JUDGMENT : Anupinder Singh Grewal, J. The petitioner has challenged the impugned order dated 4/11/2007 (Annex.3), whereby the candidature of the petitioner for allotment of distributorship of petroleum products through Kissan Seva Kendra has been rejected. 2. The petitioner had applied for the site distribution centre in response to the advertisement issued on 27/8/2007. The petitioner who is resident of village Sakhwara (District Dholpur) had applied for site Sakhwara (Mania Road) which appears at S.No. 108 of the advertisement for allotment of Kissan Seva Kendra . This site was reserved for general category woman candidate. The last date for submissions of application form was 26/9/2007. The petitioner is stated to have submitted her application through registered post on 29/9/2007. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that the petitioner had duly furnished all the relevant details including those with regard to ownership of land in terms of condition 12 of the advertisement. She submitted the entire details of the agricultural land whereon the Kissan Seva Kendra was proposed to be set up by her in terms of condition 12-A. In terms of condition 12-B, the petitioner also submitted Jamabandi and revenue record while disclosing the name of the land owner along with the requisite proof. In terms of condition 12-C, the applicant was required to disclose the relationship of land owner which had also been fulfilled by the petitioner as the consent of all the three land owners for developing the Kissan Seva Kendra on the land proposed by the petitioner was furnished. He has further contended that in terms of condition 12 of the application form, there was no requirement to submit an affidavit with regard to the relationship of the petitioner with any other person, who had been granted similar dealership by the respondents. He also contends that the column regarding relationship had been duly filled in by the petitioner, and merely because an affidavit in this regard was not filed, the petitioner could not be declared ineligible. 4. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents has submitted that in terms of the eligibility conditions laid down in the advertisement, it was necessary for the petitioner to have filed an affidavit with regard to the information that none of her relatives as described in the advertisement had already been allotted a similar dealership. 4. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents has submitted that in terms of the eligibility conditions laid down in the advertisement, it was necessary for the petitioner to have filed an affidavit with regard to the information that none of her relatives as described in the advertisement had already been allotted a similar dealership. The learned counsel for the respondents has also furnished English translation of the relevant terms and conditions of the allotment as stipulated in the advertisement. 5. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and with their assistance perused the material on record. 6. It is necessary to refer to the condition No. 2(M) wherein it is necessary for the applicant to disclose whether any of his close relatives as described therein is a holder of Letter of Intent (LOI) or dealership or distributorship. Condition 2(c) is reproduced hereunder:- 2(e) Multiple Dealership Rule (Relationship Clause): Persons desirous of making an application should not have the Letter of Intent (LOI) or MS/HSD/SKO-LDO/Dealership of LPG or Distributorship of any Oil Company either in his own name or in the name of any of his family members. For this purpose meaning of family members would be i) for unmarried Applicants : Father/Mother/Unmarried Brother (Brothers) /Unmarried Sister (Sisters) ii) for married Applicants : Husband/Wife/Unmarried Son(Sons)/Daughter (Daughters). 7. The condition 3 of the advertisement prescribing the eligibility stipulates that an affidavit in terms of the relationship condition in 2(e) shall have to be filed by the applicant in the format prescribed in Appendix-A of the advertisement. Condition 3 is reproduced hereunder:- 3. Disqualification :- (i) Such person who has been given charge-sheet by any Law Court for an offence of Moral turpitude/Economic Offences (Except Freedom Struggle) or any other punishable offence shall not be eligible for applying. (ii) Completely paralysed or mentally unfit person shall not be eligible to apply in any category. (iii) Signatories of Dealership /Distributorship Contracts who have been terminated by any oil company for proved improper conduct/adulteration shall not be eligible to apply. An applicant shall be required to submit an Affidavit pertaining to Clause no. (ii) Completely paralysed or mentally unfit person shall not be eligible to apply in any category. (iii) Signatories of Dealership /Distributorship Contracts who have been terminated by any oil company for proved improper conduct/adulteration shall not be eligible to apply. An applicant shall be required to submit an Affidavit pertaining to Clause no. 2(e), 3(i) and 3(iii) as per the format prescribed in Appendix-A. The format of the affidavit is stipulated in Appendix-A in the advertisement as under :- Appendix 'A' Affidavit to be sworn in by persons or partners of a partnership firm (To be typed on stamp paper of required value) Affidavit I.....Shri.....his/her.....son/daughter/wife.....age.....resident of.....do hereby solemnly declare and affirm that : 1. I am an Indian Citizen. 2. I am unmarried. Neither my father/mother/unmarried brother (brothers)/sister (sisters) have the retail outlet of any oil company or Dealership of SKO/LDO or LPG Distributorship or are the Letter of Intent Holders. OR I am married. Neither my husband/wife/unmarried son (sons)/daughter (daughters) have the retail outlet of any oil company or Dealership of SKO/LDO or LPG Distributorship or are the Letter of Intent Holders. 3. I am an unmarried woman above 40 years old and my father/mother do not have any source of income. 4. I am a widow and I have not remarried. (Strike out, which is not applicable): 5. I have not been charged or convicted by any Court of Law for any offence of moral turpitude or economic offence (except freedom struggle). 6. I hereby also confirm that I have never signed on the dealership/distributorship agreement of any Oil Company, which has been cancelled on account of alteration/misconduct. 7. I have given description of the source of income required for the purpose of establishment and running of a KSK in compliance with Clause 13 of the Application Form. I hereby also declare that funds shall be made available for the aforesaid purpose. In case it is found that at the time of requirement the said funds are not available then in any situation the offer of Dealership can be taken back and for this I shall not institute any suit/claim any damages from the Oil Company. 8. I hereby verify that the aforesaid information is true and correct in my complete knowledge and belief and that I have not concealed any fact therein. 8. I hereby verify that the aforesaid information is true and correct in my complete knowledge and belief and that I have not concealed any fact therein. In case any information given out in my application form or in the application sent for award of dealership or in the affidavit submitted in support of any document sent along with the application form is found to be false or incorrect or untrue then the Indian Oil Corporation would have the right to revoke/terminate the operatorship (in case already appointed) and no suit/claim shall be instituted against the Indian Oil Corporation. Today.....month of.....date verified before me. Magistrate/Judge/Notary Public Signature Signature of and Seal (Name of Deponent) It is also apt to reproduce the relevant extract of Condition 10 of the advertisement :- “10. General (a) Application form duly filled-in with all particulars along with all annexures should be sent on the above mentioned address in such manner that the same be received on or before 4 p.m. (1600 I.S.T.) on 26.09.2007. (b) The Company shall in its discretion have the right to cancel this Advertisement/Withdraw/Amend or to extend the last date for submission. (c) No permission shall be granted to add/remove/change anything in the Application Form once submitted. (d) After the last date for submission of the Application Form no document, whatsoever it may be, shall neither be accepted nor be considered. (e) For the delay caused in receiving the Application by post including the application forms received after the last date for submission or application forms sent without valid documents or application forms incomplete in any respect shall notwithstanding anything be not considered and any correspondence sent in such matters shall not be considered by Indian Oil Corporation.” 8. It is, thus, patent that it was incumbent on the applicant to have filed an affidavit in terms of the relationship as stipulated in Condition 2(d), 3 and Appendix-A of the advertisement. The contention that no such condition has been provided in Condition 12 of the advertisement is wholly baseless as the entire advertisement as a whole has to be read to see whether the conditions stipulated therein have been satisfied by the applicant. The contention that no such condition has been provided in Condition 12 of the advertisement is wholly baseless as the entire advertisement as a whole has to be read to see whether the conditions stipulated therein have been satisfied by the applicant. In the wake of the categoric requirement of Condition 2(d), 3 and Appendix-A for filing an affidavit by the petitioner, there is no room for any doubt that without the affidavit with regard to relationship, the candidate would be ineligible. 9. It is also noteworthy in terms of condition 10, all the documents were required to reach the office of the respondent No. 2 by 4 p.m. on 26/9/2007. Condition 10(c) provides that once the documents have been submitted, no change or amendment therein shall be permitted while Condition 10(d) stipulates that after the last date, any additional document furnished by the applicant would not be accepted or considered. 10. The petitioner having not filed the affidavit by the due date cannot turn around and contend that he had given the necessary information in the application form and hence was not required to separately file an affidavit in this regard. 11. I also draw support from the judgment of Division Bench of this Court at the Principal Seat at Jodhpur in D.B. Civil Special Appeal(Writ) No. 390/2012, Indian Oil Corporation and ors. v. Shyam Sunder decided on 4/3/2013, wherein in somewhat similar circumstances, it was held that it is necessary for the applicant to file the affidavit in terms of the format prescribed in the application. The Single Bench had held that affidavit filed by the petitioner in terms of the earlier format, which had been substituted by the corrigendum did not suffer from any invalidating infirmity as the eligibility of the candidate was to be determined on the basis of documents appended to the application. The Division Bench, while setting aside the judgment of the Single Bench, held that as the corrigendum had been issued before the last date of the submission of the application form, the affidavit had to be filed in terms of the new format set out in the corrigendum, and the application was liable to be dismissed for want of proper affidavit. 12. It is well settled that it is for the respondent/public sector undertaking to prescribe the eligibility conditions for the grant of dealerships. 12. It is well settled that it is for the respondent/public sector undertaking to prescribe the eligibility conditions for the grant of dealerships. The applicants only have a right to consideration if they satisfied all the conditions prescribed therein. The deviation from the conditions is not permissible as it is necessary to provide all the candidates with a level playing field in the consideration of their candidature. Reference can be made to the judgment of Supreme Court in the case of Ramana Dayaram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India and ors, (1979) 3 SCC 489 , wherein it was held that an executive authority must be rigorously held to the standards by which it professes its actions to be judged and it must scrupulously observe those standards on pain of invalidation of an act in violation of them. It was held :- “10. Now, there can be no doubt that what paragraph (1) of the notice prescribed was a condition of eligibility which was required to be satisfied by every person submitting a tender. The condition of eligibility was that the person submitting a tender must be conducting or running a registered IInd Class hotel or restaurant and he must have at least 5 years' experience as such and if he did not satisfy this condition of eligibility his tender would not be eligible for consideration. This was the standard or norm of eligibility laid down by respondent 1 and since the respondents 4 did not satisfy this standard or norm, it was not competent to respondent 1 to entertain the tender of the respondents 4. It is a well settled rule of administrative law that an executive authority must be rigorously held to the standards by which it professes its actions to be judged and it must scrupulously observe those standards on pain of invalidation of an act in violation of them. This Rule was enunciated by Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Viteralli v. Seton where the learned Judge said: “An executive agency must be rigorously held to the standards by which it professes its action to be judged..... Accordingly, if dismissal from employment is based on a defined procedure, even though generous beyond the requirements that bind such agency, that procedure must be scrupulously observed.....This judicially evolved rule of administrative law is now firmly established and, if I may add, rightly so. Accordingly, if dismissal from employment is based on a defined procedure, even though generous beyond the requirements that bind such agency, that procedure must be scrupulously observed.....This judicially evolved rule of administrative law is now firmly established and, if I may add, rightly so. He that takes the procedural sword shall perish with the sword”. This Court accepted the rule as valid and applicable in India in A.S. Ahluwalia v. Punjab and in subsequent decision given in Sukhdev v. Bhagatram Mathew, J., quoted the above-referred observations of Mr. Justice Frankfurter with approval. It may be noted that this rule, though supportable also as emanation from Article 14, does not rest merely on that article. It has an independent existence apart from Article 14. It is a rule of administrative law which has been judicially evolved as a check against exercise of arbitrary power by the executive authority. If we turn to the judgment of Mr. Justice Frankfurter and examine it, we find that he has not sought to draw support for the rule from the equality clause of the United States Constitution, but evolved it purely as a rule of administrative law. Even in England, the recent trend in administrative law is in that direction as is evident from what is stated at pages 540-41 in Prof. Waders Administrative Law 4th edition. There is no reason why we should hesitate to adopt this rule as a part of our continually expanding administrative law. Today with tremendous expansion of welfare and social service functions, increasing control of material and economic resources and large scale assumption of industrial and commercial activities by the State, the power of the executive Government to affect the lives of the people is steadily growing. The attainment of socio-economic justice being a conscious end of State policy, there is a vast and inevitable increase in the frequency with which ordinary citizens come into relationship of direct encounter with State power-holders. This renders it necessary to structure and restrict the power of the executive Government so as to prevent its arbitrary application or exercise. The attainment of socio-economic justice being a conscious end of State policy, there is a vast and inevitable increase in the frequency with which ordinary citizens come into relationship of direct encounter with State power-holders. This renders it necessary to structure and restrict the power of the executive Government so as to prevent its arbitrary application or exercise. Whatever be the concept of the rule of law, whether it be the meaning given by Dicey in his "The Law of the Constitution" or the definition given by Hayek in his "Road to Serfdom" and "Constitution of liberty" or the exposition set-forth by Harry Jones in his "The Rule of Law and the Welfare State", there is, as pointed out by Mathew, J., in his article on "The Welfare State, Rule of Law and Natural Justice" in "Democracy, Equality and Freedom," "substantial agreement is in juristic thought that the great purpose of the rule of law notion is the protection of the individual against arbitrary exercise of power, wherever it is found". It is indeed unthinkable that in a democracy governed by the rule of law the executive Government or any of its officers should possess arbitrary power over the interests of the individual. Every action of the executive Government must be informed with reason and should be free from arbitrariness. That is the very essence of the rule of law and its bare minimal requirement. And to the application of this principle it makes not difference whether the exercise of the power involves affectation of some right or denial of some privilege. 12.....It must, therefore, be taken to be the law that where the Government is dealing with the public, whether by way of giving jobs or entering into contracts or issuing quotas or licences or granting other forms of largess, the Government cannot act arbitrarily at its sweet will and, like a private individual, deal with any person it pleases, but its action must be in conformity with standard or norms which is not arbitrary, irrational or irrelevant. The power or discretion of the Government in the matter of grant of largess including award of jobs, contracts, quotas, licences etc., must be confined and structured by rational, relevant and non-discriminatory standard or norm and if the Government departs from such standard or norm in any particular case or cases, the action of the Government would be liable to be struck down, unless it can be shown by the Government that the departure was not arbitrary, but was based on some valid principle which in itself was not irrational, unreasonable or discriminatory.” 13. This principle of law has been reiterated by the Supreme Court in the case of Allied Motors Limited v. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, (2012) 2 SCC 1 . 14. In the light of aforementioned facts and the principle of law, I do not find any manifest illegality in the action of the respondents declaring the petitioner ineligible for allotment of distributorship. In the result, the petition is dismissed with no order as to costs.