMA

JUDGMENT

AMIT SHARMA, J.

1. The present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India,

1950 has been filed seeking the following prayers:-

“a) issue writ of mandamus and certiorari or any other writ quashing the Notice dated 08.10.2020 and all other directives pertaining to the same issue, issued by the . Respondent whereby the members of the Petitioner have been directed to disengage any

stand along Bank EDC Terminals and completely switch all Credit Card/ Debit Card Transactions to the EDC Terminal provided by the Respondent.; and/or b) issue a writ of mandamus or any other writ directing the Respondent to refrain from introducing and implementing any scheme/system which in any manner restricts or impinges upon the Petitioner and its members banking and other financial arrangements; and/or c) issue a writ of mandamus or any other writ directing the Respondent to refrain from requiring removal of EDC Terminals of the banks selected by the Dealers; and/or d) Pass any other order or orders as deemed fit and proper in the circumstances of the case and in favour of the Petitioner.”

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

2. Necessary averments in the present petition are as follows:-

i) The petitioner is an association, representing all petrol dealers of Delhi. It has over 380 members, who are petrol dealers of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited i.e. the respondent, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Indian Oil Corporation Limited. Out of the total, about 102 members are dealers of the respondent.

ii) The respondent is a public sector company dealing in Oil and Gas. The respondent enters into a Dispensing Pump and Selling License Agreement (for short “DPSL Agreement”) with its appointed dealers across the country, who set up petrol pumps for selling the respondent’s petroleum products.

iii) The respondent introduced Integrated Payment Solution (for short “IPS”), wherein, all the fuel transactions and payments made by its dealers were integrated through the respondent’s automation system. For the same, the respondent provided Android Point of Sale (POS) machine (Electronic Data Capture Terminal), which was used to pick signals from Multi-Product Dispensers (MPDs)/ Forecourt Controller (FCCs) on the fuel transactions and debit the equivalent amount from the Debit card/ Credit card/ UPI wallet of the customer for the amount fuelled.

iv) The said Android (POS) machines (Electronic Data Capture Terminal) are operated through Pine Labs Private Limited (for short “Pine Labs”) and AGS Transact Technologies Limited (for short “AGS”) and the payment gateway for the same is via HDFC Bank and RBL Bank. These terminals were installed in addition to the dealer’s existing terminals, which were installed by the dealers through their banks.

v) On 11.10.2019, one of the respondent’s official sent an E-mail to the dealers, informing them that in the new implemented IPS, there will be no rental charge recoveries on the integrated Electronic Data Capture machines, irrespective of the make of the Electronic Data Capture Terminal (for short “EDC Terminal”) or the number of EDC Terminals deployed at a particular retail outlet (for short “RO”).

vi) However, the respondent raised invoices towards rental of the EDC Terminals installed by them. Refuting to the same, the dealers wrote to the respondent informing them about the turnaround from its earlier communication dated 11.10.2019 and see