1 - Sitara Women Self Help Group Chamanpur Through President Tamana Khatun W/o Tanajul v. 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Secretary, Department Of Food And Civil Supply
Case Details
1 RAVI SHANKAR MANDAVI Digitally signed by RAVI SHANKAR MANDAVI Date: 2025.05.01 20:55:53 +0530 2025:CGHC:17532 AFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR WPC No. 4043 of 2022 1 - Sitara Women Self Help Group Chamanpur Through President Tamana Khatun W/o Tanajul Aged About 29 Years, President Of Sitara Women Self Help Group- Chamanpur R/o Village- Chamanpur P. S.- Balrampur-Ramanujganj, Chalgali, Chhattisgarh Tahsil- Balrampur District ... Petitioner versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Secretary, Department Of Food And Civil Supply Mahanadi Bhawan New Raipur, District : Raipur, Chhattisgarh 2 - The Collector (Food Department) Balrampur District Balrampur- Ramanujganj, Chhattisgarh 3 - The Sub- Divisional Officer (Revenue) Balrampur District Balrampur- Ramanujganj, Chhattisgarh 4 - The Food Inspector Balrampur, District Balrampur- Ramanujganj, Chhattisgarh 5 - Govt. Faire Price Shop- Karrichalgali P. S. Chalgali District Balrampur- Ramanujganj, Chhattisgarh ... Respondent(s) (Cause-title taken from Case Information System) For Petitioner For State/Respondent/s
Legal Reasoning
: Mr. A. N. Pandey, Advocate through VC : Ms. Anuja Sharma, Panel Lawyer Hon'ble Shri Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad Order on Board 16/04/2025 2 1. Heard Mr. A. N. Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner as well as Ms. Anuja Sharma, learned Panel Lawyer for the State/respondent/s. 2. Brief facts of this case is that the Sitara Women Self Help Group Chamanpur P.S - Chalgali, Tahsil- Balrampur Distt- Balrampur- Ramanujganj (C.G) is the registered group under Vihan Scheme and petitioner is President of Sitara Women Self Help Group Chamanpur and as per Govt. Scheme for allotment of running the shop of Fare Price Shop, respondent No.3 invited of application in prescribed format from the Women Self Help groups for running of Fare Price Shop at Village- Chamanpur. After fulfilling the terms and condition prescribed under the said scheme, the respondent No.3 issued the order for running the Fare Price Shop at Village Kamaro Distt- Balrampur (C.G) to the petitioner’s group vide order dated 20.8.2018 and thereafter the petitioner’s group was regularly ruining the shop of Fare Price Shop and till date there is no any complain against the petitioner’s group. On 3.7.2020, 14.8.2020, 18.10.2020, 5.12.2020 & 7.6.2022, the respondent No.4/Food Inspector, Balrampur inspected the Fare Price Shop of petitioner and found that no any irregularity in operating the Fare Price Shop and he has noted in the Inspection Register. Earlier also the respondent No.3 has adopted the same procedure and suspended the shop of petitioner on 20.1.2021. Vide order dated 11.2.2021, this Hon'ble Court has been pleased to stay the effect 3 and operation of the suspension order in W.P (C) No.680/2021 and till date the stay order is in operative before this Hon'ble Court. (ANNEXURE P/4). Thereafter, the respondent No.3 again adopted the same procedure in which during inspection of the shop of petitioner on 7.6.2022, the Food Inspector has not found any irregularity and noted the same in the Inspection Register. After 2 months of the inspection by the Food Inspector,of the shop of petitioner respondent No.3 issued the show cause notice on the basis of inspection report. After receiving of notice, petitioner submitted the reply and denied the charges level in the show cause notice and stating that no any essential foods was short in the shop of petitioner but without any verification or contrary to inspection report the show cause notice was issued. Thereafter, a meeting was called by the member of Panchayat and passed the resolution that the petitioner was operating the shop properly and no any complain against the petitioner and during inspection of shop of petitioner Food Inspector has not found any irregularity in the shop of petitioner and the notice was issued to the petitioner without any basis. It is also submitted that some villagers are trying to allot the Fair Price Shop of petitioner in their favor by approaching before the local M.L.A. in a arbitrary manner. Hence, filed this petition. 3. Learned counsel for the respondent-State submits that the petition itself is not maintainable. Suspension order has been challenged wherein the SDO is prescribed authority, he is required to conduct 4 the enquiry under the Chhattisgarh Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2016. 4. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and also perused the material available on record. 5. The challenge in the present writ petition is to the order of respondent No.3/Sub-Divisional Officer (Revenue) Balrampur District : Balrampur-Ramanujganj dated 08.09.2022 (Annexure P/1) whereby on some allegations of shortcomings in the running of the Fair Price Shop, the same has been suspended and it has been ordered to be attached to another society. 6. At the outset, this Court is of the opinion that the issue involved in the present case is governed under the Chhattisgarh Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2016. As per Notification No.F 9-27/Food/2008/29-1, dated the 23rd January, 2017 and in pursuance of the Chhattisgarh Food and Nutritional Security Act, 2012 (No.5 of 2013) and in supersession of the Chhattisgarh Public Distribution System (Control) Order 2004, the State Government, issued order for maintaining supplies, distribution and securing availability of essential commodity like food, grains, etc. under the Targeted Public Distribution system. The relevant paras 15, 16 & 18 is as under : 15. Compliance of instructions. - Fair Price Shopkeeper shall comply with the instructions issued by State Government, Director, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department or the Collector, from time to time. 5 16. Penalty.- (1) If the Shopkeeper contravenes any provision of the agreement then he shall be liable for suspension or cancellation by the officer authorized for allotment of Fair Price Shop. The time limit for redressal of such cases shall not exceed three months. (2) During inspection of the shop, if any irregularity is found, then without prejudice to any action the whole or part of the amount deposited by shopkeeper as security, shall be forfeited in favour of the State Government. (3) Before cancellation of authority letter of Fair Price Shop or forfeiture of whole or part of security, Food Controller or Food Officer of the district or Sub- Divisional Officer of sub-division shall issue show cause notice to Fair Price Shopkeeper and after giving an appropriate opportunity of being heard shall decide within a period of a month from issuance of show cause notice. 18. Appeal. (1) Any person aggrieved by any order of designated officer, denying the allotment of Fair Price Shop, issue or renewal of a ration card or cancellation of the Collector/Additional Collector within a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of the order. the ration card, may appeal to (2) Any person aggrieved by an order of the Collector may appeal to the State Government within a period of 30 days of receipt of the order and its decision shall be final.
Decision
(3) No such appeal shall be disposed off unless the aggrieved person has been given a reasonable opportunity of being heard. (4) During the pendency of an appeal, the Appellate Authority may direct that the order under appeal shall not take into effect for such period as the authority may consider necessary for giving a reasonable opportunity to the other party under sub-rule (3) or until the appeal is disposed off, whichever is earlier. 7. From perusal of the petition, it is quite vivid that the petitioner has not availed alternative remedy available under the law and has directly approached this Court. Further the petitioner has not 6 stated anything about alternative remedy, much less, in the specific paragraph he has infact concealed this fact that there is alternative remedy available under the law. True, it is that even after having alternative remedy the petitioner can invoke extra ordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of Constitution of India, but for that there are certain limitations. 8. The Hon’ble Supreme Court has time and again reiterated this preposition. In a recent pronouncement in the matter of Assistant Commissioner of State Tax and others vs. Commercial Steel Limited reported in (2022) 16 SCC 447 has held as under : “10. The respondent had a statutory remedy under Section 107. Instead of availing of the remedy, the respondent instituted a petition under Article 226. The existence of an alternative remedy is not an absolute bar to the maintainability of a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. But a writ petition can be entertained in exceptional circumstances where there is: (i) a breach of fundamental rights; (ii) a violation of the principles of natural justice; (iii) an excess of jurisdiction; or (iv) a challenge to the vires of the statute or delegated legislation. 11. In the present case, none of the above exceptions was established. There was, in fact, no violation of the principles of natural justice since a notice was served on the person in charge of the conveyance. In this backdrop, it was not appropriate for the High Court to entertain a writ petition. The assessment of facts 7 would have to be carried out by the appellate authority. As a matter of fact, the High Court has while doing this exercise proceeded on the basis of surmises. However, since we are inclined to relegate the respondent to the pursuit of the alternate statutory remedy under Section 107, this Court makes no observation on the merits of the case of the respondent. 12. For the above reasons, we allow the appeal and set aside the impugned order of the High Court. The writ petition filed by the respondent shall stand dismissed. However, this shall not preclude the respondent from taking recourse to appropriate remedies which are available in terms of Section 107 of the CGST Act to pursue the grievance in regard to the action which has been adopted by the State in the present case.” 9. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of United Bank of India vs. Satyawati Tondon and others reported in (2010) 8 SCC 110 has held as under : 49. The views expressed in Titaghur Paper Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Orissa were echoed in CCE v. Dunlop India Ltd. in the following words: (SCC p. 264, para 3) "3. Article 226 is not meant to short-circuit or circumvent statutory procedures. It is only where statutory remedies are entirely ill-suited to meet the demands of extraordinary situations, as for instance where the very vires of the statute is in question or where private or public wrongs are so inextricably mixed up and the prevention of public injury and the vindication of public justice require it that recourse may be had to Article 226 of the Constitution. But then the Court must have good and sufficient reason to bypass the alternative remedy provided by statute. Surely matters involving the revenue where statutory remedies are available are not such matters. We can also take judicial notice of the fact that the vast majority of the petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution are filed solely for the purpose of obtaining interim orders and thereafter prolong the 8 proceedings by one device or the other. The practice certainly needs to be strongly discouraged." 53. In Raj Kumar Shivhare v. Directorate of Enforcement the Court was dealing with the issue whether the alternative statutory remedy available under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 can be bypassed and jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution could be invoked. After examining the scheme of the Act, the Court observed: (SCC p. 781. paras 31-32) "31. When a statutory forum is created by law for redressal of grievance and that too in a fiscal statute, a writ petition should not be entertained ignoring the statutory dispensation. In this case the High Court is a statutory forum of appeal on a question of law. That should not be abdicated and given a go-by by a litigant for invoking the forum of judicial review of the High Court under writ jurisdiction. The High Court, with great respect, fell into a manifest error by not appreciating this aspect of the matter. It has however dismissed the writ petition on the ground of lack of territorial jurisdiction. 32. No reason could be assigned by the appellant's counsel to demonstrate why the appellate jurisdiction of the High Court under Section 35 of FEMA does not provide an efficacious remedy. In fact there could hardly be any reason since the High Court itself is the appellate forum." 10. Now, coming to the present case, the petitioner has neither pleaded nor able to make out a case for interference under extra jurisdiction power vested as per Article 226 of Constitution of India. No where in the writ petition it has been stated that the aforesaid exceptional circumstances are available for entertaining this writ petition, even though there is alternative remedy available under the law. 9 11. Facing with aforesaid situation, now the petitioner is seeking permission to withdraw this petition with a liberty to avail alternative remedy available under the law. 12. It is very unfortunate that the petitioner has filed this writ petition and has obtained stay order without disclosing facts regarding availability of alternative remedy. This petition is pending since 04.09.2022, however, the respondents have also not objected the petition. Though from the conduct of petitioner, this Court is not inclined to permit the petitioner to withdraw this petition with a liberty to avail alternative remedy, but in the larger interest of justice, it is permitted, however the petitioner is cautioned not to repeat the same in future. 13. In view of there being an alternative remedy available to the petitioner, the present writ petition in its present form would not be maintainable. 14. As the petitioner is withdrawing this writ petition to avail alternative remedy, accordingly this petition is disposed of directing the petitioner to avail the remedy under Clause 16 of the Control Order, 2016 before the SDO(R) and under Clause 18 of the Control Order, 2016 before the Collector. The petitioner is also at liberty to move an interim application before the SDO(R) seeking stay of the effect and operation of the impugned order dated 08.09.2022 (Annexure P/1). 15. It is further directed that in the event, if the petitioner approaches the SDO(R) and the Collector by way of an appeal along with an 10 application for interim relief within a period of 10 days from the receipt of copy of this order, it is expected that the concerned authorities shall consider and decide the interim application at the outer limit of 30 days. It is made clear that the petitioner is required to approach the SDO(R) till 10th of May, 2025. 16. Till the decision of this case is pending, the interim order granted earlier by this Court shall remain intact. It is made clear that the interim order which has been passed by this Court is limited only to the period of decision in this case and the SDO(R) is emphatically directed to decide the same, as the matter is kept pending since 2022 and the petitioner has obtained the order of status quo in the teeth of alternative remedy. 17. With the aforesaid observation(s) and direction(s), the present petition stands disposed of. Ravi Mandavi Sd/- (Amitendra Kishore Prasad) Judge