ORDER:

Heard Sri Thoom Srinivas, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner and learned Government Pleader for Civil Supplies appearing on behalf of Respondent Nos.1 to 5.

The petitioner approached the Court seeking prayer as under:

“…to issue a Writ of Mandamus, or any other appropriate Writ, Order or Direction, declaring the action of the 3rd and 4th Respondent in seizing the petitioner LPG Distributorship on 18.04.2026 and the show cause notice bearing No.CS2/35/2026 dated 20.04.2026 issued by the 2nd Respondent as illegal, arbitrary, without jurisdiction and violative of Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution of India and set aside the same and pass such other order...”

The case of the petitioner, in brief, is that the petitioner had been appointed by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited as an LPG distributor in the year 2018 and from the date of petitioner’s appointment he had been operating the LPG distributorship without any complaint and he had obtained all statutory permissions from the concerned departments, including the license under the Petroleum Rules from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization (PESO). The petitioner had approximately 9000 LPG connections registered under domestic consumers and few non domestic/Commercial customers, apart from the supply of domestic (subsidized) 14.2 kg LPG cylinders and commercial (non-subsidized) 19 kg and 47.5 kg LPG cylinder to hotels, restaurants, canteens, institutions and other bulk consumers.

It is further the case of the petitioner that on 18.04.2026, the 3rd and 4th respondents along with their staff conducted an inspection of the petitioner’s Gas agency around 11.45 AM and during the said inspection the officers physically perused the licenses granted in favour of the petitioner agency and observed that the daily stock register had not been certified by the 3rd respondent herein and the stock board had not been updated. Further it is observed that the petitioner is storing and selling domestic and commercial cylinders at office and residential premises. Further the 3rd and 4th respondents proceeded to Godown of the petitioner around 1:10 pm for inspection and the officers in fact did not find much variation whatsoever in the stock of domestic and commercial LPG cylinders. However, the staff of the 3rd and 4th respondents, without considering the petitioner’s explanation, issued the impugned Show Cause Notice dated 20.04.2026. Aggrieved by the said action of the respondents, the petitioner had approached this Court by filing the present writ petition.

PERUSED THE RECORD:

(A) The impugned Show Cause Notice dated 20.04.2026 vide bearing No.CS2/ 35/ 2026 issued by the 2nd Respondent, the relevant portion is extracted hereunder:

“ …Upon verifying the online stock reports and the physical stock available at the LPG gas agency, the following discrepancies were noticed.

In view of the above irregularities reported by the District Civil Supply Officer, Medak M/s Sahithi HP Gas Agencies, located at Survey No.66, Narsapur Village & Mandal, Medak District who is issued with Form B license under APPP (L&R)s order 1980 (Adopted TSPPP (L&R)s order 2016) is hereby directed to show cause as to why the Form B license issued under APPP(L&R)s order 1980 (Adopted TSPPP (L&R)s order 2016) should not be cancelled and the entire security deposit be forfeited to Government.

The Licensee is further directed to submit his explanation to the above charges within 15 days and also appear before the undersigned on the date of hearing 28.04.2026 at 11 AM either in person or through an advocate and adduce