Allahabad High Court
Laxmi Mahila Swayam Sahayata Samooh vs State Of U.P. Through Secretary ... on 31 October, 2025
Author: Arun Kumar
Bench: Arun Kumar
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:191815
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
WRIT - C No. - 37409 of 2025
Laxmi Mahila Swayam Sahayata Samooh
.....Petitioner(s)
Versus
State Of U.P. Through Secretary Department Of Village Development And 6 Others
.....Respondent(s)
Counsel for Petitioner(s)
:
Arvind Kumar Srivastava, Bhaju Ram Pprasad Sharma, Mahesh Kumar Sahani, Narendra Singh
Counsel for Respondent(s)
:
C.S.C., Sudhir Bharti
Court No. - 9
HON'BLE ARUN KUMAR, J.
1. Heard Sri B.R.P. Sharma, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri Sudhir Bharti, learned counsel for the respondent no.6 and learned Standing Counsel for the respondent nos.1 to 5.
2. A caveat application has been filed on behalf of respondent no.7 by Sri Mahesh Kumar Sahani and Sri Narendra Singh, Advocates, who have been served copy of the writ petition, but none of the aforesaid counsels are present, when the case was taken up in the revised call.
2. The present writ petition has been filed challenging the order of the respondent no.2- Joint Commissioner (Food and Nutrition), Gorakhpur Division, Gorakhpur, dated 21.8.2025 deciding the Appeal No.65 of 2025 filed under Section 13(1) of the U.P. Essential Commodities (Regulation of Sale and Distribution Control) Order, 2016.
3. It is contended by learned counsel for the petitioner that he is the subsequent allottee, who was allotted the fair price shop during the pendency of the aforesaid appeal filed by respondent no.7, therefore, he was a necessary party to be heard. As the aforesaid appeal has been decided without impleading the petitioner as a party, the order dated 21.8.2025 stands vitiated. In support of his contention, he has relied upon the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court passed in Civil Appeal No.4258 of 2022 (Ram Kumar Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others, decided on 28.9.2022 and the judgment of Division Bench of this Court passed in Special Appeal Defective No.619 of 2025 (Hiramani Yadav Vs. State of U.P. and others), decided on 27.8.2025.
4. On the other hand, learned Standing Counsel has submitted that the respondent no.2 has partly allowed the appeal and remanded the matter back to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate Pharenda, District Maharajganj for deciding afresh. The petitioner has an opportunity to contest his claim before the respondent no.4 where the matter has been remanded.
5. I have perused the materials brought on record.
6. It is not in dispute that the fair price shop was earlier allotted to the respondent no.7, which was cancelled by the order of respondent no.4 dated 30.1.2024. The appeal was filed by the respondent no.7 before the respondent no.2 on 13.1.2025. The petitioner was allotted the fair price shop by order dated 18.8.2025, much after filing of the appeal, as such, the respondent no.7 had no opportunity to implead him at the time of filing of the appeal. It is immediately after allotment of the fair price shop in favour of the petitioner, the appeal of respondent no.7 was allowed on 21.8.2025.
7. In my opinion, the petitioner, who is the resident of the same village, was aware about pendency of the dispute regarding cancellation of fair price shop, as is evident from the allotment letter dated 8.8.2025 itself, which states that the said allotment will be subject to the decision of the competent court. Therefore, the petitioner should have approached the appellate authority with a prayer to get himself impleaded.
8. The perusal of the order impugned passed by respondent no.2 shows that the respondent no.4 has to take a fresh decision regarding cancellation of the fair price shop allotted to the respondent no.7. The petitioner has an opportunity to appear before the respondent no.4 and contest the claim of respondent no.7. Nothing has been brought on record to show that the petitioner, who is running the fair price shop, has been stopped from distribution of the essential commodities. The judgments cited by learned counsel for the petitioner in the cases of Ram Kumar (supra) and Hiramani Yadav (supra) lay down the requirement of impleading the subsequent allottee in the writ petitions filed before the Hon'ble High Court. Rationale laid in the aforesaid judgments does not help the petitioner in the present set of facts.
9. In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, the present writ petition filed by petitioner being devoid of merits, is accordingly disposed of with liberty to the petitioner to approach the respondent no.4 with an appropriate application for impleading him to contest the claim of respondent no.7 against restoration of his fair price shop.
(Arun Kumar,J.)
October 31, 2025
Anil
