Ratan Lal Bairagi v. Chairman/M. D. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
2014-01-22
A.P.SAHI, ANIL KUMAR AGARWAL
body2014
DigiLaw.ai
JUDGMENT Heard learned counsel for the petitioner. 2. The petitioner is aggrieved by the advertisement dated 10.10.2013 issued by the Bharat Petroleum Corporation whereby the Corporation has proceeded to advertise the appointment of certain categories of distributors as mentioned therein. The categories mentioned are PLD/ILD/RLD (Primary Lube Distributorship/Industrial Lube Distributorship/Rural Lube Distributorship). 3. The petitioner contends that he is having the Primary Lube-Reseller distributorship of District Firozabad, which has also been advertised and the same affects the terms and conditions of the letter of intent issued to the petitioner. A copy of the letter of intent dated 4.5.2012 has been filed as Annexure 1 to the writ petition. The tenure of such distributorship is valid for a period of six months' initially and extendable at the discretion of the company. 4. The petitioner has been appointed as a primary lube dealer and re-seller which is one of the categories as mentioned in the advertisement. 5. The letter of intent issued to the petitioner nowhere creates an embargo on the respondent corporation that such distributorship shall be the monopoly of the petitioner and no other distributorship can be awarded to any other person either in the same category of different categories. No other guideline or prohibitory rule operating against the Corporation has been shown to us. 6. Learned counsel has tried to infer that once the distributorship has been given to the petitioner for the entire district Firozabad then bifurcating it into a rural area or urban area amounts to altering the terms and conditions prescribed in the letter dated 4.5.2012. 7. We are unable to agree with the proposition inasmuch the letter nowhere creates any exclusive rights in favour of the petitioner for running the said distributorship. Consequently, the advertisement which is of different categories referred to hereinabove cannot affect the terms and conditions of the distributorship of the petitioner. In the absence of such material to demonstrate any prohibition against the respondent corporation to that effect, we are not inclined to interfere with the impugned advertisement. Rejected.