Pinkesh Verma v. Union of India

O R D E R (Passed on 5th March 2012) Per Seth J: In this petition, petitioner is assailing the validity of communication dated 19/20-09-2011 Annexure P-1 to petition. By this communication petitioner was informed that his licence to use space in the new Terminal Building to provide ‘Airport Entry Ticket’ (for short AET) would end w.e.f. mid-night of 16th March, 2012.

Shorn of verbiage, the case of the petitioner is that he entered into a contract with respondents to provide AET to visitors to receive/see off passenger from the permissible limit of the Terminal Building of D.A.B.H. Airport Indore. According to petitioner, respondents have 2 without any reason, issued 180 days’ notice (Ann.P-1) for termination of contract. According to learned counsel, action of respondents is arbitrary, malafide, and contrary to rules of natural justice and as such it deserves to be quashed by issuing appropriate writ, direction or order.

From the material available on record we gather that petitioner was granted licence to use the space within the Airport Building to set up counter to issue AET to visitors for their entry within the permissible lounge area in the Airport building to see off/receive their guest, friends, relatives etc. It is a pure and simple contractual arrangement terminable by giving 180 days notice in writing from either side. Pursuant to this respondent issued the impugned communication informing petitioner that his licence would come to an end in the mid-night of 16-3-2012. Except for making bald and sweeping allegations of arbitrariness and malafide, no relevant and cogent material is placed on record to test these allegations so as to call upon the respondent to justify their impugned action on the anvil of established legal parameters for exercise of extra ordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. No doubt, petitioner has cited two cases vide Annexure P-5 and P-6 in support of the plea of discrimination, but in our considered opinion vide Annexure P-5 and P-6 fresh licences were granted for running Fast Food/Snack Bar or T.R. Stall within the terminal building, and these licences are quite different from the licence which was granted to petitioner for AET. After examining the matter from all angles we are unable 3 to hold that respondents acted in arbitrary manner giving rise to public law remedy. It is well settled that when there is a contractual dispute with a public law element, and a party chooses the public law remedy by way of a writ petition instead of a private law remedy of a suit, he will not get a full fledged adjudication of his contractual rights, but only a judicial review of the administrative action. The question whether there was a contract and whether there was a breach, however, may be examined incidentally while considering the reasonableness of the administrative action. The issue whether there was a concluded contract and breach thereof becomes secondary. In exercising writ jurisdiction, if the High Court found that the exercise of power in passing an order of cancellation was not arbitrary and unreasonable, it should normally desist from giving any finding on disputed or complicated questions of fact as to whether there was a contract, and relegate the petitioner to the remedy of a civil suit.

In this view of the matter, we do not find any merit in the petition. It is therefore, dismissed summarily. (SHANTANU KEMKAR, J.) (S.K.SETH, J.) Alok/-