Harbhinder Kaur v. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited & Ors.

I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have also gone through the record of the case. It is an admitted case of both the parties that in response to an earlier advertisement (Annexure R-1), the petitioner submitted her application, but after re-advertisement, no application was submitted by the petitioner. The entire case of the parties revolves around the instructions dated April 26,2000 (Annexure R-1) and in order to effectively decide the controversy between the parties, it is necessary to reproduce these instructions, which runs as under:- No.P-39012/1/99-IOC Government of India Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shastri Bhawan New Delhi, the 26th April,2000 The Chairman Indian Oil Corporation Limited New Delhi. The Chairman & Managing Director HPCL/BPCL Mumbai. The Chairman & Managing Director IBP Co.Limited Calcutta. “ I am directed to refer to this Ministry's letter of even Civil Writ Petition No.

3277 of 2001 4 number dated January 21,2000, vide which the Dealer Selection Boards were dissolved and to request that further action as indicated below, may kindly be taken in respect of retail outlet dealership LPG distributorship SKO-LDO dealerships for which selection of dealers distributors is pending: (i) The oil Companies will issue advertisements in respect of those dealerships/distributorships which were advertised earlier, but no interviews were held. (ii) the applicants who had made applications earlier in response to an advertisement are required to apply again. However, they are not required to deposit the application fee again. A copy of the receipt of the fee deposit made earlier has to be attached with the new application to establish that the necessary fee has already been paid. (iii) The fresh applications which are received against the re- advertisement or fresh advertisements will be scrutinised by the Oil Companies as per the extant procedure.

Yours faithfully, Sd/-(Jag Ram) Deputy Secretary to the Govt.of India.” A perusal of the instructions reproduced above clearly spells out that the applicants who had made applications earlier in response to an advertisement, are required to apply again and they were not required to deposit the application fee again and after receipt of the fresh applications against the re-advertisement, they were required to be scrutinised by Oil Companies in accordance with their rules. In response to these instructions, the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited re-advertised in Civil Writ Petition No. 3277 of 2001 5 “The Tribune” and “Punjab Kesri”. A fresh advertisement further spells out that it has been clearly mentioned therein that the candidates would have to apply afresh on the prescribed application form, but no fresh application fee was required to be deposited. It was also made clear that the earlier applications will not be considered if the applicants do not apply afresh, as mentioned above.

In such like circumstances, to my mind, the petitioner cannot be granted advantage of her own wrongs since she herself is at fault by not submitting fresh application, as required under the instructions and the fresh advertisement, mentioned above. No interviews were held in response to the application submitted by the petitioner on July 9,1998, which was submitted pursuant to the advertisement dated June 10,1998. Process of selection remained pending and on the decision taken by the ministry of Petroleum, Government of India, fresh advertisement was issued, as discussed above. Moreover, the petitioner slept over her rights and she never made any written inquiry after the submission of her application dated July 9,1998 to enquire about the fate of her application. In response to fresh advertisement, interviews of the subject locations were held on January 31,2001, whereas representation (Annexure P-3) was filed by the petitioner after the entire procedure had been completed and after publication of the list of the selected candidates.