Court No. - 18

Case :- WRIT - C No. - 20377 of 2019

Petitioner :- Suraj Singh

Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Another

Counsel for Petitioner :- Krishna Kumar Singh

Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.

Hon'ble Ajay Bhanot,J.

Heard Sri Krishna Kumar Singh, learned counsel for

the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for the

respondents-State.

The charge-sheet was issued to the petitioner on

09.07.2007. The charges with all material particulars

were laid out herein. Thereafter, virtually unending

bouts of litigation began. The matter was remitted by

this Court to the licensing authority on several

occasions. On the last occasion, the matter was

remanded to the authorities by this Court by the

judgment rendered on 11.09.2018.

Pursuant to the said order, the licensing authority

revisited the controversy. In the impugned order dated

08.05.2019 passed by the licensing authority, the reply

tendered by the petitioner to every charge was duly

considered. The petitioner was aware of the charges

against him. The charges levelled in 2007 against the

petitioner, were investigated on repeated occasions

after considering the reply of the petitioner. The

authority in the impugned order has noticed that the

petitioner has been constantly improving his defence at

different points in time on the same charges. His

defence lacks credibility on this count of inconsistency

alone. The licensing authority has found the charges to

be proved. The licensing authority has passed a

reasoned order. All material facts and pleadings have

been duly considered. The conclusions reached by the

licensing authority are reasonable.

No procedural infirmity or arbitrariness in the

conclusions arrived at by the licensing authority was

pointed out from the facts and pleadings in the record

during the course of the arguments.

The fair price shop dealers are required to cater for the

most deprived sections of society. The malpractices

and disclosed in the chargesheet, which were

established by the applicable standards of evidence

before the authorities below included repeated

absences of the petitioner at the time of inspection,

failure to put up the boards of the card holders as well

as the the boards displaying the prices of the essential

commodities. Complaints made by various card

holders that they had not received essential

commodities were also duly proved. Once the

malpractices have been proved before the licensing

authority in the manner aforesaid, no cause for

interference is made out.

The petitioner has not been functioning as the fair

price shop dealer since 2007 till date. The same

chargesheet was given to the petitioner in the year

2007, 2009, 2013 as well as 2018. On all the four

different occasions the petitioner was well aware of the

same charges against him. He had tendered his reply in

the year 2018 also. The petitioner cannot raise any

objection for the first time before this Court which he

had not taken before the noticing authority.

The writ petition is dismissed.

Order Date :- 1.9.2021

Ashish Tripathi